My husband and I are 39 and this was our 9th cruise (3 Carnival, 2 Royal Caribbean, 1 Celebrity, 1 NCL, 1 Princess) and 1st 5 day cruise. We prefer longer cruises (7-10) but this turned out quite nice probably because we combined it with visiting family before and after the cruise. On the day of the cruise, we got a ride to Houston Hobby and then took Galveston Limousine Service for $30 pp 1-way to Galveston.

We left Hobby at 9:30 am and reached the port at 10:15 am. We checked our luggage (although we could have carried on everything but our largest suitcase) and went up to the waiting room. We could have checked our luggage and then walked around Galveston but I wanted to get on the ship as soon as possible. We boarded at noon.

First, we ate lunch on the Lido deck. Then, we went to the Spa to volunteer to model for the spa tours. It worked; they called our cabin just before 2 pm to use me as a model for the Ionithermie treatment. I received a $145 treatment for free. We also stopped by the Maitre D to change our dining time to the early 5:45 pm seating. There are 2 dinning rooms with 2 dinner times each for a total of 4 dinner times. Read more