After doing a lot of research, we narrowed our decision down to Royal Caribbean or Carnival out of Galveston. We chose Galveston because it is the closest port to us since the hurricane hit New Orleans. We live in Mississippi where my husband is an Army Reservist activated. After reading extensively online about both lines and their ships, we chose the Carnival Conquest because of its age and the great reviews. We were not disappointed. There were 3 of us traveling, my husband (34), myself (28) and our son (6).
We drove from Hattiesburg, Mississippi on Saturday, May 6 and stayed at the Best Western on Seawall in Galveston. This hotel has free parking during the cruise and the taxi cost $10 to the cruise terminal. This was very easy compared to parking at the terminal and walking/taking the shuttle. I'll probably do this again if I sail out of Galveston. When we arrived at the terminal our cab driver found a porter for our bags. We had 3 checked bags and tipped $10. The suggested amount is $2 a bag, but we wanted to assure safe passage of our luggage so we were generous. We carried on one bag per person making the total of our bags 6. The porter told us our bags would arrive by 6:30pm. We, then, got in the line for security. The time was Noon.
The security line was long, but 3 stations were open and it went quickly. We waited for 30 minutes in line. After the security check we proceeded to check-in. The FunPass line is the longest because everyone fills this information out online, as is suggested by the cruise line. All in all, we waited in this line for 20 minutes. Check-in was very quick. We presented passports and driver's licenses for the 2 adults and birth certificate for our son. Our son has a different birth father and his name wasn't the same as ours on his birth certificate, but this was no problem. We brought the adoption paperwork with us and were set. We were given our Sign and Sail cards there. We went to the line for Embarkation pictures. This took 10 minutes. The pictures are in front of a tropical, tiki background. After this we walked 3 long walkways to the ship. The line was semi-long, but moved fast. When we got inside, we scanned our Sign and Sail cards and walked aboard. It was 1:00pm and we headed up to our stateroom on the 11th deck, Spa deck. Our room was 6E, the family stateroom, which is only on the Conquest. The room was ready to go! Everything was clean and looked great. The 6E rooms have floor to ceiling windows and no balcony. I was happy with this because a balcony would be scary for a 6 year old. The room had 230sq feet. The twin beds were set up as one. There are 2 other beds in the room, one pullman that comes from the ceiling and one pull-out sofa. We used only the pullman and had a sofa underneath for sitting. Our steward, Joseph, was fabulous. We met him the first night and he was extremely friendly to us the entire time. We saw him every day. Anytime we needed anything he was quick to respond. His towel animals and attention to our son was very appreciated.