Red, Hot, & Blue: Pre-Trip Report featuring Galveston

Narnia_girl

He's not a tame lion, but he is good.
Joined
May 11, 2009
We are back for another fun cruise adventure and trip report!

Our cruising began in 2009 when our oldest child graduated from high school. We enjoyed a waaaaaay-too-short 3 night cruise on the Wonder to the Bahamas. Then in 2014 our second child graduated and we enjoyed a 4-night cruise to the Bahamas. Guess what—it was too short also! But it was a blast. Here is our family before we boarded the Dream.





Fast forward another five years, it’s 2019 and our youngest child is graduating from high school, so time to cruise again!

Although our family has grown (our oldest married a wonderful young woman) our cruising group has shrunk. This time around it’s just mom, dad, DS (24) and DD (19).

Here’s how it started. The first cruise we took was a major, big surprise that no one knew about except me. I surprised the family on Christmas morning, but we sailed in July. (Corbin Bleu and other Disney Channel stars were also onboard with us.)



The next cruise, for our second son’s graduation, was sort of expected. DD managed to find out about it ahead of time, although she kept the secret until Christmas when I announced it again.

This time around, it’s no surprise. DD is the biggest Disney fan in our family and she’s the youngest. The boys got cruises so she knew we’d be taking another one after her graduation.

This time, I was smarter as far as costs are concerned.




On our first cruises I booked about 8 months out and thought I was a genius for being so forward thinking. I had no idea people booked more than a year out routinely. So...this time I looked at itineraries and compared previous opening day prices. I researched non-stop and finally came up with a decision...cruising in the summer after her graduation on Disney Cruise Line was a budget buster I wasn’t willing to do.



That presented a real problem because I did not want to disappoint my daughter, and the rest of us love cruising DCL, too. So sometime in early 2018 I decided that we should plan a fall cruise instead of summer. Yes, our daughter would be off at college by then, but the savings meant we could have a longer vacation.

I looked at all the options, considering most seriously Bermuda and California. Cali won out and we booked a 4-nighter out of San Diego for October, 2019.
Now this is where I was taking a big risk, because our daughter would be in college then, and at that point she hadn’t even chosen a college. I had no way of knowing whether the as-yet-unknown institution of higher learning that she would attend would have fall break at the exact time we were cruising, or indeed, even if they would have fall break at all!

But I was optimistic, and in May, 2018 plunked down a deposit on that Baja Cruise!
Research commenced immediately and we decided we better visit Disneyland while were in the neighborhood. I also started bulking up my discounted Disney gift cards as much as I could (see Aladdin above).


On a related note, in October, 2018 DD and I took a mother-daughter trip to Walt Disney World.



We fly out of St. Louis which is about 120 miles from our home. Not far from the airport is a university that DD was interested in visiting. So we scheduled a tour of the school a few hours before we flew to Orlando. It was kind of fun to talk to the admissions people about how we were going to Disney World after we left campus!



It turns out that was the school for her! By Christmas 2018 she committed to going to the college we visited right before going to Disney World.

It’s a great university and now it seems to have a bit of Pixie Dust sprinkled on it.




Once that commitment was made I was able to find out the school’s fall break schedule.
What do you think? Did the pixie dust continue and her fall break work out perfectly for our cruise? Or was my booking ill timed?
And when do we get to Galveston?
 
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Womp-womp.



Her break didn’t line up well with our cruise. It sort of overlapped, but she would still miss 3 days of classes. I didn’t think that was a good plan for a freshman in her first semester of college.
Back to square one. It was a risky move from the beginning, not knowing her school schedule and trying to book a cruise so we had to adapt.

At this point, it’s getting closer to her graduation date and the summer cruises are sky-high because it’s no longer opening day prices—not by a long shot.

That’s when I started poking around again and considered a Christmas or New Year’s cruise. She would have a long break between semesters.

