The curse of Bayport ?

Saturday morning and I woke up in Texas for the first time. It was 7 a.m and I looked out my window in the direction of Bayport. There was some fog over the water....

I see no ship. It must be running late. The fog was slowly lifting. That's a relief!

Down by the pool with that first cup of coffee I check my phone and find an email from Princess Cruises telling me that we won't be able to board the ship until 2 hours later than planned as they have a Norovirus outbreak onboard and want to clean the ship thoroughly before we board.

 No problem. I understand. We'll board at 2pm instead of Noon.

Princess had been plagued by issues since they began to use this port-most often fog would delay ships coming or going or there would be ship accidents that would jam the  very busy narrow channel out to the Bay of Galveston. The Port of Houston had built a state of the art facility even though at the time they had no ships clamoring to use it so they had to give Princess and NCL (Norwegian Cruise Lines) very attractive terms to lure them here in 2013.

Some were doubting the wisdom of Princess' decision as delays cost them money and passenger goodwill. We "roll with the punches" and stay optimistic.

Looks like it would be a nice day....

Carol joined me for breakfast in the hotel restaurant, overlooking the lake. I heard a lady nearby talking about a heavy fog during the night. After our fine cooked breakfast I went back up to the hotel room and in the distance saw the ship out at sea, slowly headed toward Bayport. She should have arrived by 7 a.m but it was now after 10.

So no rush now that the ship was delayed.  We sat by the pool for a while before packing

Up in our room we packed and took a last look at our surroundings

The vast expanse of land on the right is part of the Johnson Space Center

Even though the ship was late we still had a schedule to keep as the Hertz location we had to return the car to closed at noon and we had to drop it off in League City, several miles away. From there we would take a cab to Bayport which is part of the town of Seabrook.

So it was that we arrived at Bayport and the ship around 12.30 pm.

Passengers returning from their cruise were still getting off the ship.

When we checked in we found that the ship would now be boarding  at 5.30 due to her late arrival followed by the deep cleaning which could only proceed once the other passengers had vacated the ship. As we were booked in a suite we could wait in a comfortable  lounge with sofas and snack machines and power for our computers instead of the giant waiting room with hard chairs and a crowd.

Princess offered a shuttle service to the nearby seaside town of Keema for passengers who wanted to go shopping, have a meal or visit the boardwalk amusements there. They would have to take their hand luggage with them though-not something we wanted to do. People lined up for the shuttles.

We settled in for a 5 hour wait.....