I want to surprise my wife with a short 3-4ish night cruise out of Galveston. Is there a best way to find deals on cheap cruises? Or am I better suited to just troll the interwebs for deals?

Vacations To Go is a good aggregator of the different lines. Based in Houston as well.

As far as short cruises from Galveston go, the Carnival Triumph is probably the only choice. It sails 4 and 5 night cruises to Mexico year round. We are actually taking the 5 night on October 8th.

Royal Caribbean does seasonal cruises, but mostly 7 nights. Disney also started sailing from Galveston recently, but I believe they only do 7 nights also.

I second vacationstogo.com

You can search by departure port and will display all cruise lines

Use VTG's database to find the cruise you want and go to these sites to find the best deals:

www.cruise.com
www.cruisecompete.com
www.cruiseone.com
www.cheapcruises.com
www.expedia.com
www.bestpricecruises.com

Once you've found the best price for the cabin category you want, call Vacations To Go and have them match it. They'll match anything else you can find as long as you show them in writing. VTG doesn't always have the best pricing but they make up for it in service.

we've used vacations to go for 3-4 cruises. they are very easy to work with, and usually throw in a free bottle of wine when we board.