dude_hdt

Thats what we did...2nd key for each room from guest services

I've heard in the past that Galveston does not get high ticket prices but gets volume, i.e. ships sail fairly full.  If the volume is true and seeing how cruise lines are pushing the onboard sails then volume will lead to more $ in the end.

As for RCCL investing their newer ships in Galveston, it's about time. Carnival has been placing their new ships there for a while so the market is definitely there.

I may be a little  bias too as I live only 30 minutes from Galveston 😉

Thanks for the answer. Rats...now I can’t “look” cool in a bar with a beer-looking beverage. I’ll have to stick to virgin pina coladas 🙂

Are those included with Royal Refershment package?  I’m allergic to alcohol but didn’t know to ask for those when I have RR

Was there last week...Oct 25th.  Lots of "Public Bus" passing thru port area.  They are more like big vans instead of traditional city buses in the U.S. with sign on window.  Still $2.50 US per person each way.  Just tell driver where you want to go and you'll be notified when you arrive.  Very friendly drivers.

2.5 more days for me until Vista!!!

HBE4,

We were in deck 7 Promenade for July 29th sailing.  Don't recall being bothered by noises...if there were any at all especially at night.  We weren't in the room much during the day time when there might have been band playing in Promenade.

Pizza was pretty good on that sailing.  Burger in Windjammer was one of the worst I've ever had...must want you to fork over $ for Johnny Rockets or something.

We'll sail on Liberty again for Dec 30 and will have deck 8 Promenade to view the New Year's Eve festivities below...before joining them.

Can you share the WiFi with family members...one person login at a time?

Haven't been on Carnival in a while...we've always got assigned boarding like 1pm or so but have always gotten to the port early and all checked in by 11am and was able to board right after the diamond/platinum. Is that still the case or with FTTF nowadays, we'll be forced to wait until our assigned time?

Food:

Windjammer had a good variety. Lots of Indian type food every meal. Lots of different soups also. Dinner offerings was quite bountiful with many, not all, of the menu items from MDR. We dined in MDR every night. The MDR menu was good some night and other nights seems boring. Quantity of food in MDR was small which I do like as it allows me to try more dishes and let's face it, it's not like I'm ever hungry on a cruise anyways. We visited Windjammer afterwards most nights to see what other dishes were available that looked appetizing and would have to say, some nights, the Windjammer offerings looked better than MDR. New thing in MDR as I've read recently was taking order for appetizer, entree, and dessert at the same time. Don't know if this difference made dinner faster or not but we were definitely done well within 1.5 hours most night. Some nights were fast when we told the waiter to skip dessert cause we wanted to get to the show and were done in 45 minutes. We did the early traditional dining that started at 5:30pm and most nights were able to be done and get to the early main show. This was great and allowed us more time for other evening activities around the ship.

Staffs at both places were great, very friendly and attentive. Big miss with Windjammer was the burger. That meat was by far some of the worst I've ever had. That mass produced meat had no texture and no flavor...RC really needs to reconsider the contract with that meat provider. I had a burger on the excursion in Belize and noted to my wife how much better that burger was.

Entertainment on board:

Don't know why first night's show was only once. Caused us to race thru MDR early traditional dining time to get to the show. Saturday Night Fever was good, didn't wow us but entertaining. In the Air was great...a light version of Cirque de Solieu (sp?). Elvis impersonator was very good as well as the pair of comedian/juggler. We spent a lot of time every evening in Schooner Bar due to pianist Bill Forrest. He was good at working the crowd and getting people involved with clapping and singing along. In between song, he provided some history behind the songs and singer which made it more interesting. Lots of movies twice every night pool side. On sea days, afternoons had 3D movies in the Platinum Theater. My kids and I participated in many trivia contests...not good enough to win any but did learn new stuffs. I do like sudoku and unlike the May Cruise Compass that I read where they had this several times during the cruise, it was only offered once on a dock day. Luckily it was a dock day that we didn't have excursion so I was able to play. Overall, too many activities for me to attend them all. Might need to do back-to-back to capture more of the activities.

Excursion:

Roatan: We've done the beach club here before and didn't see anything else interesting so decided to walk the town some and just enjoy an empty ship. This is a small port so not too much shops in the dock area. Leaving the shop area (before leaving the security gates) you'll see lots of kiosh aggressively selling excursions. We walked outside the gates to take pic next to "I Love Roatan" sign. We were hounded even more by people offering taxis and excursions outside. Some deals seemed pretty good...$60 for personal driver for the day...$10/person for personal taxi all day and cheaper entry into some of the beach clubs. We might take them up on it next time. My kids were a little rattled by the heavy sales pushes but no big deal to me.

