Took a 5 day cruise on the Carnival Ecstasy out of Galveston on March 29, 2010 with my son. It was his 16th birthday this week and he was out of school this week.

Getting There: We live in Houston and drove and parked at Galveston Park N Cruise. Only $30 for 5 day cruise and it's right across the street from the ship. We pre-paid and had no problems. We parked and carried our luggage across the street to the ship without a problem. It might be best to go to the ship first and drop your luggage and family off if you have lots of luggage and then park the car and walk back. No shuttle involved. I was very happy with the people and where we parked. The boarding of the ship was different. Long line that zig zags around. We got there at 12:30 and it took just over an hour to get on board. On board it was fine. Went to lunch. Cabin was ready around 2:30. Luggage came around 3:00. No problems at all.

Cabin was fine at first. We stayed in E137. Cabin was nice. Good storage space. Shower nice size compared to others that I has seen. The bathroom had soap, shampoo, cream rinse, tooth paste and deposable razors. I thought this was a nice touch. NO Hair dryer. Found out on last day when I saw a person returning one to front desk, that if YOU ASK your cabin person he or she will get you one. Our first three nights were perfect in the room. The last TWO nights were awful. Do not stay in E137. There was this incredible popping, clanking noise that started up before dinner, but we were in a hurry and really did not pay attention. Got back about 11:30 P.M. and could not sleep. My fault, I keep thinking it would stop or someone else would complain. Finally at 2:30 a.m., I went to the front desk and they sent 2 Carnival people to the room. This room is on the end and has no one on its back side or on one of its other sides. The only room next to us was complaining too. The Carnival staff heard the noise and acted like they had never heard it before. Easy to hear outside in the hall with cabin door open. Carnival staff said it must be the kitchen that is above the room. They would take care of it. Noise stopped at 4:30 a.m. Checked with front desk the next morning to make sure the problem was fixed and I would get some sleep this night since I had been up all night. Unfortunately same thing happen again. The noise did not stop until 5:00 a.m. this time. Complaining at front desk did not produce any help with stopping the noise. Without me asking, Carnival gave me $12.50 credit per night per person ($50.00 total) for the 2 nights. I admit I did not push the issue at the time. I just let it go and since this was the morning of the end of the cruise, I just wanted to get off the ship and go home. But don't stay in cabin E137. We stopped at Progresso and Cozumel. Please don't expect clear water and nice sand in Progresso. Here is where you can bargain to find deals. The only problem is there's not much you really would want to buy there, but its fun to bargain. Cozumel is nice. More expensive, but has water sports and activities that you can enjoy. Nice beaches that you can catch a cab to. Cab rides to beaches are $16 per cab each way not per person. Getting off the ship was a disaster. Not Carnivals fault in my opinion. We could not dock until 1 p.m. due to heavy fog. Finally got through customs at 5 p.m. Many people missed their flights out of Houston. In my opinion it was customs fault. The lines took forever. 6 lines total, 4 for regular people and two special lines for people that would pay the Porters to carry their luggage and them around the lines of people to these special lines. This Porter thing has to be a Union thing. Going through Customs was so slow. The next day (Sunday) the 7 day Carnival cruise ship docked and they had the same fog and customs problem. It was in the news and in the local newspaper. Our ships fog problem never made the news. The 7 day cruise according to the paper, docked at 4:00 p.m. because of the fog and it took even longer to get off and through customs. You would think that if it happened the day before, you would have a better plan the next day. The newspaper said not enough customs people. In my opinion, you always have to wait for customs, but ports in Florida have 3 to 4 ships a day come in at the same time and nobody there goes through what happened at Galveston. We are only talking one ship here. By the way, Carnival did extend breakfast and did provide lunch for us until we got off the ship. There have been fog problems before, so please don't always count on the ship getting in at 7 or 8 in the morning. Read more