I traveled with a large group of family and friends. This was my third cruise; one with Royal Caribbean and second with Princess.
We arrived in Fort Lauderdale a day before the cruise and stayed at the Days Inn. The hotel was clean and basic. The beds were a little small, but good overall and very inexpensive. They were also very accommodating getting our group to the cruise port the next morning.
Embarkation was fairly smooth. We arrived at the cruise port around 10:30am and had to wait an hour or so because the ship was late arriving in port. They did mention there were 100,000 people or so at Port Everglades that morning, so things were a little delayed. Once we boarded the ship, we went to our cabin and our luggage arrived very quickly. We had an interior cabin on deck 11. It was fairly spacious and very clean. Our room steward (Felix) was great.