Liberty arrival at Galveston Home Port in Cruise Press

[MADflyer]

Articles about the arrival of Liberty of the Seas arrival at her Galveston home port have been published over the weekend in the cruise industry press.

 

http://www.cruiseindustrynews.com/cruise-news/13297-liberty-of-the-seas-arrives-in-galveston.html

 

http://www.seatrade-cruise.com/news/news-headlines/liberty-of-the-seas-has-new-home-as-biggest-cruise-ship-in-texas.html

 

Interestingly, Liberty's Captain continuously referred to the Liberty deployment as being for a 'couple of seasons' at Galveston, while on the repo sailing. The ship is currently booked until May of 2018 for the Cayman calls and that would support those statements.

 

RCI has not stated anything about their dissatisfaction with the fact that Galveston did not finish the promised new Terminal 2 on time for the ships arrival, while Carnival has been much more vocal about them wanting the terminal ready by March of 2016 after announcing they are sending their own Liberty to the Texas port.

 

Small Port mini-review for November 13th Liberty disembarkation (for those interested.)

 

The terminal was clearly 'not ready for world class cruising' upon our arrival on Friday.

 

There was no 'fanfare' or special greeting for the ship, most likely to not bring focus on the gaping hole where the new terminal should have been. This was a bit disappointing after also taking Oasis for the first visit to Southampton and Quantum on her arrival to Bayonne.

 

The port agent is Intercruises, which is owned by RCL partner TUI Group and also runs operations at many other RCI home ports.

 

While passengers with booked private transfers or taxis seemed to leave the port somewhat quickly, those booked on RCI transfer busses waited in long lines and a slow process for boarding busses.

 

I sure would not have liked to see this operation in storm as there was almost no shelter, except for a few small steel frame canopy tents for cover. There is no seating in the waiting area for shuttles and it was horrible to watch some struggle with the extremely long waits. They did allow passengers access to a couple small public restrooms at the terminal entrance.

 

There were never more than 6 taxis at the port and the wait for taxis was quite long.

 

The TSA was at full staff for our arrival with 16+ agents and they left the building long before many of us were able to board our transfers. This efficiency meant that everyone was off the ship by 09:50, while many were still waiting for transfers at 1 PM.

 

Lines to enter the terminal were very long from 11:30 AM and the baggage drop off was unclear.

 

Probably the largest dissatisfaction with the Port of Galveston was the lack of signage. The bus parking spots did not have numbers or signs and transfer operators just pulled into any available spot, leading to a little bit of chaos as the only way to move was to cross through the very unorganized lines for those waiting to board the RCI transfers.

 

For local transfers the Tremont House hotel certainly had the most efficient transfer service and were sure to always use the same area for all of their pick-ups and they had very high comfort vehicles.

 

I had chosen Galveston Express for my transfer and I was generally satisfied and the owner handled a small 'hiccup' in service well. The other operator Galveston Limousines was more expensive and did have large coaches, but that meant that many waited over an hour on buses before they actually left the port for the airport.

 

While this port will be a clear choice for Texans and other local markets, I would never consider flying into the area for a cruise given the current status of the port and the operations. What was most unfortunate was that no rental car agency had arranged a temporary station at the port or that no services were offered at the port for passenger assistance.

 

Articles related to the terminal 1 development

 

http://www.bizjournals.com/houston/morning_call/2014/01/royal-caribbean-agrees-to-bring-more-cruises.html

 

http://www.houstonchronicle.com/business/article/Delays-cost-overruns-plague-cruise-terminal-6470064.php

Edited November 16, 2015 by MADflyer

[pspercy]

I believe some of the delay was due to geological issues, foundation had to be redesigned or something like that.

[Viaductmusicman]

The port disembarkation was a disaster with no signage - no one to ask which line was for taxis, buses to any of the 2 airports - we waited in line for almost an hour to get on a bus that had arrived with people starting their cruise and their luggage to be taken off - the people running the lines were obnoxious even though we tried to tell them we had a flight and connection to catch - we missed our flight and our connection and we took almost 3 days to get home because no one had taken into account our flight times, the traffic to the airport and the 1 hour long queue at Galveston - a total farce - the port was not ready and Royal should hold their hands up and admit their mistakes

Edited November 18, 2015 by Viaductmusicman
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