I had huge reservations about cruising Carnival…so I came into this cruise with concern (it wasn’t selected by us) but wanted to give the Carnival Magic a chance…and be fair. This is my review of our third cruise and first by Carnival. (I’m writing this also having just cruised on another Disney ship, the Dream…our fourth cruise).

Galveston (in our case) is a nice little town to explore before your cruise by the way with many interesting homes, etc. The pier/entertainment (look for the Ferris wheel) is $10 to explore…just a heads up.

Embarkation at Port Galveston was actually very easy and smooth. We drove to the port, were easily directed by security to a place to park our car at the curb, where we unloaded our luggage with my wife watching the bags. While I drove about ½ mile to park the car in Lot B, my wife stayed with the luggage…and in no time I took the shuttle back (they were running them constantly) where I rejoined her. From there we brought our luggage to the proper area (signage is easy) and with our single carry-on with wheels, we went to the Faster to the Fun line (it was $49/cabin and made the process really easy). Sign up when you login and set up your online documents. Frankly, with a $1600 cruise, adding $49 to ease check-in is worth it to us. Our friends though said their check-in at noon went smoothly as well and they didn’t do FTF. I believe there is an EZ parking that cruisers rave about as well. Read more