A little about us - I'm 46 and cruised with my teenage daughters, ages 18 and 16, as well as my 66yr old Mom. My mom and I had a JS with my daughters in an inside cabin across the hall from us. This was my 6th cruise, my 4th with RCI, and our first as Platinum C&A members. My daughters and I flew to TX and stayed with my Mom in College Station the night prior and drove from there to Galveston the morning of embarkation. I highly recommend parking at Lighthouse Parking just across the street from the pier. It is family run, costs $55 for a 7-night cruise, and has a very efficient shuttle to the pier.

On past RCI cruises we always stayed in the Royal or Owner's Suites but those categories were both unavailable for this sailing, so we chose the JS and the inside cabin. Absolutely loved the JS! I could not believe all the storage space...with the walk-in closet and tons of cabinets, there was tons of room for our stuff. I did not however discover the mini-fridge until our day of departure - wish we would have known where it was sooner so we could have kept our wine left over from dinner on previous nights chilled! (It's in the lower cabinet by the sliding glass door...I thought it was more shelving space!) My DDs were quite thrilled with their own cabin and had plenty of room for their luggage. They loved the "time capsule" shower!

Embarkation was surprisingly fast. We arrived at ~1100 and breezed through the Platinum/Diamond line. The only glitches were 1) my DDs last names don't match mine and I didn't have their birth certificates to show I was their parent. I have never encountered any question of this fact on any other cruise I have been on. Thank goodness I am active duty military and had our ID cards - that was enough to check us in. Then glitch 2) Since we set up on board accounts separately from my Mom, they couldn't get my oldest daughter's Sea Pass account on my credit card while at the pier. But once we boarded and went to guest relations, it was a snap to get that fixed. Read more