Belize: We did a reef excursion thru RC, knowing tender may make you miss your personally set up events. Big miss by RC was that we were told to meet in Platinum Theater at 10:30am but we didn't get on the boat until 11:30. That boat took us from ship directly to snorkel on a tiny island. The snorkel was great as it was guided so you see all of the good stuffs and narrated. No food or drink (besides water) was provided. We didn't get back to Liberty until 3:30 so too late to get on land for some shopping. Liberty employee also was not correct in telling us that there was an earlier snorkeling trip by same vendor that we should have taken if we wanted time on land. When we arrived at the small island, there was another group already there and was departing on the boat that took us. That group was with Carnival ship though so...no, there was no option for us to do an earlier trip. My wife wan't happy about missing out on picking the free charm bracelet from that port.

Cozumel:

Always a happy place for us all...great beaches and lots of shops. Only bad...our normal place, Mr Sanchos, has grown from a tiny sleep stops...maybe 10 families at best for the day to a sold out all-inclusive only for the day we were there (7 ships in port). We wanted to do "pay as you go" or as the local say "a la carte" was not available to us. Back up plan was a place some people mentioned...Paradise Beach which is less than a mile from Sanchos. $3 entry fee, $18 if you want to play with the water toys, and $10 minimum per person. We arrived early enough to have our pick of lounge/umbrella. My kids did the water toys. We had a few drinks and a couple of plates of food and was still half the cost of Sanchos. We're not big drinkers so all-inclusive doesn't interest us and coming off a cruise, no need for mega food. We loved Paradise with good snorkeling and toys so will be our standard stop in the future.

Disembarkation:

We filled out the form on day 4 to do the assisted method but once we saw our number and how late that would be, we changed our mind and did self route. Self route assigned letters A-G and called by that order. We didn't tell the room attendance that we changed our mind so I thought the letter on our sea card for muster station was our letter to leave..."B". So we left with group B but I noticed others had a piece of paper with the letter on it so ....oops. This method was very fast. We moved the whole time until Customs where we had only 2 families ahead of us so I would say 15 minutes total from room to exiting port. Very fast.

Just off Liberty a few hours ago so here's my contribution to people looking for information on this ship.

This is my 12th cruise overall and 3rd with RC. The heavy majority has been out of Galveston (only 30 minutes from home to port) but the last time out of this port was 5 years ago and things are different.

Arrival:

From past experiences, we aim to arrive at entrance door at 10:30am and don't stop walking until after cruise card is in hand, then short wait until call for boarding. I've read that crowd start earlier nowadays so aimed to arrive at 10:15am only to run into traffic so took until 10:35 to have luggage off and at building entry door. Decent line for X-ray machine, only 2 in operation but don't know if more would be opened later. Only separation for RC membership level was for first time and gold in same line. Platinum and above in a much shorter line. I had 2 bottles of wine and employee waved me thru easily. Next was short line to check-in. Camera system was not operational so everyone would have to get pic taken when stepping on the ship. Then upstairs to the waiting area. Again separation was Platinum & above in one area, Gold and first timers in a much bigger area. The call for general boarding was out as we got off the escalator. Apparently, the call for Platinum & up had already happened. Not too organized once general boarding was announced as big crowd formed. There is a spot near the front of the line that we saw new Platinum & up were allowed to merge. When we got to 1 family from that spot, a port employee noticed the word "Gold" on our card and waved up forward...not much of a gain but oh well. Gold didn't match with the sign but I'm not complaining. Very slow to get picture taken as we got on the ship. Entered on Deck 4 and up to Windjammer. 11:50am by this time. Had we been Platinum (2 more cruises after this one), that Windjammer arrival time would likely be 11:15 or so.

Overall ship:

My family were definitely spoiled by Oasis from 2 years ago. We do like the bigger ship and how things are more spread out. That said, we never had trouble finding seat in Windjammer for breakfast and lunch the whole 7 days. Only once did we not get a table for 4 that was by the window. Never heard loud speaker asking diners to leave so other can have seats like we did on Oasis though which was nice. Ship was nice and clean without us witnessing broken down or dirty areas. Solarium was smaller so was crowded in the afternoon so we mainly used it after breakfast when it is basically empty. Main pool area were completely packed every day unless you're there to claim a seat before 9:30am. Having the very front of the ship where the helipad is, open to passengers is nice...probably first ship we've been on to have this. Yes, we did the "Titanic" movie pose ... a few times. We used the loop on deck 4 as our exercise walking deck every morning before breakfast and it was mostly empty. Too bad they didn't mark distances for us to gage our level of exercise but we usually did 2-4 laps each morning.

Thanks for the review. My family is sailing on Liberty 7/29 then again on 12/30. We're also about 30 minutes from the port so great to hear about crowd situation with your arrival time. We usually arrive at 10:30 but may look to arrive at 10:15 or earlier for less lines. Better to sit in their waiting room with anticipation than to sit at home or stand in line.

