Category Archives: Texas

Cruise Debarkation Day: All Good Things Must Come to an End

Shot with DXO ONE Camera Processed with Snapseed.

Empty sun loungers on the Lido deck of the Carnival Breeze

There is nothing sadder than a cruise ship the morning of debarkation. The long awaited vacation full of sun, fun and friends is over, and to add insult to injury, you generally have to vacate your room pretty early so you wake up at the crack of dawn.

For our debarkation, Mr. Travelholic and I always choose to self-assist.  On the plus side, you get to keep your luggage with you instead of having to leave it outside your door before midnight the previous evening.  I’m always afraid I’ll be one of those cruisers you see the next morning debarking in their pajamas because they forgot to keep an outfit out for debarkation morning. Although they are entertaining.

Another plus is that the self-assist people get to debark before the people who ask for luggage assistance. For me this is a huge plus; some people like getting a leisurely breakfast and coffee and having a last cruise moment.  Not me; I wake up and all I can think about is getting home.  Continue reading →

Boarding Day on the Carnival Breeze

View from the Carnival Breeze at Galveston Port Sail Away

Royal Caribbean’s Liberty of the Seas at Galveston Port, seen from the Carnival Breeze after boarding.

As our fabulous cruise director Mike has said, cruising is all about Food, Friends and Fun (I knew I liked Mike When he appeared in a suit made entirely out of Union Jacks last night), and my first day aboard the Carnival Breeze did not disappoint at all.

Let me back track to the morning of boarding the boat so I can catch everyone up. We (“we” on this cruise generally refers to Mr. Travelholic and myself, and often also to our theater friends Tamra, Rhonda, Darrin and Bill who are cruising with us) opened up our eyes at the Four Points Sheraton in Galveston. Although the hotel disappointed the night before (non-working WiFi) it was hard to stay cranky when opening our eyes up to the waves and water right outside our window.  We skipped breakfast at the hotel (eating right before you get on a cruise ship seems redundant) tried the free hotel coffee (blah) and packed into our taxi for the boat at 10:00 AM.

Two tips when boarding Carnival at Galveston. You get to pick your boarding window, so pick an early one if you are like my group and can’t wait to get going, and order your taxi the night before since thousands of people will all be heading to probably more than one boat the morning of your cruise (Liberty of the Seas was also leaving Galveston yesterday).

Our hotel was very close to the port and we made it by 10:15 (boarding window 10 to 10:30). We love Carnival’s new staggered boarding procedure…there were no lines at all, and we so breezed right through the boarding process. The Continue reading →

My Galveston, Texas Cruise Port Experience

Storm clouds over Galveston, Texas as seen from our room at the Four Points Sheraton

Storm clouds over Galveston, Texas as seen from our room at the Four Points Sheraton on the morning of our Carnival, Breeze cruise

Our cruise week has gotten off to a good start. Our flight to Houston was on time, and pleasant enough (bonus points for United Economy Plus and the electric outlets at the seats, but we had a particularly grouchy flight crew that snapped at my friend for no good reason).  Houston (IAH) airport is huge. I mean, really huge. We had an enormous walk from the gate to our baggage claim (several moving walkways and past endless gates). We stopped for a Starbucks on the way, an even with all that, our luggage was just coming off the carousel as we got there; perfect timing really.  Getting our rental car was a cinch (shuttle to a big rent-a-car center). We tried Dollar for the first, and probably our last time. Although the initially quoted car rate was inexpensive, they nickeled and dimed until it didn’t seem so cheap after all, and when we inquired about a slightly larger car because we had 4 people and lots of luggage they quoted us a price that would have tripled the rental rate. This has not been my experience with either Avis or Hertz, my two go-to companies for car rental. Continue reading →