Avoid Galveston unless you can drive their

Galveston is a really hard port to sail out of and we would not do it again. Flew in to hobby and spent the night at la Quinta and took their shuttle the next day. That was ok. The hotel is recently renovated. They state that they have a van that will take you any where with in 5 miles of the hotel. What they dont tell you is it leaves at 6 pm only. We missed it and had to figure out dinner. Nothing really nearby but we made it work. The next morning the van to Galveston looked like it had been imported from one of the ports of call. It was pretty run down but it got us there. Leaving was another story. It took our friends 2.5 hours to walk off the ship and clear customs. They took their own luggage off the ship. We collected our luggage onshore and used a porter. It took us about An hour. They only have 10 customs agents for The whole ship which is crazy! 4 of them are for the porter line. Spend the money and get a porter. Tip on this. You have to stand in line to get a porter. Find the sign and send someone there to get the porter while you look for your luggage. The la Quinta van did wait for our friends to take them to the airport which was nice. Overall liked the cruise but if you can't drive to Galveston pass on it.

Well we can drive there so it isn't an issue for us, but I cannot understand cruisers complaining about things at a port that the city, much less the cruise line, has virtually no way to control. Customs is not operated by the city. It takes YEARS to build a port and a lot of money and time to expand and renovate (which Galveston is doing now). I can certainly understand a city that waits as long as possible to spend the dollars. Especially when you consider every government entity is fighting tight budgets and they can look at every ship leaving and know it is full.

Ports are almost always in "older" industrial areas. Those areas have been developed for decades. Given the infrastructure (roads, electricity, rail, water, etc.) that has to be considered...in addition to the disruption to ALL port operations and businesses near the port...it is extremely hard to expand.

Reading the posts about departure would have helped you tremendously.

There isn't one poster that didn't say when the ship returns from Roatan, ICE checks EVERYONE!.

There are good days and bad days. Every time but one were off and through customs in 15 - 30 minutes. The Roatan disembarkation took 3 hours:mad:

You should come to Galveston again and see a great city that has risen from the flood waters - twice, has incredible history and architecture.

Seems your issues are with La Quinta (van) and ICE.

And, no, Galveston is not easy to get too. But this is an island with a small population.

If I didn't want to be inconvenienced any time I went anywhere - I would not leave home:eek:

Galveston is a really hard port to sail out of and we would not do it again. Flew in to hobby and spent the night at la Quinta and took their shuttle the next day. That was ok. The hotel is recently renovated. They state that they have a van that will take you any where with in 5 miles of the hotel. What they dont tell you is it leaves at 6 pm only. We missed it and had to figure out dinner. Nothing really nearby but we made it work. The next morning the van to Galveston looked like it had been imported from one of the ports of call. It was pretty run down but it got us there. Leaving was another story. It took our friends 2.5 hours to walk off the ship and clear customs. They took their own luggage off the ship. We collected our luggage onshore and used a porter. It took us about An hour. They only have 10 customs agents for The whole ship which is crazy! 4 of them are for the porter line. Spend the money and get a porter. Tip on this. You have to stand in line to get a porter. Find the sign and send someone there to get the porter while you look for your luggage. The la Quinta van did wait for our friends to take them to the airport which was nice. Overall liked the cruise but if you can't drive to Galveston pass on it.

Since you were on June 29 cruise,

you experienced a circumstantial situation with disembarkation.

Situation explained on copy another post below in another thread on cruise critic.

Problem was immigration at Federal level.

Not RCL, not City of Galveston, not the Port of Galveston.

As far as La Quinta and and transfer,

that is in Houston and a private business,

It has nothing to do with Galveston.

"We’ve always been fortunate at Galveston, in that things always have gone smooth when getting off the ship. That streak ended with this cruise. The passport scanners were down, so everything had to be handled manually. We were off very early (first called group after the self-assisters), but we still were in line for an hour and a half before leaving the terminal. We were the lucky ones, too, as we’ve heard reports of folks waiting for two and half hours."

There are other ports around the world with difficulties in embarking for a cruise.

I think you are being unfair to Galveston port to blame them for your problems with transfers or hotel in Houston. As stated above, there is nothing Galveston can do about the Customs and Immigration staffing issues.

Other cruise ports around the world require complicated transfers and can be a pain to research and plan, but it can be done. For instance, flying into Heathrow, staying in central London for a week, then cruising out of Harwich require three different transfers. The trip from London to Harwich is 133 miles and takes 3+ hours and is expensive. Trust me, we are doing this exact thing in August for a Celebrity Infinity cruise. Difficult, expensive and worth every penny!

Margee

I disagree. I flew into Hobby two days early and hung out in Galveston via a rental car. Love the island!

We came off yesterday, and it took about 45 minutes. We did Roatan/Belize/Cozumel. We didn't use a porter, but we could have saved another 15/20 minutes if we did.

Thanks for a current update.

These men and women are doing a great service for our country and I'm sorry if their job is n inconvenience to you maybe you should reconsider cruising sometimes things take time we just sit back and wait and have patience and plan our time accordingly we cruise but always make sure we have an extra travel day before my Dh returns to work as this is a very stressful job

These men and women are doing a great service for our country and I'm sorry if their job is n inconvenience to you maybe you should reconsider cruising sometimes things take time we just sit back and wait and have patience and plan our time accordingly we cruise but always make sure we have an extra travel day before my Dh returns to work as this is a very stressful job

Yes I agree and well said! :)