TimeSharing Today
Page 18
Mar/Apr, 2013
Escapes! to the Gulf at Galveston
By Sterling Hartman
We stayed at the timeshare resort
Escapes! to the Gulf at Galveston from
March 22 to 28, 2012.
It is on historic Galveston Island, the
lair of Jean Lafitte and his pirates who
established a settlement in 1817 after
getting dry powder to Americans at New
Orleans a few years earlier. Laffite didn’t
remain long in Galveston. The United
States forced him to leave after two or
three years and burned the town to the
ground
During the Texas Revolution,
Galveston Harbor was the port for the
Texas Navy. During the Civil War,
Galveston was the primary Texas seaport
and shortly afterwards became the state’s
most populated and richest city.
In 1900, a hurricane devastated the
island and killed more than 6,000 people.
The bodies were so numerous that they
had to be burned. The tidal surge was
over 15 feet high and the winds over 100
mph. It remains the most damaging hurricane in US history. You can view films
on the island showing the damage.
During prohibition, drinking, gambling, and prostitution were rampant
and Galveston became the sin city of the
Gulf. The Texas Rangers finally cleaned
things up.
Solid Construction
We came across the high-rise bridge
across Galveston Bay to Galveston Island, eventually reached the seawall protecting Galveston from storm surges, and
turned right. We were surprised to see
club
Since 1984
Free Timeshare Listing - no obligation to you:
A+ rating with the BBB
cattle grazing on the lush grass between
the Gulf and Bay side of the island.
Escapes! to the Gulf was just past
the end of the 13-mile-long seawall, a
five-story blue-and-white building on
20-foot-high concrete pillars for protection from hurricane storm surges. It suffered minimal damage during Hurricane
Ike; water leaked in a couple of units and
damaged one carpet.
Ike was the second-costliest hurricane ever to make landfall in the United States, It struck near Galveston as a
strong Category 2 hurricane at 2:10 AM
CDT on September 13, 2008. Ike was
over 600 miles in diameter, with hurricane-force winds extending 120 miles
from the center. Ike was blamed for at
least 112 deaths in the U.S.
Escapes! has a boardwalk to the
beach and a friendly staff. Big luggage
carts made unloading almost easy. Parking is free and shaded underneath the
A+ Rating with the BBB
arity -
.
ub
ty
no obligation to you OR...
We Buy - Call for Offer
We Trade-in for a vacation club
We Donate to a credible charity
Call Today 1-800-352-6636
www.timesharetravel.com
building.
We occupied had a two-bedroom
lock-off with twin balconies and a view
of the Gulf. The unit was spotless and all
the furniture looked brand-new, but the
TV didn’t work. Maintenance rapidly repaired it. The combination living-dining
room is a tiny 11 feet x 12 feet because
the entrance into the A and B sections of
the unit is extremely wide, taking space
from the living-dining areas in both sections.
The kitchen is well-equipped, although everything sticks to the stainlesssteel pots and pans.
The dining-room chairs are made of
woven braided rope that looks attractive
but is extremely uncomfortable and will
give you numb waffle butt in about 15
minutes. They are too high unless you
are a six-foot, six-inch Texan.
are with th
A+They
rating
scheduled for replacement, the sooner
the better.
The master bath has a stand-up enclosed shower and Jacuzzi tub. The master bedroom is a generous size, with a
Gulf view and a king-sized bed with a
good mattress.
Escapes! to the Gulf is at 11743
Farm Road 3005 (San Luis Pass Road),
Galveston TX 77554, 409-737-2339. Office hours are 8 AM-5 PM with check-in
on Fridays and Sundays.
Exploring Galveston
A car is absolutely necessary in the
Galveston area to see the sights, dine,
and buy groceries.
www.tstoday.com for back issues, Resort Report Cards, articles on resorts and much more
TimeSharing Today
After driving into Galveston on
Saturday for supper, and turning around
because of terrible traffic, we blundered
onto a restaurant called Nates West End
Seafood and Steak, about five miles south
of Escapes! At 17515 San Luis Pass
Road. We give it five stars for seafood,
service, and price. During our week-long
vacation we ate there three times. We
highly recommend their Shrimptastic
Combo (15 shrimp prepared five different ways), filling Gumbo Bowl, Po Boy
Sandwich, Crab Balls, and Key Lime
Pie—but avoid the bread pudding.
