We booked our Voyager of the Seas cruise last June. We picked the week of MLK Day because my wife and I would only have to take 4 vacation days off of work rather than 5, but the prices were still low season prices.

Sunday Jan 18: Wifey and I left home in Austin at 7AM. This would be our 4th cruise out of Galveston (Grand Princess, Rhapsody, Conquest), and we have a routine down now. After a stop in Bastrop for Starbucks, a stop in La Grange for kolaches, and a stop at Baybrook Mall in Webster for a restroom break, we arrived in Galveston just before 11AM as planned. Severe wreckage from Hurricane Ike was still evident as we arrived at Galveston. I decided to detour down 61st St to the seawall on the way to the ship. Along 61st St there were a couple of wrecked boats on dry land. Along the seawall and passing through the beautiful old homes as we cut across the island, things looked much better. Then once again there still was a lot of wreckage in the vicinity of the EZ Cruise parking lot.

Not too many cars in the EZ Cruise lot when we arrived about 11:15. We didn't wait for the shuttle, we just dragged our bags a couple of blocks to the terminal. No crowd problems at all, we were hustled right through and were boarding the ship by 11:45. Whoo-hoo! The Galveston port folks were awesome. Easiest cruise ship boarding we've done - and this was our 5th. Read more