DavidMutchler

As another poster said, "Uber has made an agreement with the Port to pay the fees necessary to access picking up passengers". However, be aware that the agreement is not effective until May 1. On the other hand, also note that Cruise Critic folks report that Uber is already (before May 1) dropping off and picking up people just fine. If you are traveling before May 1 and want to play it safe, you could do Lyft instead of Uber, but Lyft may have fewer cars available (hard to say). More worrisome, if you are traveling on a Sunday morning, then Uber/Lyft rides are in short supply. You are probably OK at 8:20 a.m. but may experience surge pricing. Also note that on Uber's Scheduling page (https://www.uber.com/us/en/ride/how-it-works/reserve/), it says: "¹ Uber doesn’t guarantee that a driver will accept your ride request." (emphasis mine). "Your ride is confirmed once you receive your driver details." Have a great cruise!!!

What day of the week is your debarkation? On Sunday mornings, on all recent weeks (I checked each week for last 4 weeks), Uber and Lyft had surge pricing and low availability from about 8 a.m. to 11 a.m. You should be able to get an Uber/Lyft at 8:45 or so, but expect prices to be as much as double what they were in getting from Hobby to the Port, on Sundays. (Thursdays don't seem bad according to another poster, and I have no data for other days of the week.) FWIW, I think (NOT SURE) that if "booking" means using the Uber reservation system, then booking an Uber ride at low-availability times does very little by way of a guarantee (unless you have made a private arrangement with the driver). If you know otherwise, please post. Thanks!

Thanks for the update. Please do let us know your experience with the Uber pickup today. Thanks!

Uber does not yet have port privileges, so not really an option. Lyft will be sky-high ($250 or so to Hobby) at that time (and the addition of Uber in May (?) is unlikely to change it much). Do a shuttle service like Galveston Express instead. Uber/Lyft FROM Houston TO Galveston works fine, because there are lots of such drivers in Houston. Uber/Lyft FROM Galveston TO Houston is a disaster from 8 to 11 a.m. because there are not many drivers in Galveston.

Getting a Lyft (or Uber once they start coming to the terminal) from Galveston is impractical in the hours from about 8 a.m. to 11 a.m. local time. Just not enough Galveston drivers, and way too much demand. Use a shuttle service instead, especially given your party size.

The April 30 cruise (just before the May 7 cruise referenced in the post) lists a Headliner show featuring comedy juggler Adam Kario where Blue Planet is listed in the above. He is listed for the Amber Theatre days 4, 5 and 6 (one show each day). There is no opportunity to reserve seats for his shows. Judging from that, perhaps Blue Planet will start on the May 7 cruise (and not the April 30 cruise that I will be on). I like juggling, so while I was looking forward to Blue Planet, juggling is OK by me too. BTW, Blue Planet was on Allure pre-covid, as far back as 2014, I think. It looks like a spectacular show.

Perhaps this helps, perhaps not, but according to the web: A WORLD OF WOWS Celebrate Mother Earth during a one-of-a-kind, environmentally charged show as Blue Planet transports you from mountain summits to the bottom of the sea with powerful music, soaring vocals, energetic dance, and aerial acrobatics that will leave your entire family breathless.

Glad that you had an overall great cruise! Did you drive to the port yourself, or fly to Houston and use transport from there? If the latter, how did you return to the airport upon disembarkation. (Getting from the airport to the Port is easy, via Lyft among other approaches, but getting Lyft on the way back seems nigh impossible, so I am interested in what shuttle services folks are using...)

Thanks to OP for the excellent review; I am sure that they will respond to your question above. But perhaps the information that I have is helpful to you: For the Allure, for April sailings, reservations for shows opened at various times between about March 1 (as reported here on Cruise Critic) and March 9. For my April 30 sailing, reservations opened on March 9 about 6 p.m. (I was watching several times each day.) It seems clear from various posts that the exact day/time that reservations for shows open varies from ship to ship and from sailing to sailing, but a rule-of-thumb is that sailing for month X start around the 1st of month X-1. (So sailings for April started seeing reservations opening about March 1, but not all at once.) Reservations stayed open for a surprisingly (to me) long time -- they are still open for all but the Comedy Club (it is now 19 days since reservations opened), and even the Comedy Club remained open for about 10 days. Others have reported much shorter availability on other cruises, however, so best to check daily starting about August 1 (for your sailing in September). Thanks again to OP for the great review!

See for a sample of Rookie.

For me on the 4/30 Allure, I checked in when the app opened but 11 a.m. was the earliest offered. Perhaps they are not offering 10:30 a.m. at this time.

Thanks! Your web site is lovely and very helpful (even though my wife and I are long past having babies) -- your photos are great and your child is adorable!

Do you recall what the LATEST time slot to get off the ship is? 10 a.m.?? (Trying to plan for a shuttle to the airport, and would rather wait on the ship than in the airport for our 5 p.m. flight.)

Thanks!

Any update to this? We are currently booked for Ice Show, Mamma Mia, and Aqua show on 4/30 cruise. Will those be changing???