REVIEW FROM A CRUISING NEWBIE: GALAXY PANAMA CANAL February 13-25 PART ONE

[JLDMED]

PRE-CRUISE AND EMBARKATION

This was only our second cruise, and arguably our first REAL cruise, as the actual first was only a baby 3 day cruise to Ensenada and back. Being a bit apprehensive about initiating ourselves into the world of cruising with such a long voyage, we can now happily report that it the best vacation we have ever taken. I can highly recommend it! Hopefully this review will help some new cruisers out there, and the rest of you reading it can just sit back and enjoy the ride. I tend to get a bit wordy…please bear with me!

CHOOSING A CRUISELINE: Selecting our cruise line was easy – Celebrity came highly recommended by our travel agent, and the itinerary fit our needs perfectly. Visiting the Panama Canal was the highest priority, and we wanted to visit ports primarily on the Caribbean side. Living in California affords us the opportunity to visit the ports in Mexico easily, so we opted to book a cruise that stayed in the Caribbean. There are not too many cruises that do this during the months we were able to travel, so Celebrity was a great fit for us.

BOOKING YOUR CABIN: We booked our cruise over a year out, which afforded us great flexibility in choosing our cabin. Our travel agent recommended a sky suite, mostly because of the larger cabin. Being a longer cruise, it s nice to have just a bit more space indoors, and the balcony was fabulous. We booked cabin #1203 on the Sky Deck. When booking, bear in mind that all the sky suites on Galaxy do NOT have the same size balcony. Some have verandahs that are 179 square feet, while most are only 69 square feet. Look at the deck plans before you decide which to book. On the Sky Deck, most sky suite balconies are larger than those on the Penthouse deck, because they sit above the Oasis Café and the “out-jutting” of the windows form the balconies above. Some are rectangles, and some are odd shaped, with a portion of the balcony “window/railings” facing either fore or aft. Ours was a 179 square foot rectangle shape that faced directly out from the port side of the ship. Although it was very nice, next time I think I would book one with an “aft” facing section in it. The view would be just a little different, since you can see toward the back of the ship as well as straight out. I would not choose one with a fore facing section because the wind could be a bigger problem. When we were visiting ports on this cruise, we were most often docked on the starboard side of the ship…which meant our balcony usually had a sea view while in port. Nice!!

Well, now we were booked – but what was I going to do for the next 13 months??

A Google search brought me to this message board – and what a great friend it became! I spent many long hours researching the ports on our cruise, and gleaned a lot of great information. This was all filed away for future reference, as I planned to book most of our shore excursions online. I decided to start a “roll call” for our cruise, hoping to chat with some fellow cruisers. If there is not one started for your particular cruise, be brave, and DO IT! We met such nice people, and it helped while away the time before we sailed. There is a lot of information on these boards, both useful, and “not so useful”. Take it all with a grain of salt, and use what you can. I found most of it to be both entertaining and helpful. For a year before I stepped foot on the ship, I chatted online with about 25 people that were on our cruise. It was a lot of fun!

BOOKING SHORE EXCURSIONS: About 2 months before our cruise, we went online and downloaded the shore excursions list for our sailing. Our ship made stops in Cozumel and Costa Maya, Mexico; Puerto Limon, Costa Rica; Panama Canal; Montego Bay, Jamaica; and Georgetown, Grand Cayman. We read and re-read the shore excursion descriptions, and went to the message boards for advice and opinions on the different options. When we finally had it narrowed down, we went to the Celebrity website and booked our excursions. Although many people book their excursions outside the cruise line, we chose to book through the cruise line because this was our first ‘real” cruise, and we had absolutely no idea what we were doing. We also liked the comfort of knowing that since we were on ship sponsored excursions, the ship wouldn’t leave without us! The booking process went fairly smoothly, until we tried to book two tours that had conflicting times. The computer promptly called me a dummy and told me to make another selection! The computer is apparently NOT smart enough though, to know what time the ship is going to leave port. It allowed us to book an excursion in Costa Rica that ended an hour after we were supposed to sail. When we got on board, we found it had been cancelled. Also, when you receive your tickets the first day, check the times on the tickets carefully. We booked two tours in Grand Cayman, one in the morning, and one in the afternoon. The afternoon one was cancelled and moved to the morning…so we had tickets for 2 tours that both left at 7:30 a.m. on the same day You would think that they would have noticed that!!

THE DAY BEFORE WE SAILED: I had read over and over on the message boards about the how important it is to arrive a day early. So, we booked a room at the Hotel Galvez, which is on the opposite side of the island from the cruise terminal. It is a gorgeous, historic hotel that sits right across the street from the beach. We purchased the “cruise package” that gave us a gulf view room and a $50 voucher to use either for champagne brunch, or dinner in the restaurant. Our room was small, but nice, and we enjoyed wandering around Galveston the afternoon of our arrival. The hotel gave us two passes to ride the trolley to the “strand”, which is the street right near the cruise terminal. For those without passes, you’ll pay $1 each way, not a big deal. The guide will give you little tidbits of information about the area, and about the famous homes and buildings along the way. We had lunch at a little restaurant on the strand, and then made our way back to the hotel. We had arranged to meet for dinner with 2 couples we had met on our “roll call” here on the message boards. We spent almost 3 hours chatting and getting to know each other, and spent a lot of time with these couples after we got on the ship, as well.

EMBARKATION: Our hotel package included transfers to the cruise terminal, and we reserved the 12:30 timeslot with the valet desk. At our appointed time, we reported to the front of the hotel and boarded the shuttle for the pier. THERE SHE WAS! The Galaxy was parked (docked?) right in front of us, and our cruise was about to begin. I could hardly wait! We dropped off our luggage inside the terminal, and proceeded to the long desk for our check in procedures. There were separate lines: “captain’s club”, “suite passengers”, et cetera. We entered the queue for our category, and walked straight up to the desk (no crowd at all!) to hand over our documents. I had done the “online check in” previously, so much of the information the agent needed was already in the computer. It was all very easy. She handed us our Sea Pass cards, and away we went! The cabins were not ready yet, so we were directed to the Oasis Café for a buffet lunch. The waiters were standing near to carry our tray to a nice table by the window, and we enjoyed our lunch while marveling at the fact that our long-awaited cruise had finally begun!

NEXT INSTALLMENT – Description of Sky Suite 1203, and our tour of the ship

[Marie213]

Jldmed, I enjoyed your review. Keep it coming, I love your writing style! We get on the Galaxy next week!!

[canadarose]

hi, enjoyable review. We too,are pretty much cruise newbies (leaving in3 weeks). Your experience and info are very helpful to us. Awaiting the next installment.

[mii]

Looking forward to the next installment of your trip.

 

Marilyn

[JLDMED]

Thanks, glad you enjoyed it. I was going to include a ship tour in this next installment, but my suite description ended up being too long. I will post the ship tour in part 3.

[tssace]

Can't wait to read more ...