This was our third time sailing with Celebrity and the first time sailing out of Port Everglades (Ft. Lauderdale). We stayed at The Renaissance at the Port. They nicely upgraded us to a Jr. Suite since we are Mariott Rewards guests. Room was nice. No complaints. We could see a few ships in port from our room. Walking distance to Walgreens across the street. We ate at Bimini Boatyard a block away. Would stay there again.
EMBARKATION: What should be a 10 minute taxi ride at the most took 50 minutes. Due to heavy rain around 11am, the port was backed up. We were in the very back at Pier 25. Cost should have been $8 and cost us $25. Wasn't the taxi drivers fault. The police directing traffic were terrible. You'd think it was everyone's first day on the job and they had never seen rain.
We finally pull up to our pier, luggage comes out. The guy just leaves it basically in the road with about 500 other bags. No joke. I guess due to the rain, they weren't loading the luggage onto the carts let alone taking anything on to the ship. I was very uncomfortable just leaving our luggage out there like that but there wasn't anything else to do. Never seen anything like that in our 10+ cruises. Ever. Proceed to the boarding area and security and the ticket counters are all in one big warehouse type room. They tried to jazz it up with cruise flags but again, we had never seen anything like this. Usually boarding is one of my favorite parts because I get excited about getting on the ship and starting vacation. No, this felt like a basement where you pick up the luggage. Not a great first impression.