Galveston, Texas is our home port. We are here every 4 or 5 days. Trouble is, we really don't get to see much of our home ports.
We have loading on home port days. That means we get anywhere between 6 and 25 pallets of merchandise and marketing. All of that has to be unpacked from the pallets, loaded onto trolleys, taken to one of four storage lockers or to the shop floor. If it's going to the shop floor it has to be unpacked and the shelves and display cases need to be refilled. That takes between 2 - 4 hours! On a good day the pallets will be on board by 9am, and on a bad day by noon. Back on board is 3pm. So often we don't get to go out in the home ports.
The bonus of doing 4 and 5 day itineraries is that we don't get loading every home port, just every second home port. But we still have to back on board by 3pm, that doesn't leave much time to explore. So you can imagine how pleased and excited we were when we had an unexpected overnight stay in Galveston.
We'd already spent a day at the mall, but there was no way we were spend the evening on the ship. So Ketty, Kerem, Luis and I headed to Pleasure Pier. An amusement park on the Galveston sea wall. Being midweek it was only open until 8pm, but being midweek also meant it wasn't very crowded.
You have to buy a $10 pier pass just to walk on the pier, if you want to enjoy any rides that's extra. Or you can buy a ride pass for $27.00. Cruise ship crew are notoriously cheap! We certainly weren't paying $27.00 for two outs. We almost walked away. We asked about a crew discount and got one! $20.00 for a couple of hours amusement was doable. Told you we were cheap.
Pleasure Pier is a small amusement park, only 15 rides, more like a summer fair. If you rule out the kiddie rides, and the closed rides there were only about 10 that we were interested in. And then take out the ones that turn me upside down. Yep, I don't do upside down. I'm so not a fan of making myself sick:)
My favourite rides were the Galaxy Wheel and the Texas Flyer. Yes, a Ferris wheel and a really big swing. I know, I'm a wimp. But consider the swings are 230ft above the ocean and it's not quite so wimpy. Hey, to the tallest swing ride in Texas.
The Galaxy Wheel is 100ft so also not for those with a fear of heights. Which we discovered Kerem has when the Ferris wheel stopped with us at the top. Let's just say we are not a very sympathetic bunch, we laughed.
After we had exhausted ourself on rides and sideshow games we had dinner and a beer across the road at Fish Tales. I had fish tacos which were surprisingly tasty. I was expecting expensive and bland. I got expensive and spicy with crappy service. Oh well, can't have it all I guess.
Overall it was a fun evening, and such a treat to spend it off the ship, but one trip to Pleasure Pier was more than enough. It's pricey for what it is and with limited time in port I don't need to return.
Posted with Blogsy