Background Information-My mother suggested a cruise as my college graduation gift and I thought it was a great idea. We decided to also celebrate my brother's birthday at the same time. Our group consisted of myself (24), my mother (51), best friend (25), youngest brother (19), and two of his friends (20 and 23). Because of our ages (mostly early 20's and all single), I was worried about finding things to do, but I still had an amazing time! Thanks to all those CC reviews that helped to make our trip great.

I want to make a personal remark here so that you understand why I was so happy on this trip. Before we left, I decided that my mantra for the week would be to take it easy, do whatever I wanted whenever I wanted, and solve every problem with a fruity, umbrella-accented drink. LOL. In other words-I wanted a REAL vacation.

Travel To Port of Embarkation- We are all Houstonians and live in various parts of the city, so the drive is only about 50 minutes long. We used my brother's friend's Yukon since it was big enough to fit the 6 of us and our luggage, although it was a tight squeeze. We left a little later than we wanted to, but still arrived at the Port of Galveston by 11am. After dropping off the luggage with a porter, 2 of our party went to drop the truck off at Lighthouse parking ($50 prepaid). We tipped $2 per bag, and $3 for my "bag of bricks" as it was not so affectionately called. It only took about 12 minutes for them to get back to us from the lot to the Port. Once together again, we still had our carry-on bags, 2 cases of water and 2 -12-packs of soda to lug through the embarkation line. THANK GOD we were there early enough for there to barely even be a line. There were probably about 30 people ahead of us and the line was moving very quickly. Security was a breeze and they did not find the 7 "water" bottles of vodka that were mixed in with the cases. And if they noticed the flask of Tequila in the emptied snack cake box, they didn't bat an eye. It took about 10 minutes to get our sail and sign cards, and then we were on the ship! Read more