Amazingly, it has no sign on the
front of the building. Just look for lots of
cars parked north of a gas station on the
Gulf side of the road.
Sunday morning we woke up to incredibly dense fog. Not even the birds
were flying. It cleared by 9 AM. Green
flags flew at the beach, and lots of folks
were having a great Sunday with their
kids.
During the fog, we scheduled our
week’s list of things to see and do: Moody
Gardens, Harbor Tours, Ocean Star Drilling Rig, Tree Sculptors, Seawolf Park,
and Galveston Baywatch Tours.
Before you travel, contact Galveston
Island Tourism & Marketing at 888-4254753 to request its Official Travel Planner. Also visit its Web site, www.galveston.com.
We drove around downtown Galveston’s Strand area and were amazed to
find it very similar to the French Quarter
in New Orleans. On Harborside Drive
we located a convenient parking spot and
toured the Ocean Star Offshore Drilling
Rig, a “jack up rig” with three enormous
tall legs that extend to the ocean floor and
jack up the whole platform high enough
Page 19
to rise above the highest waves. We spent
a couple hours touring the drilling platform with its three floors of exhibits.
The size of everything boggles the mind.
For instance, a single chain link weighs
546 pounds. 409-766-7827 or www.
OceanStarOEC.com
Afterward we ate at Joe’s Crab
Shack. We had fish and chips plus three 3
bonus shrimp for $12.99, and 12 coconut
shrimp and fries for $14.99. The servings
were so generous that we should have
split one order.
We walked down the pier toward
the tall ship Elisha. In the distance were
two enormous cruise ships from Carnival
and Royal Caribbean lines, each carrying
about 4,000 passengers. The ships are so
long they can’t turn around in the harbor
but must be backed into their slips from
the harbor mouth.
A Bay Cruise
We boarded the Baywatch Dolphin
and Harbor Tours boat with about 20
passengers in shaded comfort. The tour
was most entertaining and educational.
The captain rapidly got out of the way
of the cruise ships and we took excellent
photos as they left their dockage, which
costs $3,000 an hour. The Port of Galveston has the world’s largest grain elevator, where grain is stored in silos ready to
ship anywhere in the world. Train tracks
lead right to the elevator. 409-765-1700
A security boat went by with four
250 hp Mercury outboards and a machine gun on the bow!
We stopped for a few minutes to talk
with the crew on a Louisiana tool boat.
They were cooking up gumbo and invited us back for dinner. After our tour
we took them up on the offer. Those guys
Mar/Apr, 2013
know how to make Louisiana Gumbo.
Yum. We are Katrina refugees. We ate
with them until we were stuffed, and they
insisted we take some home with us.
The tour boat went by a dry dock
that was being modified for a ship needing major repairs. We went by the Coast
Guard Station and were informed that the
Coast Guard saved more people than any
other rescuers during Hurricane Katrina
in New Orleans in 1995 and during Hurricane Ike in Galveston in 1998.
We went by the Roll On Roll Off
(RoRo docks) with acres of heavy equipment: $370,000 Caterpillar dump trucks,
a locomotive engine, and thousands of
John Deere tractors, combines, threshing machines, bulldozers, road graders,
cranes, etc.—billions of dollars’ worth of
exports helping our trade balance.
The captain said a RoRo ship can
completely unload and reload in less
than 24 hours, a design that minimizes
the $3,000 an hour dockage charge.
Moody Gardens
On Monday we toured Moody Gardens, a 242-acre complex with lush gardens and three enormous glass pyramids.
The blue pyramid contains a 3-D IMAX
theater, a 4-D special effects theater, and
an IMAX Ridefilm. To see all the sights
would take at least a day.
The Clear Rainforest Pyramid is
home to birds, fish butterflies, plants,
and monkeys from Asia, Africa, and
South America. The exhibits are Smithsonian quality and include all levels of
the rainforest from the Giant Amazon in
a flowing river, free-roaming birds and
monkeys, all sorts of insects, butter-
continued. on page 21
ATTENTION HOA BOARD MEMBERS!
Doc
Malone
Are your owners visiting the resort less?
Are you forced to increase maintenance fees to keep up with a shrinking ownership base?
Is the HOA owned inventory growing while the maintenance fees paid shrink?
WE NEED TO TALK!
Gale
Saltzgiver
We have over 75 years of experience solving these issues for resorts and we are looking for quality resorts to assist right now. There are NO up
front fees with ARSS and we handle the financing of all receivables from sales of your property and pay you in full at each closing.
