The Gratts Cruise the Caribbean: Pre-cruise in Galveston

I am not sure how Ben and I got on the subject of cruising.  Ben had been on two with mixed results and I for one wasn’t sure I ever wanted to take one as I wasn’t sure I would like it.  The thought of the tiny stateroom didn’t sound so appealing and I was also afraid I would feel “trapped” on board.  I was also afraid of things like inedible buffet food, seasickness, being stranded at sea with overflowing toilets and no electricity, and the norovirus—I had all kinds of visions running through my head, none of them pleasant.

But somehow I was able to put all my fears aside and agree to a cruise as one of our vacations this year.  I decided to give cruising a chance.

Ben’s BFF Nick decided to join us.  The three of us have vacationed together before and had tons of fun.  Nick has been on previous cruises and it sounded like fun to him so the planning began.

We decided to pick a relatively cheap cruise out of Galveston so that we could drive and not have the expense of flying—since I wasn’t sure I would even like cruising, we really wanted to keep it as inexpensive as possible.  We decided on Spring Break since that is normally a week we take off for vacation.

We really didn’t research any of the ships, we just picked a date, itinerary and price we liked and voila, we ended up on the Magic. 

As the days and months ticked down, I began researching everything from how to choose an excursion to what kind of adhesive to use on door decorations.

During our planning, I went on a mission to convince Ben that we needed to drive to Galveston a day early and spend the night.  I told him this is what all the cool cruisers did.  But Ben didn’t want to spend the money.  He wanted to drive down the day of but I was envisioning all kinds of terrible scenarios like the car breaking down, flat tires, etc.  But a little research showed that getting a hotel in Galveston on Saturday, March 14 for one night for under $100 would be no easy task.

So I discovered on the Home Ports forum of Cruise Critic a previously unknown-to-me town called Texas City which was only 20 minutes from port.  And wouldn’t you know it, they just happened to have a lovely Comfort Inn for $89/night.  Sold! 

Our lovely room at the Comfort Inn:

Ben teaches on Saturdays but he agreed to move his schedule around so we could leave in time to be in Galveston for dinner and check out the port.  Nick agreed to drive so Ben booked and paid for the parking online at Park N Cruise and we were finally set. 

We booked our excursions, chose our dining time, made reservations at the steakhouse, and pretty soon, we had nothing to do but wait.

We set out for Galveston around 2:00 on Saturday March14^th.  We arrived in Texas City and checked in, then drove to Galveston for dinner.  It was an easy drive and I highly recommend the Comfort Inn in Texas City—they welcome cruisers and they have a fairly big breakfast buffet.

Galveston on a Saturday night in mid-March is nuts.  By some miracle we found parking but everywhere we tried to eat was over an hour’s wait.  We finally ended up eating in the bar at Joe’s Crab Shack. 

 Back at the hotel, I carefully laid out my cute sail-away outfit and packed my tote bag:

The next morning, we’re off!