We sailed on the Carnival Conquest out of Galveston leaving on June 10, 2007. My husband and I are in our mid 50's and this was our 3rd and best cruise. We sailed to Jamaica, Grand Cayman and Cozumel. Previously we have sailed on the Carnival Elation and Royal Caribbean Sovereign of the Seas.

We live near Dallas so we drove to Galveston the day before sailing and stayed at the Harbor House on Pier 21. This hotel is right next to the pier and easy walking distance to the cruise terminal. We paid a one time $10.00 parking fee and were able to park our car in their lot for the duration of the cruise. We took the advice of our Carnival Cruise Advisor and went to the terminal at 11:30 a.m. Since we were so close we just wheeled our luggage to the terminal and left it with the porter. The whole embarkation process took less than 30 minutes and we were having lunch at the buffet on the Lido Deck by noon. My best advice is to arrive early - we spoke to a couple who arrived at the terminal at 1:30 and waited in the embarkation line for 3 hours.

Since we are past Carnival Cruisers we were upgraded from the ocean view cabin we paid for to a balcony cabin. Our cabin was spacious with tons of storage. The bathroom was large for a cruise ship with several shelves to store toiletries. The cabin included a sofa, coffee table, two end tables and a lighted makeup mirror/dressing area. The in-room TV had several channel that broadcast the ship talks and programs, a movie channel, cartoon channels and network TV from the Denver area. My only suggestion would be to choose network TV from the central time zone (maybe Dallas, Houston, Oklahoma City or New Orleans). Read more