01 – Galveston

Day 1: Galveston, Texas

	But first, some background info….For our 10th anniversary, we wanted to go on a 7-night cruise out of Houston, TX. But Daniel was only 6 months old, and we couldn’t bear the thought of being away from him for a full week. So we stayed for a couple nights at a bed-n-breakfast in Fredericksburg, TX and promised ourselves a cruise when Daniel was a little older. We ended up going on our 13th anniversary. We had a blast. (I’ll offer some comparisons between the two cruises later.) For our 15th anniversary, we decided to take our kids with us on some sort of special vacation. We originally looked for an all-inclusive vacation spot for 4 nights, and it turned out that this cruise was actually cheaper. Let the fun begin! Here’s Micah and Noelle on the shuttle bus from the parking lot to the ship.
	After a 5-hr drive from our home to Galveston, TX, the kids got all excited when they saw the ship.The ship is 855-feet long. About 120 feet longer than the Norwegian Cruise Line ship we sailed on for our 13th anniversary.
	Noelle and Micah walking down our loooooong hallway. Gotta stick those 2,000 passengers somewhere, I guess. If you don’t stay in your ‘stateroom’ all day, then you don’t feel like sardines.
	We also thought it’d be fun to have Sheryl’s mom with us. She had a blast – even though her bum knee gave her some grief.This photo was taken while we were still in the dock in Galveston.
	Gotta luv that Galveston water.(more to come)
	They had a couple of drilling platforms parked in the docks. I thought it was kind of interesting the way this one leaned forward.Didn’t know that they parked rigs at a dock.
	They had a pretty cool calypso band playing on the top deck. On the last day of the cruise, they played a bunch of other stuff and really got rockin’.
	This ship was larger than the NCL ship we were on. It had a pretty cool 5-story atrium.
	Lots of stuff to eat on the ship. The kids ate ice-cream like there was no tomorrow. This ice-cream cone was at least an inch taller when Noelle started on it.