The participants of our cruise adventure consisted five first time cruisers and one (me) veteran cruiser who has cruised over 25 times, but never on a large, mass-market ship, only on smaller luxury vessels. The purpose of this trip was to take my "recently acquired" family on a fun Spring Break trip and to invite the grandparents to come along, too.

Since we were flying in from the Pacific Northwest, we decided to fly to Houston a day early so as not to risk missing the ship if there were any hiccups in our air travel. We chose to take a non-stop Continental flight straight from Portland to Houston Intercontinental. I had looked into the cost of using a transfer service to take us from the airport to the port, but the cost for four people and eight suitcases (four large and three roll-aboards) was over $400 roundtrip, plus gratuity. So, we decided to rent an SUV from Hertz instead. The SUV was $345, parking was $70, and gas was about $30 - the flexibility was priceless.

After a 4.5 hour flight and an easy 90 minute drive from the airport to Galveston, we spent the night at the historic Hotel Galvez. I was able to secure a room on Priceline for only $120 per night, plus tax. Since we were there during Spring Break, this was an excellent price. Even very basic hotels not on the Seawall, like the Baymont Inn, were asking over $170 plus tax! Read more