Will my HOU to Galveston plan work??

[AJinterpreters]

Hello everyone! My wife and I are going to be the interpreters on the Magic sailing out of Galveston the day after Christmas. I would like to know if you think my plan will work.

 

I would like to rent a car at HOU and drive to our hotel in Galveston. I found a car on hotwire for a toal of $160 for the week we would have it. I booked the baymont inn and suites in Galveston for $43 and they will let me park the car for free while we are working the cruise. The morning of the 26th we would leave the car at the hotel and take a cab to the port ( its three miles away, but the hotel does not have a shuttle). Then after the cruise take a cab back to the hotel. pick up the car, and drive to HOU. We have a 12:05 flight back to KC.

 

Would we have enough time to make it to our 12:05 flight if we were one of the first off of the ship???

 

Thanks in advance for your help.

 

Jeffrey

[Camlott]

Everything sounds good up until a 12:00 flight...

 

Several reasons, but the biggest one is the constant fog threat in Galveston during the winter. Also, being a holiday sailing (week between Xmas and New Years) it is likely to take longer to disembark with all the extra people.

 

If you don't have to have a car, you could use a limo service for less than $160, but that doesn't really help you with a 12:00 flight.

 

Where are you flying to and on what airline? If you are on southwest and they have later flights to your destination you might be ok if the other flights aren't full. If you see you are going to be late you could take advantage of their no change fees and move to a later flight (again, that is assuming there are later flights and space is available).

 

In a perfect scenario I would expect you could be off the ship and back to your hotel around 9:30, then drive to HOU and return rental by 10:30-11:00 (best case).

 

Not sure if you will be boarding and disembarking with crew or passengers? If you are treated as crew then I have no idea how that would affect things. If you get off as a passenger then I would definitely recommend self-carrying your luggage.

[AJinterpreters]

Thanks for the reply! We will disembark with the passengers, this is the 6th cruise we have interpreted and we have always disembarked with everyone else, I think it's the same this time :). Yes we are on southwest, I know they do have a flight a lot later in the day....just didn't want to hang out all day waiting for the flight. I will check and see if there are still seats on the later flight.

 

Jeffrey

[Shekim]

Thanks for the reply! We will disembark with the passengers, this is the 6th cruise we have interpreted and we have always disembarked with everyone else, I think it's the same this time :). Yes we are on southwest, I know they do have a flight a lot later in the day....just didn't want to hang out all day waiting for the flight. I will check and see if there are still seats on the later flight.

 

Jeffrey

Barring any heavy fog your timeline is fine. Fog is worse during late Jan to mid March.

[realmccoy]

They will allow you to have priority debarkation if you ask at the front desk and show them your flight info. Sometime you can do this the first day at sea and other times you have to wait until the last day. We did this before and were off the ship at 8:30am.