DavidMutchler

As another poster said, "Uber has made an agreement with the Port to pay the fees necessary to access picking up passengers". However, be aware that the agreement is not effective until May 1. On the other hand, also note that Cruise Critic folks report that Uber is already (before May 1) dropping off and picking up people just fine. If you are traveling before May 1 and want to play it safe, you could do Lyft instead of Uber, but Lyft may have fewer cars available (hard to say). More worrisome, if you are traveling on a Sunday morning, then Uber/Lyft rides are in short supply. You are probably OK at 8:20 a.m. but may experience surge pricing. Also note that on Uber's Scheduling page (https://www.uber.com/us/en/ride/how-it-works/reserve/), it says: "¹ Uber doesn’t guarantee that a driver will accept your ride request." (emphasis mine). "Your ride is confirmed once you receive your driver details." Have a great cruise!!!

What day of the week is your debarkation? On Sunday mornings, on all recent weeks (I checked each week for last 4 weeks), Uber and Lyft had surge pricing and low availability from about 8 a.m. to 11 a.m. You should be able to get an Uber/Lyft at 8:45 or so, but expect prices to be as much as double what they were in getting from Hobby to the Port, on Sundays. (Thursdays don't seem bad according to another poster, and I have no data for other days of the week.) FWIW, I think (NOT SURE) that if "booking" means using the Uber reservation system, then booking an Uber ride at low-availability times does very little by way of a guarantee (unless you have made a private arrangement with the driver). If you know otherwise, please post. Thanks!

Thanks for the update. Please do let us know your experience with the Uber pickup today. Thanks!

Uber does not yet have port privileges, so not really an option. Lyft will be sky-high ($250 or so to Hobby) at that time (and the addition of Uber in May (?) is unlikely to change it much). Do a shuttle service like Galveston Express instead. Uber/Lyft FROM Houston TO Galveston works fine, because there are lots of such drivers in Houston. Uber/Lyft FROM Galveston TO Houston is a disaster from 8 to 11 a.m. because there are not many drivers in Galveston.

Getting a Lyft (or Uber once they start coming to the terminal) from Galveston is impractical in the hours from about 8 a.m. to 11 a.m. local time. Just not enough Galveston drivers, and way too much demand. Use a shuttle service instead, especially given your party size.

The April 30 cruise (just before the May 7 cruise referenced in the post) lists a Headliner show featuring comedy juggler Adam Kario where Blue Planet is listed in the above. He is listed for the Amber Theatre days 4, 5 and 6 (one show each day). There is no opportunity to reserve seats for his shows. Judging from that, perhaps Blue Planet will start on the May 7 cruise (and not the April 30 cruise that I will be on). I like juggling, so while I was looking forward to Blue Planet, juggling is OK by me too. BTW, Blue Planet was on Allure pre-covid, as far back as 2014, I think. It looks like a spectacular show.

Perhaps this helps, perhaps not, but according to the web: A WORLD OF WOWS Celebrate Mother Earth during a one-of-a-kind, environmentally charged show as Blue Planet transports you from mountain summits to the bottom of the sea with powerful music, soaring vocals, energetic dance, and aerial acrobatics that will leave your entire family breathless.

Glad that you had an overall great cruise! Did you drive to the port yourself, or fly to Houston and use transport from there? If the latter, how did you return to the airport upon disembarkation. (Getting from the airport to the Port is easy, via Lyft among other approaches, but getting Lyft on the way back seems nigh impossible, so I am interested in what shuttle services folks are using...)

Thanks to OP for the excellent review; I am sure that they will respond to your question above. But perhaps the information that I have is helpful to you: For the Allure, for April sailings, reservations for shows opened at various times between about March 1 (as reported here on Cruise Critic) and March 9. For my April 30 sailing, reservations opened on March 9 about 6 p.m. (I was watching several times each day.) It seems clear from various posts that the exact day/time that reservations for shows open varies from ship to ship and from sailing to sailing, but a rule-of-thumb is that sailing for month X start around the 1st of month X-1. (So sailings for April started seeing reservations opening about March 1, but not all at once.) Reservations stayed open for a surprisingly (to me) long time -- they are still open for all but the Comedy Club (it is now 19 days since reservations opened), and even the Comedy Club remained open for about 10 days. Others have reported much shorter availability on other cruises, however, so best to check daily starting about August 1 (for your sailing in September). Thanks again to OP for the great review!

See for a sample of Rookie.

For me on the 4/30 Allure, I checked in when the app opened but 11 a.m. was the earliest offered. Perhaps they are not offering 10:30 a.m. at this time.

Thanks! Your web site is lovely and very helpful (even though my wife and I are long past having babies) -- your photos are great and your child is adorable!

Do you recall what the LATEST time slot to get off the ship is? 10 a.m.?? (Trying to plan for a shuttle to the airport, and would rather wait on the ship than in the airport for our 5 p.m. flight.)

Thanks!

Any update to this? We are currently booked for Ice Show, Mamma Mia, and Aqua show on 4/30 cruise. Will those be changing???

I hope that you are right, but I am nervous that they might take the $50 OBC away in that case...

