There’s really only one word for what’s going on in Galveston these days. Magic. Five months ago, when we sailed on the Carnival Ecstasy from the south Texas port, there were three cruise ships that called Galveston home, with combined space for 8,722 passengers.
By next year, there will be five ships. Passenger total: 14,998.
Magic?
Two of the five ships are the Carnival Magic and the Disney Magic and, yes, you are allowed to ask why two cruise lines would give their ships the same names. Well, kind of like having two Georges, or two Susans, with different surnames, we suppose.
The latest to dance to the Texas swing is Disney’s Magic. The announcement will be made by Disney today, but Jenalia Moreno at the Houston Chronicle was all over it on Monday. The Magic was Disney’s first cruise ship, launched in 1998, so the Magic Kingdom had first dibs on the name…as if that was ever in question. With the arrival of the Dream this year, cruise insiders knew it wouldn’t be long until the Magic had a new home.
It will sail a dozen 7-day cruises from Galveston, starting in September 2012. It may just be a market test, but judging by the influx of ships, the port has already passed that test.
Carnival will send the Ecstasy and the Conquest, both of which call Galveston home right now, to New Orleans and replace them with the Triumph (October) and the Magic (November). Royal Caribbean will swap the Voyager of the Seas for the Mariner of the Seas, two ships of the same size. And Princess will make its Crown Princess part of the competition for cruising out of Texas.
Nearby, the huge metropolis that is Houston sits with an empty cruise terminal. Built at a cost of $81 million and open since 2008, it has been unable to attract any of the heavy hitters of cruising. The philosophy in its creation was “Build it, they will come.”
They should have added “…to Galveston.”