Post Cruise NASA Excursion

[BEFdoc]

Hi Folks,

 

Anyone done this excursion? Comments greatly appreciated.

[PacificMountain2012]

Never been there as an excursion, but visited twice, Well worth it in my opinion, in fact look forward to the next time we have an opportunity to go. If you're old enough to remember the Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo programs it is a must see. Even if your not old enough its a great way to see history, my children love it.

Edited July 15, 2015 by PacificMountain2012

[ski_mom]

There are tickets on Groupon right now that you can get for $15 if you'd be interested in that.

[dsschmidt1995]

We are staying in Houston overnight before we take the Carnival shuttle Sunday to Galveston. Would love to tour NASA as well. Anyone know how we could do this? We are staying at La Quinta by the Bush Int airport.

[karessamom]

We are flying in on Thursday for our Sunday Cruise. We managed to get tickets to the level 9 tour at NASA for Friday--( They only do the level 9 tours M-F and only take about 13 people--they are also expensive at $89 per person but it includes lunch) it's more in depth than the normal tours and tram tour so we're really excited about it. you can go to spacecenter.org to find out more about the different tours etc. (I might add also that it includes admission for a 2nd day to just roam around and do the regular tours etc. since this level 9 takes most of the day) We also plan to go to Galveston the next day and hang out there. We're staying at the Best Western Mainland in Texas City got fairly good rates and incl. breakfast. We're flying into Hobby and rented a car which we can return in Texas City and take a shuttle for $50 (Avis) or we're taking a taxi for about $35 the morning of the cruise. So excited about everything! Galveston Express has a shuttle that runs between the airports and Galveston their rates are really good but they don't stop in Texas City however we booked them for the trip from Galveston to Hobby when we get back from the cruise. much less than the Carnival Transfer at $20 per person! instead of the 35 or so that Carnival charges.

[webzila]

We are staying in Houston overnight before we take the Carnival shuttle Sunday to Galveston. Would love to tour NASA as well. Anyone know how we could do this? We are staying at La Quinta by the Bush Int airport.

 

Drive from IAH to NASA would be about an hour. If you don't have a car then you would have to take a taxi or Uber. Roundtrip cost for the drive may not be worth it.

[beccaaz]

We did this excursion on our last cruise out of Houston (Jan 2015). Although I enjoyed the Space Center tour, it felt a little rushed. Our guide told us as soon as we got into the visitor center to head directly to the tram tours or we wouldn't have time to take it. The line was HUGELY long and we ended up having to take the second tour (not one that we wanted, but it was what we could take.) When we got back, we had a little time to visit some of the exhibits in the visitor center before we were loaded back on the bus for the trip to the airport. Our guide did a head count but somehow ended up missing two people who were left behind and had to find their own way to the airport. The guide wanted to leave their luggage sitting on the curb but the other passengers spoke up and he finally went and found a Norwegian representative to take possession of their bags until they could get to the airport. This was at Hobby airport and the rest of us that were flying out of IAH were getting nervous about making our flights. We got there and the guide said we didn't have time to stop at each terminal so he would drop us all off at one and we would have to drag our luggage to our own terminals. Ummm... no! After some strenuous objections, he finally relented and made 2 terminal stops.

 

The excursion itself is not bad, but the organization made me a little hesitant to ever book it again!

Edited July 27, 2015 by beccaaz

[debbeck]

Beccaaz - what cruise line did you book this excursion with? We are using the Princess line to do this excursion in Dec. Our flight doesn't leave until 5:40 pm so we have plenty of time but I did notice the whole excursion is only 3 1/2 hours so it does mean we will have a short time at the NASA museum. I wish there was a way to just rent a car at the port area and return it at the airport but there are no services like that at the Seabook port that Princess is using in the Houston area. The excursion with transfers seemed the best option but it is not perfect.

[BEFdoc]

Hi Folks,

 

Anyone done this excursion? Comments greatly appreciated.

 

 

Thanks for all the replies!

 

B

[karessamom]

We did the level 9 tour a couple of days before we boarded the ship. with that you actually have 1 day for the tour and another day that you can go back at your leisure. It was incredibly awesome even though we were both like zombies (our plane out of SLC was late causing us to miss the connection we had in phoenix and not being able to take another flight til 8pm out of PHX getting us into HOU at 12:30am hotel at 2am which had a broken AC needless to say we hadn't had much sleep before we had to be out to NASA at 10!) we really enjoyed it. The awe of sitting in the old Mission control room where Gene Krantz and other had sat for Apollo 13 and other Apollo missions was incredible. we also got to sit in the mock up test simulator of the shuttle. it was so worth the $89pp to do the tour! We wanted to go back the 2nd day but there were other things we wanted to do too and so limited time. Saturday we headed for the Battle ship Texas then to Galveston for the evening.