Galveston was fogged in, so embarkation was a tad chaotic. We did get e-mails and robocalls early in the morning informing us to not head to Galveston right away. As directed by the email and call, we signed up for the text message service for updates and that worked well. We reported to the terminal when directed and found quite a few people still trying to leave along with lots of people trying to get on.

Since the embarkation lounge was at capacity, we were sent to an overflow lounge further down. We were given zone numbers and waited to do our check-in in that lounge; while it was crowded, Carnival shore staff passed out bottled water and the NFL playoffs were on large plasma screens throughout the room. It took a few hours to get checked in and for the normal lounge to clear, but soon enough we were walking down to where you normally go wait to clear security and get on the ship. It wasn't a great experience and people were getting a bit testy because they just wanted to be out of there, but the shore folks did have things pretty well organized given the circumstances.

I had made reservations for the steakhouse online for the first evening, but because of the Muster drill being moved to 8:00 there was a message on the room phone asking me to call and reschedule. We were able to get a table for the night we were in the Caymans instead. We didn't have much time to eat before Muster began, but we did have a quick dinner on the Lido. Read more