DH and I are in our 60s, retired, and live in East Texas about three hours drive north of Galveston. We have sailed with Carnival, Celebrity, Disney, Holland America, Princess and Royal Caribbean cruise lines before, both out of Florida ports, Bayport, Houston and Galveston. We drove to Galveston on the Saturday and stayed at the Comfort Inn & Suites on Sea Wall Blvd. Nice hotel with good location, breakfast and great price. On Sunday we drove to the port, dropped off our luggage and then left the car at EZ Cruise Parking who drove us back to the terminal. Fast and efficient. We arrived early, waited in line outside [in the shade] for a short while and were through security and seated with sea pass in hand waiting to board all within 45 minutes.

We had My Time Dining and I had booked a table for 2 every evening at 5:30pm and we had the same table by the window every evening. Our wait staff were Agnelo and Sachin who were great - no complaints about service at all. For the most part the food was good in both the dining room and Windjammer. We had the occasional snack in the Promenade Café and the sandwiches were very good. We did not try any of the specialty restaurants on this cruise. We found that almost all of the staff onboard were friendly and helpful.

As this was my 38th cruise and DH's 36th cruise and we had visited all of the ports many times previously, we stayed on the ship and took advantage of the peace and quiet on port days. Read more