Our group consisted of 7 people; 2 adults in early 70's, 3 adults in mid forties, and 2 teenagers (13 & 18). My family of 4 has been on the Conquest for a 7 night cruise each June in 2005, 2006, and 2007 so this is my third review of this mega ship. This year we brought along my sister and my parents to celebrate their 50th wedding anniversary. And my daughter graduated from high school on Saturday afternoon before the cruise started so we celebrated that too and added another reason to go on the cruise this year (as if we needed a reason :-)

My sister and parents drove from Fort Worth to San Antonio Saturday to attend my daughter's HS graduation and then we drove 2 vehicles for a short 4 hour drive to Galveston Sunday morning, arriving before noon. I had prepaid online for 2 slots at Lighthouse Parking which saved $10 for the week. They loaded our 11 bags and 7 people and dropped us at the terminal where we easily found a porter to take our bags inside while we started the security and checkin process which took about an hour. Almost all Carnival cruisers use the FunPass checkin and we were no exception. We heard comments about the FunPass line being longer, but it did move faster. After getting to the parking lot around 12:30 pm, we were onboard the ship by 1:45 pm.

Upon boarding, my parents received a tour from my kids who had cruised on the Conquest with us twice before. This allowed my wife and I time to put up graduation decorations in my daughter's room which she shared with my sister. Also, we had arranged for a dozen roses to be in my parent's room using the Bon Voyage services offered on the Carnival website. The roses were in their room on the 1st day as requested and were beautiful. We had 3 balcony rooms next to each other on the forward starboard side. We asked for the dividers between our room to be opened but were told it was only allowed on port days. And in fact, during the 3 port days the divider was open as promised. Then while we were at dinner on the 3rd port day, they were closed again for the final sea day back to Galveston. I inquired at the Purser's Desk about the reason for the "port day rule" regarding the balcony dividers but all I got was a shrug along with "I'm not really sure why, but it is orders from the bridge". Well, it's hard to question "orders from the bridge" so I gave up. But I'd really like to hear the real reason someday. Since I learned so many cool things and answers on cruisecritic.com, perhaps I'll find the answer to this one on here too! Read more