Jump to content
Cruise Critic Community

*** The Galveston, Texas "Cruise Cam" Watch Group ***

Texas Teen

By Texas Teen,
in Royal Caribbean International

 Share

Recommended Posts

TLex

TLex

Posted
Posted
Becci -- the wind is just awful! Neither ship was able to turn around this morning. I don't think Mariner is going to move until Magic is safely turned and headed out.

 

Missed ya' this year, Miss Cindy. How is retirement working out for you! :D

 

If we're not permanently furloughed, we return to Galveston next year for your favorite suite on Navigator. So, frankly, I kind of hope both Magic AND Mariner can get out of port! :p

 

Wind was quite fierce in Bexar today, too, but easing off now....

 

Anyway, we did Allure for spring break and aside from my smashed and broken thumb ( which really interferes with typing) and cracked back, we found it to be an awesome ship. Not so much with FLL, especially on spring break. So from now on,if I can't drive to the port, I may not go....:D

 

VR,

 

T Lex

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Cindy

Cindy

Posted
Posted (edited)
Missed ya' this year, Miss Cindy. How is retirement working out for you! :D

 

If we're not permanently furloughed, we return to Galveston next year for your favorite suite on Navigator. So, frankly, I kind of hope both Magic AND Mariner can get out of port! :p

 

Wind was quite fierce in Bexar today, too, but easing off now....

 

Anyway, we did Allure for spring break and aside from my smashed and broken thumb ( which really interferes with typing) and cracked back, we found it to be an awesome ship. Not so much with FLL, especially on spring break. So from now on,if I can't drive to the port, I may not go....:D

 

VR,

 

T Lex

 

Retirement is lovely!:) I'm working (VERY part-time) as a supervisor of principal interns for the Regional Service Center, and spending a lot of time on my photography. We're heading out on the Mariner with the Lynches on April 14th. Looking forward to a Galveston cruise that's NOT during Spring Break!

Sorry about your thumb and back.:( I broke a pinky toe in St. Thomas in December, and it took FOREVER to feel better!

Guess who's organizing a cabin crawl next month?:rolleyes: It won't be the same without you!

Edited by Cindy
Link to comment
Share on other sites
BecciBoo Great Review Rare

BecciBoo

Posted
Posted

We'll try to keep her in good shape for ya Cindy. Texas Munk is on her right now and he promised to come back and give us the skinny.;)

Hey, I've broken the same pinky toe 3 times:o

I am so crossing my fingers for NO WIND for our sailout.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
TLex

TLex

Posted
Posted
Retirement is lovely!:) I'm working (VERY part-time) as a supervisor of principal interns for the Regional Service Center, and spending a lot of time on my photography. We're heading out on the Mariner with the Lynches on April 14th. Looking forward to a Galveston cruise that's NOT during Spring Break!

 

Sorry about your thumb and back.:( I broke a pinky toe in St. Thomas in December, and it took FOREVER to feel better!

 

Guess who's organizing a cabin crawl next month?:rolleyes: It won't be the same without you!

 

It sure won't be the same without you, Ms. Cindy! You were, without question, the greatest Cabin Crawl organizer EVER! But unless you decided to splurge, you won't get a finale the same as with ME!!! :D

 

VR,

 

T Lex

 

P.S. OK, trying again, the message board dumped my last attempt. We just returned from a Spring Break, heck, the Mother of All Spring Break cruises out of Fort Lauderdale on Allure and Debbie AKA Pabrett 46 has posted a review on this board and Lori of Kenlorz should follow. I would like to write a long review with pictures but until this sore thumb heals some more, it's difficult to write even this. But FWIW, we didn't have any unpleasant experiences with all of the spring break families. And that may have something to do with the fact that we had a Crown Loft Suite on deck 17 and you have to have a special access key in the gold seapass to enter the deck. Very, very quiet. Nevertheless, after the hassles at FLL getting back to Texas and the general "heck" of packing for airport travel, we're going back to Navigator next year from 9-16 March and looking forward to staying in Texas and driving down to Galveston. :) Not too late if you want to reconsider your "NEVER, EVER ANOTHER SPRING BREAK CRUISE" promise!! :D

Link to comment
Share on other sites
TLex

TLex

Posted
Posted

Wow! This thread sure fell off of the radar...had to plow down to page 12 to find it. Hope my post wasn't the " kiss of death " to it! :D

 

Cindy, if you're still with us, would appreciate if you...or any of the long time cruisers out of Texas...would check out post no. 59 on our thread for spring break, March 9, 2014. Looking for possible sanity check on something I recently didn't find on RCL itineraries for TA 2014. :rolleyes:

 

Thanks!

