We chose this cruise for a tenth anniversary celebration, a month after. One of our favorite vacations was a trip to Key West and we were looking for a cruise that would take us there. My birthday was also the first day of the cruise. We could drive to Galveston more easily than flying to another port, so we chose this cruise for timing and locations. There was a storm in Galveston and so getting to/on the ship was delayed. We stood in line for a couple of hours at embarkation.

Once on the ship, we had a fabulous time. The few hiccups we had were weather related - I was seasick, as was much of the crew, and was advised to eat a green apple (which helped). The skies were cloudy and sometimes drizzly, so being out on an exposed deck was not always fun. To avoid being directly in any bad weather the captain changed the order of our ports of call, so we had to go through immigration on the ship instead of back at Galveston, and we had less time in Key West than originally planned. The weather was not ideal, but all the vacation planning in the world will not change the course of a storm, sometimes a person just needs to be flexible.

We did one excursion in Freeport, kayaking through mangroves in a national park, then swimming on a private beach. It was a tropical paradise, I highly recommend this excursion. Read more