There is no way we could be gone on Christmas Day, our family time is treasured during the holidays, but we could go right after. I found a Caribbean cruise out of Galveston that worked well with our dates and in early January 2019 I cancelled the California Baja cruise and booked a 6-night cruise on the Wonder for January 2020.

Yippee! We have her graduation cruise book again (a mere 7 months after she graduated!) and we are getting a longer cruise!

Here’s our graduate, in 2009 on the Wonder





We started looking at Galveston options. Fly or drive? (It’s an 18 hour drive from our home, we’re flying!)

Then in March we got some extra great, super awesome, Thank You God, news!



Our son had not been able to find a job in his field since he graduated college. He had searched diligently for months when he was finally given an amazing opportunity at a company just north of Houston. We were happy to move him there and get him set up in his first adult apartment.

We also realized how convenient his place would be for our New Year’s 2020 cruise—Galveston is just a 90 minute drive from his apartment He could come home to the Midwest for Christmas and then go back to Texas after. We would fly to Houston on Jan. 2 and he could easily pick us up from the airport. That also meant we wouldn’t have to rent a car—we could just drive his to the port and park for the week.

In June Southwest announced their fall rates and I was able to snag great flights from St. Louis to Houston Hobby. I couldn’t get return flights yet because they had not opened those up, but our other plans were falling into place nicely.

About this time we also decided we wanted to visit our son in Texas and see how he was settling in to his new life. Part of our goal was to help him acclimate to his new hometown. He loved his new job and was doing well, but he had no real friends in the area. His girlfriend lives six hours away and most of his co-workers were older than him and went home to families each night. We hoped us visiting would help him see the amazing town where he lived.

Free trolley takes you all over town:



We planned a road trip to visit him over the July 4th holiday. This would work out well all around—we could tour his area and also drive down to Galveston to get a view of the port and decide if there was anything we wanted to do when we returned six months later for our cruise.

This is working out fabulously, right?! Right?
 
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Womp, womp…..
About a week before we left to drive to Texas to visit our son he called and gave us the bad news: his company had been bought by a larger company and he was laid off. It was a gut punch. He had worked so hard to get that job, and then moved across the country for it, leasing an apartment and setting up his life in Texas. Now three months later he was let go. His co-workers were just as shocked. We determined to continue with our plans to visit him, as now we wanted to be there to give him support.

[Side bar: The Woodlands, Texas is amazing. Like Celebration City near Walt Disney World, The Woodlands is a planned community. It is a beautiful space full of art and culture. As the name suggests, trees are literally everywhere and high signage is prohibited. It is also upscale, expensive and growing like crazy. If you have ever watched Parks & Recreation, you’ll be familiar with Eagleton—that’s a good example of The Woodlands.]

Our strategy to help him experience his new hometown actually worked! By acting as a tourist in his own town, he discovered a lot of the beauty he didn’t realize was so close by. Unfortunately, after losing his job he was not interested in living there anymore. :(

July 4th in The Woodlands:



Free patriotic concert with the Houston Symphony Orchestra


Sixteen real canons for the 1812 Overture!


The Woodlands, Texas is a beautiful city full of public art, water recreation, and upscale shopping.












Next up: We hope to scope out the cruise port when we spend a day in Galveston.
 
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After spending a few days in The Woodlands, we headed to Galveston for the day. This was the Saturday of July 4th weekend. Don’t ever go there then! The wall-to-wall traffic was awful. It was impossible to get anywhere near the beach. And it was broiling hot. We discussed whether Orlando or Galveston was worse heat-wise and I’m not sure who the ‘winner’ was. (We were the losers.)

Despite this, we were able to do a few things that are certainly worth-while if you are in town for a cruise. First, as you cross over the bridge into Galveston take the exit for Tiki Island. It’s a charming neighborhood full of brightly painted coastal cottages, nautical yard ornaments and whimsical mailboxes.




Next up we stopped at the Galveston Visitor’s Center and picked up a few brochures,


then strolled across the street to the Rosenberg Library, the oldest continuously operating library in Texas.


