We booked our cruise as a last minute trip based on price and availability of cruise and airfare. We were traveling during one of the most popular weeks - spring break - the week ending with Easter Sunday. Our ship was totally booked and extremely filled with families of all sizes. Although most of the reviews I read prior to traveling led me to expect Texans on board, there were a very large number of Mexicans (over 800) on board this week as well as quite a few Texans, although not many families from Texas. Seems Texas has different spring break weeks.

We flew into Houston Hobby airport and hired a town car from Gulf Coast Limousine for the trip to Galveston. They met us at the luggage carousel and surprised us with a stretch limousine. It was a pleasant uneventful ride with a quick stop for sodas. Driver was very professional and the car was immaculate and smelled heavenly. Not sure how they treat them, but the smell was great. We arrived at the pier very early and we able to get our "Sea Passes" and board by 11:30am. We had a pleasant lunch in the Windjammer Cafe while we waited for our rooms to be prepared. We booked connecting cabins on deck 7. Our rooms were ready by 1:00pm and were about the size we expected. We previously had always traveled in suites with the children in our room, but decided to go with connecting rooms to allow us more privacy and two bathrooms since the children are now 10 and 12 and are more independent and need more bathroom preparation time (both girls). The biggest surprise was the bathrooms. They were extremely small - sink, shower, and toilet. Shower was so small that elbows stuck out of the curtain and floor got very wet. Not sure why they would paint the walls in the shower stalls, but they had been painted and the paint continued to peel and flake throughout the entire trip. Quite messy and unsightly, but didn't really impact taking a shower, water pressure, etc and the walls were still waterproof. Beds were quite comfortable and we had a variety of pillows to choose whether we liked firm, soft, etc. Very nice down type comforter and we were able to adjust temperature in rooms to our satisfaction. Overall rooms were pleasant and connecting rooms were fabulous! We had enough space, two toilets and two showers and we almost had our privacy. Although the strict policy is an adult must be in each cabin, we did not have any problems with the girls in one cabin and us staying in the other. We kept the connecting door unlocked throughout the whole trip. It was a key lock. We could not have the key and only had the choice to either have it locked or unlocked.

We had two different cabin stewards - one for the girls' room and one for ours. Both were very professional and did their jobs well. Towel animals were exceptional each night and the two stewards coordinated so we always had different animals in each room - a total of 12 animals in 7 nights. Girls were always anxious at night to get back to the cabin to see what was in store. Jacob, the girls' steward, was just exceptional. He was always extremely friendly, remembered our names from the first moment and went out of his way to make sure everything was to our satisfaction. He even helped us on a scavenger hunt. He gave us a foreign currency bill out of his wallet to help us win the prize! Read more