We had the great pleasure of taking the July 31, 2022 cruise on the Liberty of the Seas to the Western Caribbean. As a little background, this was our thirteenth cruise with Royal Caribbean and our fourteenth cruise overall. Along for the cruise this time were myself, a fifty-something management consultant, my lovely wife, and our 22 year old son. We were also cruising with nine other people spread across four families. Some had cruised a few times before, while others where new to cruising.

We all flew into Houston Hobby airport the day before the cruise and spent the night at the La Quinta Inn by the airport. it was nice, clean and relatively inexpensive, and highly recommend it. On the day of the cruise, we decided to Uber to the Port of Galveston instead of using a shuttle. In looking at the Uber prices others had posted, it was pretty much a wash, so we went with the flexibility of using Uber. It only took about five minutes for the three Uber cars to arrive and had no problems getting to the Port.

The cruise terminal Royal currently uses at Galveston is old and dated, but they are building a new one that should be open later in 2022. The check-in process was pretty chaotic, and unlike other ports we have sailed from, they do not have separate lines for Diamond and Diamond Plus passengers. It took about 15 minutes to move through security, and another 10 minutes at check-in. Hopefully they will do away with the Covid protocols soon, as that took up most of the time. Note that the cell service in the terminal is not very good, and it was taking a while for people to bring-up their Covid test results on the building. Read more