 

VR,

 

T Lex

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Cindy

Cindy

Posted
Posted
Wow! This thread sure fell off of the radar...had to plow down to page 12 to find it. Hope my post wasn't the " kiss of death " to it! :D

 

Cindy, if you're still with us, would appreciate if you...or any of the long time cruisers out of Texas...would check out post no. 59 on our thread for spring break, March 9, 2014. Looking for possible sanity check on something I recently didn't find on RCL itineraries for TA 2014. :rolleyes:

 

Thanks!

 

VR,

 

T Lex

 

I'm not holding my breath...I saw a post a couple days ago from someone who's on the last Galveston cruise that's currently available and they said suites are sold out already (in anticipation of the TA/doing a back-to-back). However, since I will be on the Mariner on April 18th, I may just have to mosey on down to the LA that day and get the scoop!:D

You're right...no crawl will ever end the way last year's did! We don't even have an OS this time...we downsized to a GS. We got a little spoiled with those awesome prices last year!

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Cindy

Cindy

Posted
Posted

A Galveston disembarkation note...

I picked my mom up from the Crown Princess yesterday morning. It only took her 25 minutes from being on the ship to standing outside the terminal waiting for me.:)

I'm still hearing stories about LONG disembarkations off the Mariner. I wonder why RCCL seems to have such a hard time improving the Galveston disembark?:confused: If Princess, Disney, and Carnival can get it figured out, Royal Caribbean should be able to do it also!

Link to comment
Share on other sites
2catfamily

2catfamily

Posted
Posted
A Galveston disembarkation note...

I picked my mom up from the Crown Princess yesterday morning. It only took her 25 minutes from being on the ship to standing outside the terminal waiting for me.:)

I'm still hearing stories about LONG disembarkations off the Mariner. I wonder why RCCL seems to have such a hard time improving the Galveston disembark?:confused: If Princess, Disney, and Carnival can get it figured out, Royal Caribbean should be able to do it also!

The long lines doesn't happen every week, when I went this last March it was fine. Two weeks before our cruise it was very bad but found out 4 customs officer's called in sick that morning with no replacements and they only had two. This isn't RCI problem it's the terminal.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Cindy

Cindy

Posted
Posted
The long lines doesn't happen every week, when I went this last March it was fine. Two weeks before our cruise it was very bad but found out 4 customs officer's called in sick that morning with no replacements and they only had two. This isn't RCI problem it's the terminal.

 

I agree that the port has to bear some of the responsibility, but we've had two nightmare (3 hours) disembarkations in Galveston...one off the Voyager and last year off the Mariner. It really ends a trip on a sour note. We've taken 6 non-RCCL cruises from Galveston -- all very crowded times on big ships -- and we've never had a problem disembarking.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
DeepWaterMariner

DeepWaterMariner

Posted
Posted

Boarding for our Mariner Christmas cruise was a mess due to a long disembarkation process from the preceding cruise. The reason we heard for the slow disembarkation was that Belize was on that itinerary which causes extra scrutiny from customs. That doesn't square with smoother disembarkation's from the Crown which also calls at Belize. Our cruise didn't go to Belize and had a super smooth disembarkation when we returned.

 

Anyway, Friday we disembarked from HAL's Zuiderdam in Ft Lauderdale. The line for customs was long and slow. We had a 10:55 flight which wasn't a problem because we had some disembarkation advantages (suite passengers and a wheelchair plus lots of disembarkation experience) so we were at the airport with time to spare. Without those advantages I doubt that we would have made our flight. It seemed to me that there weren't any less customs agents than normal but they were taking more time on each person. There had been lots of reports on CC before our cruise about disastrous disembarkation's from normally smooth running Ft Lauderdale so we made sure we were off the ship as quickly as our situation allowed.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
wrp96

wrp96

Posted
Posted

Guys, over on the Carnival are there's a similar complaints about disembarking in different ports. And on each one there's somebody going "This never happens on Royal."

