PenguinLife

Check with the Comfort Suites in La Porte, they offer limited cruise parking (I think less than 10 spaces per cruise so you have to call and inquire about it).

When is your cruise, I ask because this time of year the sun sets around 5 pm in Houston, so chances are you could not make it to the beach at Galveston before it gets dark with a 3 pm flight arrival, assuming 30 min to get luggage, 15 minutes to meet the shuttle / limo, etc. and 1.5 hours, maybe maybe more in afternoon rush hour to make it to Galveston. You can expect delays at rush hour on week days, particularly bad on Friday's going to Galveston, less so on Saturday, and usually not bad at all on Sundays.

How about something no one in the major cruise industry is doing, SMALLER SHIPS

It is not just cruises, it is everything this year, no one seems to be willing to discount anything to move the product. I have been helping a couple of relatives with car shopping lately and there seems to be little or no discount being offered on older stock vehicles, one nearby dealership has a car on the lot that met the options requirements, however it was a 2014 with an asking prices only $2,000 less than a new 2016 of the same model on a $40,000+ car. The same holds true for just about anything else that is not low end, computers, tv's, etc if it is not the loss leader low end model then it is running full price.

I have read on here that some of the hotels near the port (I think the Hilton riverside was mentioned) will hold bags for a fee, I think the Doubltree may be another. I am not sure of details, but suspect any tourist things you might plan on doing will likely be in this area (French Quarter, etc.)

There are few independent dining options near the IAH hotels, just a few strip mall sandwich shops, waffle hut, etc. My best suggestion is the Holiday Inn at Beltway 8 and JFK just south of IAH, they have a fairly good full service restaurant that is open for Breakfast, Lunch and Dinner. They even have a menu online http://www.goodeatsgrill.com/menu.php The food has always been good when I have stayed there and while it is an older property it has been well maintained and frequently renovated. The Holiday Inn is located on the south side of Beltway 8, so is about 1/3 mile south of the main cluster of IAH hotels, a fairly trivial distance unless you are trying to walk there from one of the other hotels.

Can you give us a bit more information, how much time will you have there, when, if not museums what does she like, does she like aquariums (the Audubon Aquarium of the Americas is only 2 blocks from there), and yes the street cars are easy to ride, note some go to nicer places than others. If you want to get some authentic cajun food not the creole or creole/cajun mashup so common in New Orleans, I would suggest Mulate's which is just block or two south of the Hilton Riverside at Julia St and Convention Center Blvd, they often have live music and cajun (country) style dancing on the weekend, relatively kid friendly by New Orleans standards. If shopping is her thing you will also be right next door to the Riverwalk mall, which was converted from an upscale mall to an outlet mall a few years ago (it never really recovered after the ship crashed into it a few years back http://www.nytimes.com/1996/12/15/us/freighter-hits-riverfront-mall-in-new-orleans.html ). You should also visit Jackson square and the french quarter, it is in walking distance if you just go north along the river front through Woldenberg park. While in the french quarter you may want to get some beignet's at Cafe Du Monde, if the main location is too busy, and you don't mind a lesser view while eating there is also a Cafe Du Monde in the Riverwalk mall next to your hotel. In addition to all this there is a paddle wheel river cruise on the Steamboat Natchez which docks near the french quarter.

I suspect much of the reason they do not have a location on Galveston is fear of loss of their fleet from hurricanes, many car rental operations are rather low budget other than purchase cost of their rental fleet, they often operate out of small offices in low rent areas with the exception of airport kiosks.

While you are in Galveston I suggest checking out Moody Gardens, it is very under advertised, mostly indoors (aquarium pyramid, tropical rainforest pyramid, Imax movie, also beach area and 30-45 minute long paddle wheel river boat ride), but they do decorate for christmas (google moody gardens festival of lights). Tickets are around $60 per person for all access, but you can buy limited tickets for just the aquarium or rainforest for less. If weather is nice it is easy to spend 4 or 5 hours there and still not see everything.

Don't count on much delivery food options in the evenings for the airport hotels, particularly the ones on JFK to the south of IAH, there simple is not much there other than hotels, business parks and airport related industries.

The problem I see with both Houston and Galveston (much the same for New Orleans) is the limited cruise itineraries offered, for the vast majority of cruises this means only 3 itinerary options with some slight variation between the 4 cruise lines currently regularly sailing from there not counting repositioning cruises.