Give us a call TODAY: 321-662-8077
e-mail: [email protected]
www.tstoday.com for back issues, Resort Report Cards, articles on resorts and much more
TimeSharing Today
Page 21
Mar/Apr, 2013
Other Things to See
Ashton Villas: 23rd & Broadway,
409-762-3933. Tour the three-story villa. See the Ike damage on the first floor
(under restoration) and the beautiful
undamaged second floor. $9
Bishops Palace: 1402 Broadway,
409-762-2475. This three-story mansion took seven years to build. The
Catholic Diocese purchased it for the
local bishop in 1923. $10
flies, alligators, and giant freshwater
fish weighing 100 to 200 pounds. The
entire pyramid is climate-controlled,
replicating the environment from the
incredibly humid and hot “jungle area”
to the frigid mountaintops. Tuesdays
are senior days and all pyramids can be
toured for $5/senior. It is very easy to
spend two or three hours in each pyramid. The slower you go, the more you
will see.
The Aquarium Pyramid has 1.5
million gallons of aquatic environments representing the oceans of the
world—the north and south Atlantic
and Pacific, the Caribbean, Indian, and
Arctic oceans. The seal and penguin
exhibits are the largest. Seeing how
fast these animals can travel underwater is amazing.
Moody Gardens also has convention center, beaches, and paddle
wheel boat rides. It’s at 1 Hope Blvd.
Admission depends on the number
of attractions you visit: $16 and up.
409-744-4673, 800-582-4673, www.
moodygardens.com.
Seawolf Park
At Seawolf Park, you can tour two
World War II vessels: the submarine
USS Cavalla SS 244 and the destroyer
escort USS Stewart 238 built at Brown
Shipyards in Houston in 1943.
The Stewart spent most of its
time during World War II escorting
convoys to Europe and the Caribbean
and engaging in hunter/killer activities against enemy subs. The Cavalla
is 306 feet long, carried 24 torpedoes,
had a crew of 80 men, and served in
the Pacific Theater during World War
II. Later she was converted to a submarine killer and then served as a test platform for sonar systems used in nuclear
submarines. She is the only remaining
ship from the World War II era credited
with sinking an aircraft carrier.
Seawolf Park is a 10-minute drive
down 51st Street to the Pelican Island
Causeway, past Texas A & M University.
On the way back we stopped for a
delightful late lunch next to the university at the Galley Restaurant and Bar,
602 Sea Wolf Parkway, 409-740-5000.
During the day most of its customers
are oil-rig workers; in the evening the
college crowd appears. Its meals are
hearty, robust, tasty, and cheap. Five
stars.
On our way home we toured the
tree sculptures. During Hurricane Ike
the island was covered with salt water,
which killed the live oak trees. Rather
than grinding the tree stumps, the artistic community carved what was
left into dolphins, sharks, dogs, cats,
people, cartoon characters, birds, etc.
The most amazing sculpture was of a
Great Dane leaning over a wroughtiron fence.
Galveston Ferry: The Ferry crosses the Houston ship channel to Port
Bolivar. It is free, cars are allowed, it
runs 24 hours, takes 30 minutes, and
has superb views from the upper deck.
409-795-2230. At the Port Bolivar ferry landing is a great seafood restaurant.
The Grand 1894 Opera House:
2020 Post Office Street. Well built in
1894, it survived the 1900 hurricane
and is still used. It is breathtakingly
beautiful Victorian. Tours $3. 800-8211894.
Lone Star flight museum:
Galveston International Airport on
83rd Street. Planes on display include a
B-17 Flying Fortress and a P-6 Hellcat.
$8. 409-740-7722.
Moody Mansion: 2618 Broadway. Built in 1895, it has 32 rooms,
and was purchased by William Moody
after the 1900 hurricane. Tours $7.
409-762-7668.
Schlitterbahn Waterpark: 2026
Lockheed Ave has over 30 rides. $22$38 depending on time of year and age.
Plan to spend at least three hours. 409770-9283.
Texas Seaport Museum: Pier 22
and Harborside. This is the Ellis Island
of the West. Check its database to see
names of more than 133,000 immigrants. Outside at Pier 22 is an 1877
iron barque built in Scotland to carry
Texas cotton to Europe. $7. 409-7631877.
www.tstoday.com for back issues, Resort Report Cards, articles on resorts and much more