We just completed our seven day cruise on the Carnival Conquest both leaving and returning to the port of Galveston TX. My wife Sue and I average maybe one cruise per year, including an occasional river cruise. We have been at it for almost fifteen years, like it and will definitely continue for probably another 10 years or more. I believe we have been on Carnival before, but that was about ten years ago.

The major feature for us was the port of Galveston. I reserved a covered parking place right across the street from the cruise terminal on the internet. We drove 3 ½ hours from Austin, parked the car, rolled our luggage across the street, and got on the ship. It doesn't get better than that. In our conversations we found the majority of the passengers were Texans (the only ones I met that were not were from Oklahoma) and drove also. Some of the northerners drove more than six hours but all agreed avoiding airports was a good thing.

We requested and got a no smoking room. In contrast to a 2005 Conquest review (http://cruises.about.com/od/carnivalcruisereviews/a/cruisereview280.htm) we smelled no smoke at all in the room. Smoking appears to be under control on this ship as well as everywhere else in the world these days. Read more