If you have the same room again, will you be able to access your room once you're checked back in for the second cruise or do you have to wait until 1pm like everyone else?

B2B is definitely on by bucket list.

We've switched to RC mainly for the Royàl Promenade. Their smaller and older ships don't have it so we stay away from ships without it.

I lack the enzyme to handle alcohol so the Refreshment package is a great deal. Even on port days, 3 specialty coffee, at least 3 bottles of water (take some off ship), 2+ non alcoholic pina coladas, and a few sodas. Non port days are even more so well worth it whenever it goes on sale.

Here's my story. We went on a new years cruise out of Galveston several years ago. Sailing Sunday Dec 26. Normally, passport is in bank safe deposit box. Got to point in line to check paperwork's and wife's passport was missing. Only mine and 2 little sons. We walked back and forth from entrance door to see if it was dropped...no dice. We happen to live 30 minutes from Port and my brother had dropped us off so we called him back to drive wife home to look. I stayed with the 2 boys.

RC gave us the 3rd degree about them not being the problem but immigration won't let us back after the cruise. Luckily we arrived to the port early as she had to make at least 2...maybe 3 round trips home searching for anything that would suffice. Photocopy of passport wasn't accepted. Finally, combination of photocopy passport + kids birth certificate with wife's maiden name + her birth certificate foreign born with maiden name + drivers license was good enough. Port employees were soooooo nice keeping one security line for her when she came back then last time to check in. Normal gangway was retracted long ago. Pursor walked us on thru employee gangway around 5 PM which shut right afterwards.

Oh the drama of the crying boys in the terminal that whole afternoon wanting to go, then not without mom, then go, back and forth. The pisser was when we came back after the cruise, immigration officer just looked at her photocopy and waved us thru even before I gave the long story and all of those other connecting documents!!!

The cause...she had taken her passport from the normal stack in the deposit box a few months before that for some paperwork and didn't put it with the other 3 in the total passport envelope so was by itself in the box still safe and sound on a Sunday after Xmas day.

Don't know how many times nowadays we physically check all paperwork with multiple eyeballs between sailing - 1 month all the way to several times on the drive to the port.

Crossing my fingers for the deal to come thru. We sailed Oasis from Ft Lauderdale in summer 2016 and loved that mega ship. I get motion sickness easily but that was one smooth week. We absolutely love the Promenade inside walk way. That stands out over other cruise lines for us.

There were talks in the past of attracting higher end lines to do longer trips like Panama Canal. Maybe Pier 2 can accommodate another cruise line to do that.

We've been visiting Mr Sancho's for over 10 years since it was a sleepy beach bar that has maybe 10 families max visiting during the day so we ddo still like it. The All Inclusive is the thing there now but us there still an option fto PAYG?

My wife might have 1 liquor drink and I dont do alcohol so $55 is a waste for us so rather just order what we want.

I saw a YouTube video from June where there is an employee checking taxi occupants for reservation prior to entering the front gate. Does this mean no reservation, no entry?

I always treat Carnival's check in time as a suggestion. We always show up at 10:30a and in line to board by 11a

not worth it to us...my husband is a transplant recipient who is not allowed to drink alcohol, but we need to buy for two...

Words has it that RC is very relaxed on this rule. You just have to call them and go be reason your husband don’t want package...medical, religious, etc

Concerning the new RC policy of charging your cabin mate automatically (I understand that you can call to have cabin mate removed). If I buy it onboard, will they still charge the other person?

Don’t know when my port, Galveston, will go to the new system when we board Dec 30.

How does it work if cards are at door? My wife and I travel with 2 kids and book two rooms. Since the kids are 17 & 15, we have to book each room with 1 parent and 1 kid. However, we normally have the parents key work on both rooms and the kid who needs to move room activate both rooms also. The check-in agent takes care of this for us. Will the website have option to allow such? Or we will need to handle that at Guest Services onboard? I just hate the long line at Guest Services on boarding day...

One reported use of the new port is potentially for Oasis sized ships. I hope th8s does happen. I live 30 minutes from the port and do love the Oasis of the Sea so being able to take a short drive to get on one would be awesome.

Just got off the Aug 13 sailing. The new menus are accurate. There was a late swap of second formal night from day 6 to day 5 so swap menu for those days. This was a good move in my opinion as we left San Juan at 1:30pm on day 5 so plenty of time to get dressed up. Day 6 didn't have us leaving Labadee until 5:30 so would be tighter dressing time for early dining like we were booked for.

Just got off Aug 13 sailing. My kids only rode the morning of day 2 and I watched for about an hour. Didn't notice any priority cutting in line. However while eating breakfast in back of Windjammer, I would notice small group ridding well prior to the advertised 9am opening time. I just assumed it was premium group usage.