 

Yes it may be Royal specific in Galveston but it sounds like all lines are having problems at least with a few ships.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
TLex

TLex

Posted
Posted
Boarding for our Mariner Christmas cruise was a mess due to a long disembarkation process from the preceding cruise. The reason we heard for the slow disembarkation was that Belize was on that itinerary which causes extra scrutiny from customs. That doesn't square with smoother disembarkation's from the Crown which also calls at Belize. Our cruise didn't go to Belize and had a super smooth disembarkation when we returned.

 

Anyway, Friday we disembarked from HAL's Zuiderdam in Ft Lauderdale. The line for customs was long and slow. We had a 10:55 flight which wasn't a problem because we had some disembarkation advantages (suite passengers and a wheelchair plus lots of disembarkation experience) so we were at the airport with time to spare. Without those advantages I doubt that we would have made our flight. It seemed to me that there weren't any less customs agents than normal but they were taking more time on each person. There had been lots of reports on CC before our cruise about disastrous disembarkation's from normally smooth running Ft Lauderdale so we made sure we were off the ship as quickly as our situation allowed.

 

We embarked on Allure on Sunday, 10 March, and didn't actually enter the ship until noon although we were processed and parked in the "suite holding lounge" at 1030. At that time, the announcements were that CPB only had two agents working to clear 6000 Pax. RCL even printed a handout to all of us asking for patience and understanding. But we made it to Giovanni's Table in time for our 1230 lunch.

 

On Sunday, 17 March, we disembarked relatively quickly but that was due to using luggage valet and the fact we had to declare so we were escorted directly to POE customs holding area and were in a taxi by 0830. I was told by other folks, however, that the disembarkation was lengthy and the CPB officers told me that on that particular Sunday, there were only 5 CPB officers available to clear the ship and work duty collection. I was impressed with their professionalism and so commented, but for 6000 pax, I can see where times may have been increased.

 

Finally, I was on the same Mariner cruise with Cindy a year ago St Patrick's Day and it was a mell of a hess disembarking; took us over two hours and were allegedly the "first off" as suite pax and escorted by Luca to the gangway. What we later learned is that the self-debarkation had nearly 1000 or so pax and they weren't cleared so the entire gangway got jammed and it was a shoving and jostling nightmare. The culpability in 2012 was NOT aimed at CPB.

 

Of course, having read a lot of posts during 2012 on this thread and others dealing with Mariner, I recall that there were numerous instances of very slow disembarkation, sometimes due to the fog, sometimes due to insufficient agents, and I even remember one OP who recounted how some pax nearly got into fistfights! None of that at FLL and hopefully nothing like that next year on Navigator! :D

 

VR,

 

T Lex

Link to comment
Share on other sites
BecciBoo Great Review Rare

BecciBoo

Posted
Posted

That is just what we're saying Lex, there is just no rhyme nor reason why Galveston seems to be having these problems...especially since we never had the problem with Voyager, it started at least for us with Mariner???

We have done most of the Florida ports and never had the problem we have here. In past cruises out of Galveston before Mariner, we were off and in our car in about 30 minutes sometimes less! All our Mariner cruises here in Texas have been the Western Itin that included Roatan and then finally they added Belize. I do think the increase in self assist has something to do with it. We are going to go by our exit colors this time. I plan on sitting as long as possible. We'll see what Texas Munk has to say...hope to hear from him tonight.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Please sign in to comment

You will be able to leave a comment after signing in



Sign In Now
 Share
Go to topic listing
  • Forum Jump
    • Categories
      • Welcome to Cruise Critic
      • New Cruisers
      • Cruise Lines “A – O”
      • Cruise Lines “P – Z”
      • River Cruising
      • ROLL CALLS
      • Cruise Critic News & Features
      • Digital Photography & Cruise Technology
      • Special Interest Cruising
      • Cruise Discussion Topics
      • UK Cruising
      • Australia & New Zealand Cruisers
      • Canadian Cruisers
      • North American Homeports
      • Ports of Call
      • Cruise Conversations
×
×
  • Create New...