I don't know of any departing from the Gulf of Mexico, but there may be some. I've left out from Fl and Puerto Rico. Those were all Caribbean cruises. I hear the Mexican Riviera cruises out of Ca are alot of fun too. I've been on Carnival, Royal Caribbean, and Norwegian lines(listed in order of my favs). All were fun and the boats were all very nice, excellent service. One of the cruses I was on ( forget which line) we had problems at two of the 4 ports we were to stop at. One we didn't even go into port because of a Venezualan civil uprising. LOL, the cruise line said it was a tug boat captain strike, but when we got home we read in the newspaper about the true problems.