Early Boarding and Boarding Times

[Tranquiltempest]

My SO and I are going on Liberty in September out of Galveston, and this will be his first cruise ever and my first cruise as an adult (went plenty of times with family growing up).

 

We will most likely be taking an over night flight out to Huston which should arrive around 6am the day of boarding. I know many people have said the traffic down to Galveston can be insane, so we are hoping that driving to port early would help us avoid anything too crazy traffic wise.

 

My main question and concern is once we get down to Galveston should we just hang around port till we can start the boarding process? Online it says boarding usually begins around 9-10am, so we don't mind hanging around somewhere close by till then if it means we arrive on time, but do we then have to wait longer if we are given a boarding time of lets say 12? Some people say you can usually just start boarding earlier while others say it goes by room type and C&A level. I am emerald status which I know isn't much, so I don't think that would help us, and we are staying in an interior room. Does anyone know what the earliest time we could board would be? Or does anyone know if there is a place we can hang around at port so early without boarding having started?

[kc320]

Unless there is a problem & boarding is delayed you can usually expect boarding to start around 10:30- 11:00...they go in order of Suites & C&A level...so once they start it goes pretty fast....they don't stick to the "assigned" boarding time

[cb at sea]

If I were you, I'd stop and get a nice breakfast and then head to port. If you arrive before boarding starts, it's lots of standing around, waiting. Not fun.

If you get there around 11am, you should shuffle right thru the security and check in lines, and onboard!

[Tranquiltempest]

Getting breakfast sounds like a great idea! That should kill enough time before making our way to boarding.

 

It sounds like boarding should go pretty steadily, and I don't recall ever feeling stuck waiting for boarding. Then again its different being in charge of the vacation now vs just tagging along as a kid. Thanks for the help!

[LeeW]

Last couple of trips they didn't open the building until 10:30 or so, and passengers were still getting off then. You might be able to drop luggage a bit earlier, but be careful the porter is handling luggage going on the ship and not off. Most of them were helping debarking passengers.

[spookwife]

get outta Houston and drive down to Texas City. then have a nice quiet breakfast before heading over the bridge to the island.

[Tulsacoker]

Wife and I are same as you (flying down early morning on aug 26th day of boarding to Hobby) we were thinking of having a nice breakfast at the airport then getting a shuttle set up for 9:30 pickup.

 

 

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