Our actual cruise experience started about 10 months prior the sale date. There was a Cruise Critic (CC) Roll call started for our cruise that evolved into a 6000 post flow of information and fellowship, but more about that group later. I should mention the way we found out about this cruise was by a call from our Carnival Cruise Person Vacation Planer (PVP) telling us about the new itinerary. At the time we were not sure if we could go, but a couple days later I emailed her to inquired about a possible military discount (both my wife and I are retired Air Force) for a Cat 11 suite. To our surprise there was an excellent discount so we gobbled it up. I highly recommend all Veterans, active duty and retired, inquire about military discounts when making reservations.

We decided to arrive in Galveston the day before the cruise due to our 7 hour drive. We arrived at about 4:30 pm in a pouring rain and had a little difficulty getting to our hotel (Holiday Inn Sunspree Resort) because most of the streets by the sea wall had been barricaded off due to the Galveston Mardi gras. After checking in we went to the hotel bar across from the seawall for a cocktail, got a bite to each and called it an early night. The hotel was clean and recently remodeled, but probably not worth $200.00 a night.

After an excellent breakfast at the hotel restaurant, we check out and headed to the terminal. I dropped the baggage and my wife off and drove to the EZ park lot that I had pre-paid on line. We normally leave our vehicle at the hotel, but because of Mardi gras, I was concerned we would not be able to find a taxi to get back and forth. Mistake number one. It was a mess getting into the lot. Traffic was blocked and they didn't seem to be letting anyone in. I waited in a line of cars for about 30 minutes. After parking I walked back to the terminal. Next time I will park at the hotel and take my chances on a taxi. Because we were booked into a suite, we had VIP boarding and were on the ship in about 10 minutes. That was sweet! Read more