This is where the visitor’s center directed us when we asked if they had a restroom. Evidently the public restrooms at the Rosenberg are very popular because after my husband used the facilities he could not wash his hands—there was a man bathing in the sink.


Shady garden just outside the Visitor's Center:



I’d highly recommend the FREE Bolivar ferry ride. The car line for the ferry was over a mile long (holiday weekend!) but folks who walked on to the ferry only had a 5-minute wait. A kindly woman at the visitor’s center advised us to stay in the right lane as we approached the ferry. We did that and passed all the cars waiting to drive on. Parking is free and we really enjoyed the ride over. We saw several dolphins nearby. After the ferry docked, we just stayed onboard and took the return trip back.








We tried to find a place to have a picnic but the traffic really made this impossible, plus shade is not easy to come by in Galveston. We ended up eating under (what we assume is) an old shuttle station at Moody Gardens.



DD and I walked around the Strand shops while Dad and DS toured the Ocean Star Off Shore Drilling Rig and Museum. The area seemed a little more “rough” than I remembered from my past visit, but that was 30 years earlier.



We stepped inside an art gallery as much to cool off as to see the exhibit. Art tastes certainly vary from person to person….speaking only for myself this exhibit was both disgusting and completely unnecessary. But the gallery was free and air conditioned, so we lingered awhile among the cat intestine parasites.



Looking for a photo op? Stick your head in these cat butts.
'

Then we hightailed it to Starbucks for cold lemonade and found the only empty table in the place. We sat there nursing our drinks for at least a half an hour. During that time, the bathrooms were in constant use by tourists. Just sort of indicative of the availability of facilities nearby.


Starbucks Melusine (mermaid) icon/logo goes well with Galveston's gulfside location.


As dad and DS exited the Ocean Star Off Shore Drilling Rig they got to see a military send off with families saying their goodbyes and other boats spraying water on the troop ship. It sounded like a very neat experience.









We saw several signs for cruise parking; and also noted the Harbor House Hotel at Pier 21. I have seen this hotel mentioned in other trip reports and it does have a very convenient location. Easy walking distance to The Strand.





Next we visited La King’s Confectionary to see (and sample) the taffy pull. We were met with wall-to-wall people and decided this was an activity we’d try again in January.

Random Club in downtown Galveston:



We enjoyed a drive around Beachtown Village and then headed out of town towards Houston.



I had planned to do a lot more sightseeing, but the holiday crowds and heat were more than we were willing to bear (and we’ve been to Disney World in July). On our way back up the highway we made sure to stop at Buc-cees for snacks.

After this trip to Galveston, our thoughts turned to our upcoming summer vacation (to blissfully cool Canada and New England) , then school starting for our college freshman, becoming empty nesters and the holidays. We barely thought about our upcoming cruise, except to make sure we met our paid-in-full date.
 
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As we left DS in Texas to drive home to the Midwest we were a bit sad and apprehensive about his future. He now faced the daunting task of job hunting again. I’m happy to report that within a few weeks of our trip he was offered a job in Oklahoma, where he went to college, and where his girlfriend lives. He was thrilled to be moving back to his second home, where he has friends and familiarity. :dancer:

:boat: Back to our upcoming cruise... We are determined to go as DD has waited long enough for her graduation cruise, but now we have new kinks to work out including
1. Will DS’s new job allow him to miss an entire week of work after he’s only been employed by them for 100 days? Answer--yes, with a mix of unpaid days and a few accrued vacation hours, he was able to come home for Christmas and take off for our cruise.

And 2. Will our flight plans need to change? He won’t be able to pick us up at the Houston airport after all.
Solution: We will still fly from St. Louis to Houston, and he will fly from OKC to Houston arriving just a half hour after us. We will user Uber or Lyft to drive from Houston to Galveston.

So, now it's almost here! We leave in just three days for our Western Caribbean Cruise on the Disney Wonder. :jumping1:
 

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