As soon as we dropped our bags in the room we were off to the upper decks. The ship's owners don't expect you to spend much time in the cabin, and we didn't.

With the three of us trying to get dressed at the same time it was crowded, but most of the time it wasn't too bad. We pushed the two twin beds together and folded down one of the two bunk beds on the wall. The room would be tiny in comparison to most hotel rooms, but they put the limited space to good use. Our cabin was down the narrow hallway from where we entered the ship and seven decks below the morning coffee pot. Four-day weekend cruise fares start around $400 per person and five-day voyages start at $479 per person, both based on double occupancy. Using Galveston as a home port for cruises to the Yucatan Peninsula can save Texans hundreds of dollars in airfare to ports on the east coast. The 13-year-old ship is about in the middle of age and size compared to the other ships in the 15-ship Carnival fleet.

The red, white, and blue 733-foot ocean liner sitting next to the new passenger terminal looked gigantic through the windows as we waited in line to make our way to the gangplank. My wife, daughter, and I were pleasantly surprised at the amount of fun we had on the inaugural voyage of the four-day cruise from Galveston to Cozumel, Mexico. Being locked on a ship for more than a day watching Las Vegas-style shows, wearing a suit and tie to dinner, and crowded into small spaces with a bunch of people I didn't know sounded more like a jail sentence than a vacation.įour days on the Carnival ship Celebration changed my uneducated opinion.

Sea cruises never really sounded much like my cup of tea.

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