I wanted to say I am a first time cruiser going with someone who has been on Carnival and Royal Caribbean, we did not have kids with us and I have traveled to many of the port locations prior to this cruise. I will try to break it down into paragraphs to help better relay my experience!

Embarkation: We flew down the day before embarkation and used texasairportcar.com/Duane Johnson for transportation from Houston Hobby to Galveston. Excellent car service, fair price, on time and very helpful! We stayed at the Harbour House next to the cruise terminal. Clean, well kept hotel, decent price and a great location next to cruise terminal. We walked to the terminal from Harbour House, approximately 1/2 mile walk to the terminal. Allowed a porter to take our bags at the cruise terminal entrance. We arrived at the terminal at about 11:15 CDT. We got into a line to go through the metal detector/security check for carry on bags and people. The total wait in line and clearing security was about 30 minutes. We were directed to the Carnival Cruise check in agent to check our passports and register payment devices. We were done and ready to board the ship by 12:15 CDT. We got our welcome aboard pics and finished the check in process and was on board by 12:30CDT. I was impressed with the check in procedure. They check in allot of people in a short amount of time!

Room Assignment: We booked the cheapest rate and were assigned a class 4A room. The room was 7234. The room was small but clean and ready by 2:30CDT. The room was showing some age as the wear and tear was evident around the doors and sink in the bathroom. I found out very quickly, the fist night, that there is a big problem with the panels that make up the wall in the room incessantly rattling, LOUD RATTLING. When I was investigating how to fix the problem I noticed it must have been an ongoing problem as there was several wads of paper shoved between the panels and trim around the top of the room! I just added a few more which helped but didn't completely fix it, ever and was very frustrating! The room steward did an excellent job keeping the room clean, well stocked and always an interesting "towel animal" on the bed each night. Read more