We just returned from this wonderful cruise on The Rhapsody of the Sea which happened to be our first, so maybe we were easy to please. We had balcony suites and definitely worth the money.

>From the beginning, everything went right for us on this trip. My husband and I flew to Houston from Nashville, and my brother and his wife flew in from Birmingham almost at the same time. The Continental flights arrived within 10 minutes of one another. We found each other easily at the baggage claim area and step outside to where our shuttle driver was awaiting us. We arrived in Houston a day before our cruise and is the only way to do it. It made it a lot less stressful than having to rush to the ship terminal. And thankfully our travel agent had prearranged for our transportation to Galveston, the people at the hotel in Galveston gave our travel agent the name and telephone number for this shuttle service.

This is one the best pieces of advice we can pass along to you. We highly recommend this shuttle to Galveston, you get more than just a ride.

The shuttle driver’s name is L. J. at the Houston Van Services 281-443-4430. This helpful, friendly and knowledgeable man drove us door-to-door to and from Galveston, and included a tour of downtown Houston on our arrival to Houston, then once we got to Galveston and before arriving at our hotel, our driver give us a tour of the Galveston strip, and "the Strand" downtown near our hotel along with other local highlights. It was a great way to see these cities we’d never visited, especially with such a great guide. Without L. J. our cruise would not have been the same. This man is awesome.

Our travel agent found and arranged for lodging at this neat little hotel, it call "the Harbor House at Pier 21". It only has about 50 rooms, built in the last ten years. Our hotel was next to the cruise terminal and its a block away from shops, restaurants and bars in the old historic downtown area of Galveston.

The terminal in Galveston is pretty well organized. The cruise ship employees are very helpful, they will help you tag your bags if needed. Our bags were outside our cabin door by the time we’d boarded and had lunch.

The port of Galveston is a busy place for the offshore oil-rig companies. In fact, expect to see oil-platforms for the first 10 hours sailing south. Actually, it was kind of interesting. The weather was perfect our entire cruise. As you know Texas is a little hot, but by the morning of the first day we were in the Gulf of Mexico enjoying the good life and good weather. Evenings got a little breezy on deck, but if you found shelter from the wind, it was very pleasant.

The crew members were so nice, and the ship’s Captain with the cowboy hat is a very entertaining man !! Key West was beautiful, we rented scooters and spent several hours exploring. In Grand Caymans, we viewed the stingrays, we took the highly recommended excursion in Cozumel.

The food was great, entertainment was wonderful and service aboard the Rhapsody was very excellent. The four of us loved the cruise and will definitely to it again. We hope to find the time to book another Royal Caribbean cruise soon. When we returned to Galveston on Sunday from our cruise it was good to see our driver L. J. awaiting to load us up and return us to the Houston’s George Bush airport so we return home.

Galveston is a wonderful to visit, we had as much fun in Galveston as we did on the ship. I wish we would have been able to spend more time here. We are first time cruisers and were impressed, The most difficult thing about the cruise was coming back to reality!! We highly recommend it.

We had a good time because all alone the way we dealt with professionals, from our Travel Agent, Continental Airlines, L. J. the Shuttle Driver/Tour Guide to those great people who work for Royal Caribbean.