Three of us, all adults, my son, a friend and myself. We arrived the night before, being in NJ we tend to worry about the winter weather, so we arrive always the night before to avoid snow delays or to leave room for alternate travel plans. We stayed at a Howard Johnson in Ybor, which I heard afterward was not a safe place, but we had a great time. They had a bar and great country band and music and we played pool and hung out there all evening. Looked to be a neighborhood place, and lots of trucker business.
We were only a mile or two from the port. If you stay at this HoJo, call for your own taxi as the manager forgot to call or just did not call, we do not know what happened. We waited over an hour after we asked them to call for us. We wound up calling a cab for ourselves,. and waited another half hour, but we were in the terminal by 11:00 am with plenty of time to spare.
It only took us 15 min to check in and seated in the boarding area. We were called by #. We were # 10 so it was about 35 min and we were on board. They made announcements that the cabins would be ready by 1:30 so please go to lunch first and explore the ship so the stewards could finish the cabins.