First New Years Cruise, tips and stories please- sail from Galveston

[kcdancerkc]

Favorite Holiday is for adults....lol. Bucket list is to be on a cruise this time! We looked at several, this 5 day cruise includes my 55th Bday. :eek:

 

We are dance-a-holics..... spend much time in the disco. I have no idea what Carnival does with NYE. Dinner, dance, party connected?

 

 

I was saddened that on princess, the disco closed at 1:30:o

In all our ship trips, even HAL kept us dancing till /past 3!

I hope the Valor disco doesn't close early!

 

This is the first time and probably the last (unless we win the lottery) where it is not based on itinerary at all!

 

So help me get through this 200+ days by telling me how wonderful it was to start the new year on the sea 🌊

 

Unfortunately none of our friends will go on a cruise! We are new grandparents but are not ready to go to bed early!

 

Thanks!

[pe4all]

Have been on several NYE cruises. Free champagne, special dinner in dining room, free champagne, hats and noisemakers, free champagne, big deck party that went on till 2 a.m., free champagne, televised ball-drop from NYC Times Square on LIdo screen, free champagne. (just for the record - we don't drink!!)

[kcdancerkc]

Thanks... we don't like champagne much but...Cheers!

[kcdancerkc]

Anyone tell me pros vs. cons on NYE cruise? Thanks :cool:

[kcdancerkc]

Last hope on this one LOL

 

Thanks,!:cool:

[pblack]

Wish I could help you out, but I hope you have fun!

[lazydayz]

We are doing our first NYE cruise this year too. Our ship will be in Nassau until 11:59 p.m. What a cool way to celebrate the new year. Enjoy your NYE sailing!

[BallFour4]

Pros: a blast.The balloon drop in the atrium at 11pm followed by the lido deck countdown to midnight is not something to miss. The ships horn blasts and the streamers fly.

The cons: somewhere between 1200 and 1500 kids. Hasn't been an issue for us, we've done five NYE trips from Galveston, but it is a crowded ship.

 

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[cindyg1963]

kcdancerkc -- My daughter and I are taking that cruise, too! Its our first, so I've been combing the boards like crazy to get whatever tips I can get. NYE sounds like its going to be great! :)

[kcdancerkc]

Thanks all. :cool::cool:

Cindyg1963 you must be my age lol.

There should be a roll call thread started by now, i will look later....to see about a meet and greet although a short cruise . Lots of kiddos....didnt consider that. Usually when we cruise in spring or fall.

Feeling grateful that we work to travel :cool:

[ginnstars]

We are doing the same cruise. This will be my son's birthday and Bar Mitzvah cruise. (He wanted a cruise in lue of a party.) A couple of us have met on the other place, because I didn't see a roll call on CC.

 

This will by our first time doing a NYE cruise as well. I'm looking forward to a night-o-fun! From what people have said already it looks like it will be fun.

[cindyg1963]

I haven't seen a roll call for us yet, either. I was starting to wonder if daughter and I were gonna have the ship to ourselves! *LOL* At least now I know there will be 6 or 7 of us. :)

[ferfoodle]

You wanted stories, so here goes:

 

A heads up on sailing from Galveston in the winter: FOG. Not playing a Debbie Downer, but the reality is Gulf departures risk being delayed and shortened because of it. I did a B2B this past January on the Freedom. Our first leg was to start on Saturday, 1/13/17 and both the Valor and Freedom were due to dock. The port was closed until the wee hours of Sunday (which was the port schedule for the Breeze and Liberty of the Seas). They brought in the Valor and LOS first and then the Freedom into the port but she couldn't dock at the cruise terminal until the Valor left. We set sail in the wee hours of Monday morning. All 3 Carnival ships were shortened by one day. We lost a port because of it.

 

Then on our second leg - you got it: FOG. We couldn't come into port and sat parked outside the port until it lifted. Disembarkation was delayed 6 hours. We set sail about 5 hours late is all on that one. Thankfully, our return from the second leg arrived as scheduled so I didn't have to redo flights. A lot of people from the 1/13 and 1/20 sailing did.

 

I might sail out of Galveston in the future - but never, never ever again in the winter.

[scomar]

You wanted stories, so here goes:

 

A heads up on sailing from Galveston in the winter: FOG. Not playing a Debbie Downer, but the reality is Gulf departures risk being delayed and shortened because of it. I did a B2B this past January on the Freedom. Our first leg was to start on Saturday, 1/13/17 and both the Valor and Freedom were due to dock. The port was closed until the wee hours of Sunday (which was the port schedule for the Breeze and Liberty of the Seas). They brought in the Valor and LOS first and then the Freedom into the port but she couldn't dock at the cruise terminal until the Valor left. We set sail in the wee hours of Monday morning. All 3 Carnival ships were shortened by one day. We lost a port because of it.

 

Then on our second leg - you got it: FOG. We couldn't come into port and sat parked outside the port until it lifted. Disembarkation was delayed 6 hours. We set sail about 5 hours late is all on that one. Thankfully, our return from the second leg arrived as scheduled so I didn't have to redo flights. A lot of people from the 1/13 and 1/20 sailing did.

 

I might sail out of Galveston in the future - but never, never ever again in the winter.

 

So when delayed from leaving port by fog, I am guessing Texas liquor laws don't allow the ship bars to open until the ship sails out. Correct?

 

Only time I plan on fog is when I wake up after New Year's Eve and my head is all foggy :D

[BallFour4]

So when delayed from leaving port by fog, I am guessing Texas liquor laws don't allow the ship bars to open until the ship sails out.

