Regal Princess - Galveston,TX - transportation

[beshears]

Just a  heads up. I already went to the Galveston,TX area to ask this question, but thought perhaps someone might see it here as well.

 

We have transportation picking us up at Hobby Airport, taking us to the hotel, and picking us up from the ship and taking us back to the airport.  My question, it seems that NONE of the Galveston area hotels have any shuttle service. What/who would you recommend that we use, if you had done this recently?

[Mags92]

We used Lyft from IAH to our hotel in Galveston, it was $103 total for two people including the tip on a Saturday leaving around 6pm. Our hotel was on the seawall, so then we got another lyft from hotel to port and that was $30 with tip on a Sunday at about 10am. They were fast to pick us up, but we definitely got hit with surge pricing on the ride to the port lol

[beshears]

Thank you for your response.

[Thrak]

We just used the Princess transfer to the airport but... They don't go to Hobby. You have to take it to the other - further away - airport. Believe it was George Bush Intercontinental.

[beshears]

Ok, thanks for letting me know.

[satxdiver]

The other Houston airport is George Bush airport or intercontinental IAH.  It is 70 miles from the port.  Hobby HOU is 40 miles from the port and is the original airport before they built IAH.  With a few exceptions SWA uses HOU while most carriers use IAH.  HOU  is located in a not-so-nice part of south Houston.  

[cruisepest]

 If you are not staying on Galveston Island you really would need Lyft or Uber to get to the ship. There are a few hotels on Galveston Island that have a shuttle or free shuttle to the ship. The only problem is when you fly in they do not have the shuttles to the airport. Princess might be able to provide the shuttles for both. I know the can in LA but never tried them in Galveston. We drive in and stay at the Holiday Inn Resort Galveston on the Beach or the San Luis Resort that have a pay shuttle to the ship. This time we are staying at the Tremont hotel and walking to the ship.

[twinsx2mom]

Princess does offer shuttle to Houston Hobby now, we have it booked

[beshears]

Thank you ALL for your replies.

[Beav1279]

Harbor House Hotel is a 3-minute walk to the terminal. They also have a shuttle if you can't hoof it with all your luggage. I'm unsure if there is a cost for the shuttle or not. A couple of other hotels on the island have shuttles but that's it... none off the island for sure.

[TheMichael]

23 hours ago, beshears said:

JMy question, it seems that NONE of the Galveston area hotels have any shuttle service. What/who would you recommend that we use, if you had done this recently?

 

Last month we pre-booked a Lyft to get us from our beachfront hotel to the cruise terminal. It (surprisingly) wasn't that expensive.

[beshears]

TheMichael, that is interesting in regard to Lyft. We might check into that.

[nanarena]

We have stayed at the Galvez and Doubletree. They had shuttles to the ship with a relatively small fee.

 

[dog]

On 2/20/2024 at 1:33 PM, Beav1279 said:

Harbor House Hotel is a 3-minute walk to the terminal. They also have a shuttle if you can't hoof it with all your luggage. I'm unsure if there is a cost for the shuttle or not. A couple of other hotels on the island have shuttles but that's it... none off the island for sure.

I just stayed here. It has a shared shuttle to terminal and was included in my hotel stay. Use to cost $10 pp receptionist told me.

[dog]

I saw a large coach picking up passengers staying at Hilton hotels, today after the cruise.

[Nebr.cruiser]

Travel from Houston to Galveston is always a problem and not cheap.  We have used shared bus travel, but it takes a long time with often quite a few stops to pick up others.  That is cheaper, but less convenient.  Next time we will look into Uber, Lyft or even cruise transfers.    This would be a great port for a fast train to Galveston, but of course that would cost a lot to get all the infrastructure going.

 

Miss some of the great train/subway/bus/etc. transport in Europe and Australia!

 

[Shippy]

Be sure your private transport from the port back to the airport has a LARGE window of time.

We had priority disembarkation....suite, taking our own luggage off.

That is absolutely the worst port to get out of. It is like a Disneyland line & you cannot see the end. AND the customs did not have a separate line for non US citizens !

Every 15 minutes I wound up calling my car service & begging them to wait a little longer.because I thought I was almost through....although I was not   :O(    Luckily they waited.

    Our cruise was fantastic but the stress of getting to & from Galveston was not. Never again.

 

[cruisinsince75]

3 hours ago, nanarena said:

We have stayed at the Galvez and Doubletree. They had shuttles to the ship with a relatively small fee.

 

Same for the Moody Gardens Hotel.  

[Beav1279]

2 hours ago, Shippy said:

Be sure your private transport from the port back to the airport has a LARGE window of time.

We had priority disembarkation....suite, taking our own luggage off.

That is absolutely the worst port to get out of. It is like a Disneyland line & you cannot see the end. AND the customs did not have a separate line for non US citizens !

Every 15 minutes I wound up calling my car service & begging them to wait a little longer.because I thought I was almost through....although I was not   :O(    Luckily they waited.

    Our cruise was fantastic but the stress of getting to & from Galveston was not. Never again.

 

 

I agree that debarkation always takes much longer than expected... If you can, I always recommend being one of the last people off the ship.

[TheMichael]

4 hours ago, Shippy said:

Be sure your private transport from the port back to the airport has a LARGE window of time.

We had priority disembarkation....suite, taking our own luggage off.

That is absolutely the worst port to get out of. It is like a Disneyland line & you cannot see the end. AND the customs did not have a separate line for non US citizens !

 

Notwithstanding that it's asking for pain to try to book rideshare for a specific time that is not a LONG time after you expect to disembark, I have to say that we had a relatively quick disembarkation last month, from ship through customs. 

 

Of course, we left after all the self-disembarkers who had to wait an extra half-hour for the ship to be cleared, and customs was nonexistent (maybe due to Texas recently declaring themselves a sovereign nation as far as their borders go?), so it might have been the luck of the draw that day.

 

And I'll mention that the Princess transfer shuttle situation was a mess. No clearly marked directions, no marked spot to wait, ONE shuttle with a sign on it (for HOU - we were going to IAH) - you basically had to make an educated guess on where to wait ("there's buses, and there's a line of some sort"), or ask around until you found someone who knew.