My wife and I decided to take a long cruise in December. We originally booked the Freedom of the Seas, but then learned that Royal Caribbean was doing the "Diamonds in December" event again. So we found a nice 10-night itinerary on the Vision of the Seas that went to some ports that we'd never been to. That combined with 20 Crown and Anchor points was enticement enough, we quickly switched the booking.
Embarkation:
We drove down to Port Everglades the morning of the cruise, from our home it takes about four hours. The port is very easy to get into, I-595 dead-ends right into it. We left our car at Park-n-Go and rode their shuttle to the terminal. Their rates are much lower than the port's and the shuttle takes only a few minutes. We found the Vision pulled up to Terminal 4, one of the older buildings at Port Everglades. It's currently under renovation, which appeared to be long overdue. We arrived at the terminal at around 1 pm. The lines for security and check-in were nonexistent; we were on board by 1:15.