Unknowingly, we booked a 7 day cruise dubbed the "End of Days Cruise" on the Mariner of the Seas out of Galveston. Didn't stop to think we would be sailing to the Mayan destinations on a Western Caribbean ports of call not realizing we were to be at The-end-of-the-world- Central! We booked in June and just realized the timing in early December. That got our excitement revved up!

Being first-time cruisers, we had no idea what to expect. We drove to Galveston on Saturday and spent the night at the Holiday Inn Resort. It was a nice clean room and friendly staff. They had free cruise parking and transportation to and from the terminal. Once we got dropped off, the immense size of the ships (Carnival also docked next door) took our breath away. The terminal person/porter took our luggage and even tagged it for us because we didn't get any luggage tags with the paperwork we received in the mail.

I saw all the lines and all the porters and thought to myself we were in for a long wait of lines and confusion. Actually, as we approached the first entrance area (as our friendly van driver told us where to enter), we were directed into a short, fast line. Our carry-on was screened and then we quickly moved to a meandering but fast line to the check-in counters. It didn't take long and we got a friendly lady who asked for our ID, papers, passports, etc. It took seconds, gave us a boarding pass and instructed us to head to the waiting area for our boarding group number to be called. We were the 4th group but took only 7 minutes to board. It was sooo exciting, even though it was grey, cold and raining. Read more