A little background: This was my 11th cruise since 2002. I have cruised with Celebrity, Royal Caribbean (2), Princess, Holland America (2) and Carnival (5). Although we started our cruising history with more expensive cruise lines, once we tried Carnival we’ve mostly stuck with them because of the value and the fun we have. We are currently booked for the 10-day Triumph cruise in November 2015 from San Juan back to Galveston, and I wanted a preview of the ship, which brought this cruise about.

On this trip were my husband and me, my daughter and her husband and 2 friends of theirs. We decided to extend our vacation by one day by driving to Galveston on Sunday and spending the night at the Harbor House - excellent choice! Although my plans to visit the Pleasure Pier or spend some time wandering The Strand were put aside in favor of the Texan's game at a pub, I can assure you we still had a great time. Dinner at Willie G's was easy and tasty. I was up at the crack of dawn waiting and waiting for our ship to come in, but she didn't arrive until between 8 and 8:30. We made do with the continental breakfast at the hotel (danish, croissants, bagels, microwave oatmeal, fruit), but daughter and husband drove over to IHOP, and we joined them there for a second breakfast before heading to the terminal about 10:30. Dropped the bags with the porters and hubby took the car over to Park-N-Cruise and walked back. We were in a suite & I had purchased FTTF for daughter, so we all made it to the priority check in, where we were checked in rapidly and on board by 11:15 or so. Super easy!

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