Different people have reported different times to check in, for different sailings. FWIW, my sailing was on the Allure out of Galveson for 4/30. For me, I am on EST and check-in appeared to open at 1 a.m. EST, i.e., midnight CST (ship) time. But like I said, others are reporting variants. Sorry to be confusing!

Wow, nice thinking out of the box! (to the poster who changed the time on their computer). It seems that different people have experienced different times at which the app starts allowing check-in. For me, I am on EST and it allowed me on beginning at midnight CST (ship time). But others have reported different experiences. Bottom line: If you want to get the very first crack at it, start trying at EST (or at local time if yours is before EST, as is the person in Rome).

For me last night, it was a few minutes after midnight CST (Central, ship, Galveston) time. No idea whether that is normal or not (and I certainly don't deny your experience!). I did try midnight EST (and thereafter) but with no success then. (And it is always possible that I screwed up on that, since if there were 10:30 a.m. slots, they were gone when I got entry to check-in.) YMMV.

I am doing the same on Allure 4/30 - 5/7. 1. Getting from IAH or HOU to the Port of Galveston is no problem. There are plenty of Lyft drivers if you want to do that. Or you can do one of the shuttle services at what is probably a similar price for two. I am doing Lyft but I have 4 of us (my wife, 2 granddaughters and me) and I expect to pay about $50 plus tip from HOU. The prices that I have heard from IAH are more than the $60 that you list -- more like $80 plus tip, but that is just what others on the board have suggested. In any case, you have lots of easy options for embarkation. 2. Getting from the Port of Galveston to HOU (or IAH) is much harder, since there are (as another poster said) 6,000 people trying to leave within a 3-hour or so window, and there are far fewer Lyft drivers in Galveston than in Houston. Last Sunday (3/12) morning, I made "mock" (temporary, did not "pull the trigger") reservations on Lyft to test prices to HOU. I tried at regular intervals throughout the morning. They were normal (circa $50) until about 8:30 a.m., at which point (or soon thereafter) they skyrocketed to about $200 and stayed in the $150 to $250 range, with limited availability, for several hours. So Lyft is a reasonable option only if you self-disembark AND are quick about it. Traveling with children, being quick is not possible for me. (:-) I am looking at Galveston Express, which another poster found reasonable. (Their overall rating seems a little mixed, but certainly not terrible.) Saltwater Moms comes highly rated, but I am hesitant to book with a company that does booking only through Facebook. (That's just me, others feel very comfortable with them.) I would be grateful if you share your experiences here, upon your return. Have a GREAT cruise!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Thanks, good to know!

As another poster said, you must use the ** app ** and not the Web site. I did it last night. It was a bit confusing to me since it listed 3 steps: 1. Enter passenger data (which I do not yet have, like my passport number), 2. Choose arrival time, 3. Fill out health form. You can go straight to Step 2 (clicking on it) and choose your time. It saves that and you can go straight to the next passenger for their arrival time, etc, and you can come back another time to fill out the passenger information. Step 3 cannot be done until the day before you sail. FWIW, check-in opened for me a few minutes past midnight SHIP time (Galveston time, in my case for the Allure). The earliest arrival time slot available was 11 a.m. Since I did check-in within 2 minutes of it opening, I am guessing that 11 a.m. was the earliest time slot for my sailing (Allure, 4/30), i.e., no 10:30 a.m. slot (unless those are reserved for folks with more status points than me).

I did brief "mock" bookings on Lyft last Sunday. Pricing was very high from about 9 a.m. to about 11:30 a.m. (circa $150 to $220 for a regular car to Houston Hobby, instead of the usual $50 of so). Like you, I would like to hang out in Galveston until at least noon, but I don't know how to get anywhere with luggage. All, is there even a place with chairs to sit down when disembarking?

Thanks, very helpful! Do they ever fill up and have to turn away kids? If so, how often and how does that work?

Getting from Hobby or a hotel near Hobby is easy via Lyft. Plenty of rides, cost is about $50 plus tip (so about $60) for a regular Lyft, or about $57 plus tip (about $70, just like the quoted person said) for a Preferred (bigger vehicle, but still for only 4 passengers). So if you have 2 passengers, you are just as well off going with a transfer service (circa $35 per person) or Lyft, your choice. If you have 3 or 4 passengers, the Lyft is cheaper. The problem is going the other way - from the Port to Hobby. Everyone is trying to do this at once during the time frame of 9 a.m. to 11 a.m., and there are far fewer Lyfts based in Galveston than based in Houston. This morning (Sunday) I saw prices that were about $110 to $200 for a regular or Preferred Lyft during the 9 a.m. to 11 a.m. time period, and often no guarantee of even that. If you can wait until noon, prices drop back to under $60 plus tip for Port to Hobby, but I don't yet know a good place to spend the time from 10 a.m. (last off the ship) to noon. I am on an 4/30/2023 cruise, and my problem is that the transfer services mentioned elsewhere in this thread are booked until about noon (by which time Lyft works OK, judging from this morning). So I need to find a place to relax from about 10 a.m. to noon, with my wife, 2 granddaughters, and luggage. Any suggestions from anyone out there?