We arrived a bit early as we had heard about delays dues to road construction between Houston and Galveston. We found the traffic to be heavy, but no delays as we had expected. We arrived at the terminal at about 11:15am, about an hour earlier than planned. I was not sure if we could board this early, but we decided to drop our bags and while my wife stayed at the terminal, I parked the car. I used the pre-pay on-line (saved $5) and was able to walk back to the terminal. I was happy to learn that we could board but our room would not ready until 1:00pm. We were able to complete the entire boarding process in less than 20 minutes and were on the ship by noon. We decided to eat at the Windjammer while we waited for our room. This was the worst meal of the cruise. I am not sure if we got left-over's because we were so early, but the food was simply just not very good. HOWEVER, every other meal was good, so please do not misjudge this comment.

Our cabin was a balcony on deck 8. The room has not changed any from before, but it was very clean and very nice. Our room Stewart was Clifton and all of our needs were meet. There were plenty of cloths hangers and ample storage under the bed for our bags. Our luggage arrived by 5:00 pm, not the best I have ever had, but not bad considering the ship was full.

Our first day at sea was very windy as the ship was sailing into a strong wind and combined with the speed of the ship, the relative wind speed was about 35 to 40 MPH. We were able to get out of the wind because our balcony was on the down wind side, so we were able to enjoy when people on the other side of the ship may have had to find a secluded place on the deck to get out of the wind. But on a ship this size, you do not even have to go outside to have fun, so if anyone was bored, it was their own fault. Read more