We drove down to Galveston from Memphis the night before our cruise departed. Stayed in a clean, affordable hotel on the seawall and spent the next day doing some sight seeing around Galveston. We parked our car at the hotel free for the week and took a cab from the seawall to the port of Galveston ($10 plus tip).

We arrived at the port at 1:30 and encountered absolutely no lines. We never had to sit in any chairs, we breezed right through from security, to a Carnival employee who took our documents and gave us our Sail and Sign card, then onto get our photo, no line there either. We were in our stateroom by 1:45 -- a real breeze.

Our stateroom was clean. The bathroom was efficient, small, but certainly usable. We never met our room steward the entire week, but our towels were always replenished and the bed turned down, our capers and chocolates on the bed. The only complaint with the steward is that he/she was very spotty with providing ice on a daily basis. At least two days, the ice bucket was never filled. This was our first cruise, and honestly didn't feel like ringing up the steward to tell her/him that we needed ice, so we went to Lido deck and filled it ourselves. As a non smoker I was concerned with the possibility of smoke odor in the stateroom, but absolutely none was evident and I'm pretty sensitive to cigarette smoke. The bed was comfortable to my husband who likes a firm mattress, I on the other hand woke up with a back ache every morning, I prefer a softer mattress. Read more