Galveston airport to pier transport

[JudiinMt]

Any tips besides the cruise line bus? RCCL is quoting $62 from IAH to the ship. Thanks for any help.

[FEMH]

Is the $62.00 one way or round trip?

Galveston Limo charges $35.00 one way or $60.00 round trip from IAH to the pier in Galveston. Not a big difference unless your quote was for one way only.

http://www.galvestonlimo.com

[JudiinMt]

That is a per person round trip price.

[FEMH]

There's not too much of a difference between the ship's bus and Galveston Limo from Hobby to Galveston on my January Ecstasy cruise either. I'm taking the Galveston limo because my flight gets in several hours before the Carnival buses start running, and I'd just as soon hang out at the pier than at the airport. By the way, it's a long way from IAH to Galveston - about a two hour ride. If there are several of you, why don't you look into renting a sedan or a towncar from a limo service. They charge per car, as opposed to per person. I would consider that, except that for my cruise, we are flying in from all over and just meeting on the ship.

[calliecat]

We've booked with Enterprise Car rental (one way) from Hobby. It's only going to cost $30.xx and we can drop it off in Galveston.

We will use Princess back to Hobby because our flight leaves at 1245 and I want to make sure we get off the boatas early as possible. I figure if we've got Princess transportation, they will accomodate us better. I might be wrong but I don't want to mess with getting back to the airport on our own.

[Sunrise]

Calliecat -- I am looking at doing the one-way rental too. How did you get from the car rental return place in Galveston to the pier? What were your general thoughts about renting a car vs. taking other transportation? We have plenty of time on both the arrival and return to rent a car and are thinking this might be our best bet. Let me know if you have any other tips!

 

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I figured I would edit this post as opposed to re-posting. I just made the reservations to rent a car to and from IAH and it was so easy and is saving us $61.00 (possibly more if we return the car sooner -- I made a very liberal guess as to how ling we would need the car). Basically the car is about $7.50/hr then add in all the taxes. I'm still interested in the other logistical information if anyone has done this before!

[therbst]

At IAH, there is just one shuttle to all rental agencies which are housed about 1 mile from the terminal. Because we like to arrive a day early and we found prices at Houston hotels about ½ the prices at Galveston, we had decided to rent a car from Enterprise for the two one-way trips between Houston and Galveston. We discovered the full size car we reserved was not big enough for our luggage, so had to upgrade to a SUV ($68 + $22 in tax and fees for the 24 hours). We probably could have gotten by if we had some rope and tied the trunk down. After dropping the family at the terminal in Galveston, I returned the car about 3 miles up the road at the Enterprise office and took their shuttle back to the terminal. That took about 30 minutes.

We had heard about difficulties getting rental cars from Enterprise for the trip back to Houston, so I had made late afternoon reservations for the flight back. We decided to have a leisurely morning on board and not worry about being the last ones off the ship. We were the last group called at about 9:30. The line to get through immigration was about 15 minutes. The Enterprise office at the terminal was easy to find, and our paperwork was waiting for us. We were only allowed to send one person for the car with no luggage. I was surprised when I was instructed to board the parking lot shuttle. Apparently Enterprise was initiating a new method and having people pick up the rental cars at the nearby parking lot rather than at their office. Unfortunately, the new plan didn’t work very well. They were not able to shuttle cars to the lot fast enough, and I ended up sitting in the parking lot (no shade, about 100+ degrees) for nearly two hours waiting for a car.

Those who complained loudest were given cars first. I’m not a complainer, and other people really were missing their flights, so I was last. To Enterprise’s credit, they upgraded me and they made the car and the gas free.