This was our first cruise and we were going for the event of our daughter's graduation from college in December.  Our departure on Conquest was January 21st,2007.  My wife and I,( 49 & 48),My Daughter and her longtime boyfriend made the trip. We left from our homeport of Galveston. We drove in the night before,which took us about an hour and a half, and stayed at the Harbour House Hotel on pier 21.We have stayed here before on weekend getaways and always looked forward to the time we could get up in the morning,open the curtains,and the ship we saw docked was ours.

EMBARKATION:We walked the couple of blocks into the terminal and passed our bags off to the porter at around 11:30 a.m.and went upstairs by escalator.There were quite a few people arriving at about that time ,but everything flowed smoothly and we were sitting down eating in the Cezzane restaurant on lido deck 9 by 12:20.

THE CONQUEST: The ship was beautiful! The theme and the murals were pleasant and not overwhelming at all. The attention to detail was remarkable.The grand atrium was stunning and the focal point of the ship,where glass elevators glided elegantly over seven floors.By the second day we learned to get from one end to the other.If you don't want to walk through cigar smoke and the casino(which sometimes can't be helped),just walk down the corridor where your room is to the elevator on the end you need to be and go up or down. Our favorite place to spend down time on sea days was the sky pool area, aft on lido deck ,there are tables along a full wall of windows looking out at the trail of the ship.Beautiful. Read more