This was our first experience with cruising so we went in with open minds although I tried to prepare as much as possible by reading the Cruise Critic boards and reading all of the wonderful hints and tips. I will try to be as detailed as possible on embarkation and debarkation as well as try to put in all of the things that I wanted to know. I hope that I don't leave anything out but we did so many things that it is hard to remember them all. My daughter went to Camp Carnival so I included a small review on that separately at the end. Just a note, we took ginger root capsules twice daily beginning a couple of days before our cruise and even with rough seas we didn't have a problem with sea sickness. I also included a small list of things that you shouldn't forget to pack at the end of the review.

Embarkation, Boarding and Sail Away

We arrived at the Galveston terminal at 9:30. Our luggage was promptly taken by a porter and we took the car to the EZCruise Parking lot (www.EZCruiseParking.com). It was a short 2 block walk back to the terminal. We took the escalator upstairs and sat in the two rows of chairs at 9:50. At 10:10 we were taken to the security screening section and on to check in where we received our sail and sign cards. We sat in the last row of the section of chairs to the far left (when facing them) as we had read to do from previous cruisers (Thank You). A gentleman told us that it would be approximately 2:00 PM before we could board. Several of our Cruise Critic group arrived and we had a wonderful time getting to know everyone. We had such a good time that another guest(Ron) and his wife came up and joined our party. At 12:15 the gentleman returned and advised that we would be boarding at 12:30. He returned at exactly 12:30 and our section was the first to board. Read more