Galveston Island Beach Vacation

Galveston Island offers 32 miles of Gulf Coast beach and beautiful vacation accommodations, entertainment, and shopping.

Carnival, Royal Caribbean, Celebrity and Princess Cruise Lines take passengers to various stops in Mexico, the Caribbean and more. Visit http://www.GalvestonCruises.com.

The free Galveston Island Ferry, located on Hwy 87 (Ferry Road), runs every few minutes and visitors can park and ride or drive their vehicle aboard.

Moody Gardens features the Aquarium Pyramid, the Rainforest Pyramid with thousands of tropical plants, exotic fish and birds, the mysteries of science at the Discovery Pyramid, and the Moody Gardens Hotel.

Schlitterbahn Galveston Island offers amazing rides and attractions, including a large wave pool, uphill water coasters, thrilling speed slides, kid's water playgrounds, whitewater rapids, relaxing hot tubs, family raft rides, the Boogie Bahn surf ride and the exclusive Transportainment river system. Relax in steaming warm waters and enjoy summer fun all year long at Texas' first heated, indoor waterpark.

We went to Galveston Island in June 2010, me, my husband, and two young granddaughters. We stayed in a cottage called Jamaica Dream. It is adorable. It’s quite small, only one bedroom and one bath, but spotlessly clean, done in bright beachy colors and nice fixtures and appliances; everything you need, plus a darling little backyard with a picket fence, flowers, and a hammock! There is a futon in the living room and that's where the girls slept. Pets are allowed so we took our little Maltipoo, Daisy. Daisy loved the cottage, especially the back yard.

When we travel we like to do a lot of our own cooking. Since we are all vegetarians, and we were traveling with a dog, it just makes life easier. Even though the kitchen in this cottage is tiny, it still works well for us.

Donna, the owner of the Jamaica Dream cottage, lives upstairs, which is accessed by an outside staircase. She maintains the yard beautifully and in among the rose bushes in the front yard are tomato and pepper plants. She told the granddaughters they could pick anything out there that was ripe and they were thrilled to pick tomatoes and peppers to go with our supper.

We spent a lot of time sitting outside in the immaculate backyard on wicker furniture on a shaded patio, with the two girls vying for possession of the hammock. Hot sun, cool ocean breeze, we had a good time.

The beach was covered in sea grass but the granddaughters had a great time body surfing. Ben and Jerry's has a store there and we had hand-packed ice cream.

It’s been two years since Hurricane Ike ripped through this area, but I still see blue tarps here and there and damage that has yet to be repaired. Of course, Galveston looks nothing like my childhood memory; Hurricane Ike destroyed 40,000 trees.

We visited MoodyGardens tropical rain forest inside an enormous glass pyramid; this was one of the highlights of our trip. The foliage is wonderful. The flowers are amazing, orchids of every type and color. Brilliant birds and turtles delighted the granddaughters. I would love to go back and stay at the MoodyGardens hotel and visit all three pyramids and Schlitterbahn, and then move back to the Jamaica Dream cottage and stay a little longer and just relax.

The old downtown area is wonderful; quite a contrast from the beach, like a different world.

For information about the cottage, go to http://www.vacationhomerentals.com/vacation-rentals/Galveston-Texas-vacation-rental-cottage-proID-46543.html

We will go back! This trip inspired me to mosaic again. My mosaic blog is http://www.mosaicroad.blogspot.com.

I was going to write a hub about our trip to Marfa, but someone beat me to it. Here's a link to their hub about a wonderful Texas phenomenom, the Marfa lights: http://hubpages.com/hub/Texas-Tourism-The-Darkest-Sky-in-Texas-and-the-Marfa-Ghost-Lights.

We've seen them and we were really lucky; sometimes they appear small and far away but the night we visited, they were spectacular.

UPDATE 4/13/12 -- we are going back in early June, to Galveston Island and the Jamaica Beach cottage. Can't wait! Same group, Mimi, Papa, two granddaughters, and dog Daisy, a tiny puppy then and a big 6 pound 2.5 year old now. Wonder if she'll remember that cottage. She was in doggie heaven there; beautiful back yard, sleeping with the two girls for the first time, she had our full attention the entire time ... This time we will try leaving the dog alone in the cottage while we take the girls to Schlitterbahn and rent pedal cars to tool up and down the beach road.