7 days visiting Jamaica, Grand Cayman and Cozumel

7 day visiting Roatan, Belize and Cozumel (some variations swap out belize city for private island in Belize, or Costa Maya for Cozumel)

5 day Cozumel and Progresso

Personally I think there is opportunity here for at least one of the cruise lines to offer longer 9-14 day cruises from these ports, skipping the above mentioned ports unfortunately those few that do get offered are typically priced at 2-4 times the price of the typical 7 day cruises from these ports, which makes flying before sailing these itineraries from other ports much more viable.

I have been debating trying to do a UST on Caribbean Princess next month, we did one aboard Carnival Magic a few years ago when it was fairly new (6 months old), it was much the same as described here, just less swag. So for those of you that have done multiple UST's is it really worth it the 2nd,3rd, etc. time around?

We usually use "The Parking Spot" on Will Clayton, there is also a "The Parking Spot 2" on JFK, but the one on Will Clayton is closer to us. Shuttle vans are easy to spot (yellow and black spots for one lot and black with yellow spots for the other), I think they also have discount prices if you book online, and at least in the warmer months give out complimentary bottled water when you are leaving.

Personally we will be shopping for a new cruise line to use if Princess does not offer a gulf coast cruising option, the bigger ships is another turn off, and part of the reason we switched to Princess to begin with.

In my experience the larger the ship the longer it takes, for the Princess Grand class ships, probably 30-40 minutes or so if you are in the initial rush, but it always feels like longer as you inch your way along. If you wait about an hour after docking you can likely walk right off.

I will only say this,we sailed out of Bayport a year ago this week, cruise was delayed at both ends. We arrived at the port at about 10:45 am and the departing passengers were just starting to clear customs. Then when we made it back from our cruise docking was delayed a couple of hours due to moderate fog, however debarkation was delayed by 3-4 hours, with the first passengers off the ship around 11 am, we had standard, not express debarkation, and were probably in the first 1/2 of the passengers off the ship, we were in the parking lot at 1 pm. Our cruise was in early November, the chance of heavy fog is much higher in January.

When is your cruise? I don't recall anything other than special early group boarding, but I will be sailing out of Bayport in about 3 weeks and can be on the lookout for it.

You should be safe in March / April, while it is possible for a hurricane to occur then, the vast majority form in Hurricane season June 1 - Nov 30, most commonly in Aug - Sept. A hurricane in April is about as common as a snow storm in July for your part of the country, it is very unlikely, but if you go back far enough you will find where they have happened.

There are a number of potential things to see and do around the houston area depending on your interest, the problem is that Houston is so spread out you really need to plan such things in advance.

If you are sailing out of the bayport cruise terminal the only one that has been reported in the area is Enterprise, but they are closed on Sunday.

I am going to take a more middle of the road approach, use sensible precaution, but I would say go on this trip at this time, if these attacks were happening at popular tourist spots every month it might be different, but so far they are all isolated events. Back in 2002 when president Bush declared war against Iraq my teenage son had a school field trip planned to DC the week after the ground war started and I did not let him go. I don't feel that was giving in to terrorism, but sensible precaution. Sure nothing happened on the trip, but I felt and still do feel it was an unnecessary risk. In this case there was not only concern about direct involvement, but also the much higher chance of him simply being in the city during an event with limited adult supervision over a large group of kids.

Assuming Amtrak arrives at the New Orleans Union station rail terminal, it is about 10-12 blocks away from the cruise terminal.

There is also a Spec's (local chain alcohol megastore) about 1/4 mile north north east of the Walmart Supercenter in the same shopping center with Radalls grocery store.

I too prefer Galveston Parkncruise, easy walk to the terminal, official port parking will likely be farther away as it stretches out for several blocks. Good luck with your back, and try to enjoy your cruise, I broke my back at the end of Sept 2010, and still had a full turtle shell back brace on for our cruise in Jan of 2011. We were sailing on Carnival and boarding was delayed, but the check in person insisted on giving me an express handicap boarding waiting group number (maybe due to the fact I had also brought my walking cane, which I really did not need at that point, but brought on the cruise just in case), something I appreciated after sitting in those uncomfortable waiting area chairs for an hour.

I have sailed Emerald and Crown, and will be sailing on Caribbean Princess next month so I have at least studied the deck plans. In overall ship design they are fairly close to each other, but Crown is a bit newer, so some of the "faults" in the deck layout of Caribbean Princess have been corrected. From what I have read these seem to be overall minor details like improved traffic flow around the buffet, and a tweak here and there, most notably the change of placement for Skywalkers due to structural issues with the shopping cart handle placement which also shaded the aft pool, also some changes with various minor venues (ice cream bar moved from one side of the ship by the pool to the other, etc.)