Background: Wife and I are in our 40's and have cruised on Carnival Ecstasy in 2009. This time we took our 13yo son and 9yo daughter. None of us have issues which require us to need special assistance or dietary restrictions. We had a cove balcony room.

We flew Southwest Airlines from Tulsa to Houston on Saturday. Upon arrival we hired a "Super Shuttle" to drive us to Galveston ($144 for 4 passengers + $30 tip). We stayed at the Four Points by Sheraton. Nice hotel but didn't offer shuttle service to the pier.

Embarkation day: 9:00am - Front desk attendant gave us the number for Yellow Cab and we called after breakfast (about 10:00) anticipating a lengthy wait time due to debarking traffic but to our suprise, he was on site within 10 minutes. After our short (10min) cab ride which cost $12, we were at the terminal by 10:15am. We bought FTTF and since the porters were so busy helping departing passengers there was no one there to take our luggage and the guys directing traffic just pointed us to the entrance area so we just rolled our bags along with us. We were the second people to arrive so there was no line at the security checkpoint. They had us put our luggage and backpacks through the X-ray and then pointed us up the ramp to the guest services counter. There we received our Sign and Sail cards then we waited in the staging area. At 11:30, theyou called for wedding parties first, then Diamond and Platinum members, then FTTF card holders. Read more