We left for this cruise on Easter Sunday. We drove to Galveston because we live in Louisiana. But next time I really suggest taking the ferry into Galveston because it is a lot shorter than going all the way around Galveston Bay.

When we arrived into Galveston we parked at the Dolphin Lot. It was very accessible, well lit and seemed like a great place to park and it was cheaper than parking downtown, $50 bucks for the week. It wasn't a covered lot, but that was ok with us. They have a shuttle that takes you straight to the port, and the driver loaded and unloaded our luggage. At the port, they had porters to load your luggage directly off the shuttle onto their cart and brought it straight to the security point. We didn't see our luggage again until we got in our rooms, that was really great.

The lines for the embarkation process were not too long, the whole procedure took maybe 30 minutes and then we were on the ship and I didn't have passports, I had birth certificates and we were 6 people. I expected this process to be longer. Read more