This was our fourth cruise and our first cruise on Princess. The other cruises were on Celebrity and Carnival. Our flight left Washington, DC after work on Friday and arrived late at night at IAH. We picked up our car at Enterprise and drove to the Wyndham Greenspoint hotel which we booked on Priceline for $40. Nice hotel. The next morning we drove around downtown Houston and the Galleria area and then headed to Galveston. We dropped our car off at Enterprise in Galveston and they drove us to the port.

Embarkation We arrived around 12:45 and the line for security had hundreds of people in it. It took us about two hours to go through security and check in. Princess needs to get more metal detectors. On our other cruises there were no metal detectors at all. A sign of the times, I guess. Do not bring any heavy hand luggage. We brought some Coke and water with us and it was just too heavy to carry for two hours. Needless to say we did not look too happy in our boarding photos. We talked to people on the ship that had arrived before noon and they said the wait was only 15 minutes.

Cabin We had an inside cabin on the Caribe deck. The cabin was the smallest we ever had but quickly got used to it. I thought the bathroom was larger than any of our previous ones and loved having a real vanity instead of little shelves above a metal sink. The beds were five inch dorm mattress and worn out. We had requested and egg crate by fax but it was not on the bed when we arrived. We had stopped at Wal-Mart and bought and egg-crate pad so we just used that. The beds were not overly hard just cheap and sinking in the middle. Storage was adequate for two people. I thought the soundproofing was the worst of any ship we had been on. We could hear people on both sides through the walls talking loudly and noise from the hallway. Thankfully it was quiet at night. Read more