In January 2012 we sailed on the Crown Princess to the Southern Caribbean islands of Aruba and Curacao and in January 2013 we sailed the Ruby Princess to St. Thomas, St. Maarten and Grand Turk in the Turks and Caicos Islands.
We had been to Bayreuth, Germany for the Wagner festival in August 2013 and had 4 months of work and everyday life to wait before our cruise on a ship called the Caribbean Princess, built in 2004 and on the sea 365 days a year since then as part of the Princess Cruises Fleet.
The ship would sail from a new cruise port called Bayport in the Houston area of Texas and neither of us had been to Texas before, even though it is the biggest state in the USA. It would sail West and visit the island of Roatan, Honduras then proceed to Belize in Central America and make her last stop at Cozumel, a Mexican Island off the Yucatan Peninsula, before returning to Houston. A seven day cruise to the sun.
Our journey begins at O'Hare airport in Chicago....
Snow on the ground but we're warm inside having breakfast in the Tuscany Cafe. A simple American breakfast of bacon and eggs and a cappuccino .
Soon we are on the airplane, flying United Airlines as we always do and we push away from the gate on time for our flight to Houston International Airport, Texas. It is raining as we taxi to the take-off runway
We race down the runway
After 2 hours high above the weather we can see Texas below
And within 30 minutes we have our luggage and have been delivered to the Rental Car Complex by a courtesy shuttle bus. We always rent Hertz, no matter where we are. Our car is already waiting for us so we don't have to go to the counter and wait.
A Hyundai Genesis sedan
Houston is a very big city- 600 square miles and we had chosen to stay by the sea, close to where the ship would dock the next morning-we always fly into a city the day before our cruise so there is no chance of us being delayed and missing the ship. So it took us 45 minutes to drive the 35 miles to our hotel in the area known as Clear Lake, which is where the Johnson Space Center is (" Houston we have a problem...")
We had a room on a high floor
The hotel has many photographs from the 1960's and 70's, from the days of Space Exploration by NASA
Views from our room. On the horizon are many oil refineries.
Clear Lake
The Hotel is maybe 50 years old but is kept well and the best thing about it was the friendly staff.
When we told them we were going to drive to a steakhouse a few miles away for dinner they said they would have someone drive us there and pick us up when we called them so we would be able to have a few drinks and not have to deal with driving back home. Great idea!
Although the sun wasn't shining the temperature was 75 degrees F- more than 40 degrees higher than Chicago so I was already loving it.
I took a stroll around the hotel
Carol unpacked while I spent some time outside enjoying the warm fresh sea air. Soon it got dark (around 6 p.m in January) and we and time for a quick nap before we would be driven to our restaurant of choice (using Tripadvisor)- Perry's Steakhouse. When in Texas we must celebrate with a juicy steak!
The hotel was in a very quiet area, so there weren't many restaurants or shops nearby, apart from those within the hotel itself. Walking was out of the question so it was good that we had our won car if we needed it.
When the time came the hotel provided a driver and he drove us the 3 or 4 miles to Perry's.....
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