I booked a cruise to sail September 2018 out of Galveston, TX on the Carnival Valor to a couple stops in Mexico: Cozumel and Progreso.
Everything was looking good as we packed up the car and headed out from Austin at around 7:00 AM for the approximately 200-mile drive.
The parking was reserved in advance and we had Faster to the Fun (FTTF), so we were going to be among the first to board.
But when we were about 80 miles out the weather took a bad turn. The sky turned black and there was a torrential downpour. I slowed down significantly because visibility was suddenly awful.
Not a big deal, I’ve driven through bad rains before.
As we got closer the rains got worse – flash floods and lots of standing water on the highways and cars hydroplaning.
We were still looking OK on time as we got to the point where we were going to cross the bridge to Galveston. When we reached the island side the roads were flooded in anywhere from a foot to about three feet of water.
I started seeing cars abandoned on the side of the road and I was getting pretty freaked out. Thankfully, I was driving a Jeep Wrangler, so we were raised a bit above the water.
Lots of streets were closed off, but I had Waze going to give me the latest directions to the parking lot and port.
As I drove it looked like a speedboat pushing through the water and creating a wake. I was worried any second that the water would flood my engine.
But the Jeep pulled through and got us to the parking lot, which was thankfully raised a couple of feet above the streets.
We got soaked making out way to the shuttle but were able to board quickly and easily. I made a mental note then to always put a change of clothes in my carry-on.
The storm broke a bit and we were able to have some drinks and laugh about it on the top deck after we got settled.
Unfortunately, some other passengers had a tougher time making it to the boat and had to wade through water for blocks with their luggage.
The departure of the ship was delayed by hours to enable people stuck in flood waters to get on board.