For those of you with a few days in Texas pre-cruise, I'd suggest considering some time over in
San Antonio (riverwalk, Alamo) or the Texas Hill Country between San Antonio and Austin (
Gruene,
New Braunfels,
Fredericksburg). A drive from Houston to San Antonio is about 3 hours on Interstate. You could easily make a triangular drive Houston - San Antonio - hill country - Austin (state capitol) and then back to Houston so you are not repeating your route.
Between Austin and Houston is a small town called Brenham, which is where Blue Bell Ice Cream is made. You can tour the
creamery there. Of course, now that I look at the website, it looks like they charge $5 for the tour. When I was teaching in Brenham, it was a free tour. There are also several
wineries... might be a way to stock up of wines to bring onboard for your stateroom. (Heck, I still haven't finished mine from Madeira on the WBTA!) The Hill Country especially has
several wineries.
San Antonio has a
zoo,
Riverwalk,
Alamo,
Sea World, etc.
Austin has Fifth Street (party area), the state capitol, and lots more. I have stayed in hotels in downtown San Antonio (on the Riverwalk) and Austin (a Hilton and Double Tree Suites there) and it was very safe and walkable. In San Antonio, Sea World is about a 30 minute drive from downtown, and we have stayed at the
Hyatt Hill Country Resort and Spa out there if you have Hyatt points to use.
Houston gives you the skyscraper / big city perspective, while those other cities above give you more of the "Texas" perspective. I've presented at conferences downtown and had daytrips to Houston, and while there are things to see in Houston, if you want to see more of what you have envisioned
Texas to be about, you might want to explore a little.
For those with more time, you could also head north towards Fort Worth. Great
zoo,
Stockyards,
Omni theatre,
Botanical and Japanese Gardens,
Sundance Square (with
Reata restaurant from the old movie "
Giant"), and good Mexican food at
Joe T Garcia's that has walls adorned with pictures of famous people and presidents who have eaten there. Fort Worth has a great downtown area (Sundance Square) that actually increases the population at night because of the loft downtown living available. Since it is less than an hour from my door, and I used to live in Fort Worth, I've never spent the night there, but there are definitely several hotels right in the middle of downtown with all the attractions either in walking distance or a short drive of less than 5 miles.
There is so much you can see and do in Texas!
And don't even get me started on Big Bend or El Paso... you could spend a week in Big Bend alone! Awesome hiking.
And by the way --- in my mind --- this is the "EBTA Tejas to España" cruise! I need to find those Mickey Ears on the DISign thread with the Texas flag on them
Hope this helps give some of you ideas as you plan your visit to the great state of Texas! Each link I hyperlinked above is to a different website, so you might want to click on those to gain some ideas. And yes, I'm a proud Texan!
I've heard so many good things about how great these TA cruises are, I can't wait to try one myself!