 

 

Incorrect. Bars are open when you step aboard. TABC laws here require alcohol served in US waters to have a tax paid on them. Carnival keeps two inventories at each bar and serves the tax paid beer and hard liquor until the ship reaches international water (12 nautical miles) from Galveston. Unless you are right at a bar you'd never see the changeover happen. In a few minutes beer coolers are locked, others are opened and liquor bottles are swapped. The entire process takes ten minutes or less.

Fog: we've averaged eleven departures and arrivals delayed on an annual basis for the past five years. That's spread across two full time and one part time cruise line from here. It's not fun if it happens to you, but know it's rare.

In 2017 we'll have six ships sailing from here either part time or full time. They sail full, and aren't heavily discounted. Something's working.

Have a super trip.

 

.

 

 

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[DebJ14]

We have cruised from Galveston 11 times in January and had fog delays on only 2 of the cruises. Once on the Voyager of the Seas in 2009 and once on the Carnival Magic in 2012. We had a wind delay (40mph) in January 2017 on the Breeze.

 

The odds were much worse out of the Port of Houston. We had fog on our Princess cruises in December 2013 and on 2 out of 3 January sailings. Galveston was business as usual while the Port of Houston was shut down due to fog because of the difficulty navigating the Houston Ship Channel.

 

I definitely would not let it stop me from sailing from Galveston in the winter. We have had our 2018 and 2019 January sailings from Galveston booked for several months now.

 

I also don't let hurricane season stop us from sailing. We have sailed 5 times in August, 9 times in September, twice in October and 4 times in November and had perfect weather every time! We are booked once again for this fall. Can't beat the prices during hurricane season!

[happy cruzer]

Incorrect. Bars are open when you step aboard. TABC laws here require alcohol served in US waters to have a tax paid on them. Carnival keeps two inventories at each bar and serves the tax paid beer and hard liquor until the ship reaches international water (12 nautical miles) from Galveston. Unless you are right at a bar you'd never see the changeover happen. In a few minutes beer coolers are locked, others are opened and liquor bottles are swapped. The entire process takes ten minutes or less.

Fog: we've averaged eleven departures and arrivals delayed on an annual basis for the past five years. That's spread across two full time and one part time cruise line from here. It's not fun if it happens to you, but know it's rare.

In 2017 we'll have six ships sailing from here either part time or full time. They sail full, and aren't heavily discounted. Something's working.

Have a super trip.

 

 

 

 

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Thank you for this fact filled post. Having the fog delay once, I was wondering just how frequent they are. I can stand those odds 11 on average. We will see at the end of next Jan. Thanks.

.

[scomar]

Incorrect. Bars are open when you step aboard. TABC laws here require alcohol served in US waters to have a tax paid on them. Carnival keeps two inventories at each bar and serves the tax paid beer and hard liquor until the ship reaches international water (12 nautical miles) from Galveston. Unless you are right at a bar you'd never see the changeover happen. In a few minutes beer coolers are locked, others are opened and liquor bottles are swapped. The entire process takes ten minutes or less.

Fog: we've averaged eleven departures and arrivals delayed on an annual basis for the past five years. That's spread across two full time and one part time cruise line from here. It's not fun if it happens to you, but know it's rare.

In 2017 we'll have six ships sailing from here either part time or full time. They sail full, and aren't heavily discounted. Something's working.

Have a super trip.

 

.

 

 

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Thanks for the information!

[BallFour4]

Thanks for the information!

 

 

Welcome. Sorry for the rude overtone at first.

 

 

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[ferfoodle]

Incorrect. Bars are open when you step aboard. TABC laws here require alcohol served in US waters to have a tax paid on them. Carnival keeps two inventories at each bar and serves the tax paid beer and hard liquor until the ship reaches international water (12 nautical miles) from Galveston. Unless you are right at a bar you'd never see the changeover happen. In a few minutes beer coolers are locked, others are opened and liquor bottles are swapped. The entire process takes ten minutes or less.

Fog: we've averaged eleven departures and arrivals delayed on an annual basis for the past five years. That's spread across two full time and one part time cruise line from here. It's not fun if it happens to you, but know it's rare.

In 2017 we'll have six ships sailing from here either part time or full time. They sail full, and aren't heavily discounted. Something's working.

Have a super trip.

 

.

 

 

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Not arguing that Galveston is a profitable port. It is. However, an average of 11 sailings affected by fog is greater than "rare". Most if not all of the fog delays/cancellations happen in the winter - correct? 11 sailings in 13 weeks (approximately 80 to 84 cruise?) is 13-14% of cruises affected. That doesn't constitute rare in my book.

 

I booked those cruises knowing we risked fog messing with our travel and or cruise. However, by booking the Freedom vs. ships from Florida, I saved over 1K. The savings was well worth the risk in my book. But as one who has to fly to all cruises, I learned my lesson. It was quite stressful not having a car, having to book a last minute hotel, sitting on the Strand with all our luggage for the better part of two days, etc. Just not worth the effort in my book.

[BallFour4]

Not arguing that Galveston is a profitable port. It is. However, an average of 11 sailings affected by fog is greater than "rare". Most if not all of the fog delays/cancellations happen in the winter - correct? 11 sailings in 13 weeks (approximately 80 to 84 cruise?) is 13-14% of cruises affected. That doesn't constitute rare in my book.

 

 

Sounds like you need a book that hasn't been colored in yet. You know we have four full time ships here right? Three sail seven day agendas and one sails a 5-5-4 cycle.

Something is working, Galveston is the number three busiest cruise port with Royal Caribbean bringing an additional ship here for the 5-5-4 cycle.

No port is perfect, If you don't like Galveston then don't add to your frustration and book a cruise from here again.

 

.

[kcdancerkc]

Scomar and I are taking this chance.....

Best thing if we leave on time

Worst case scenario....staying with family in Houston when we get back, so they may have to wait for us😂