This was our second cruise; the previous cruise was with Carnival as well. We were going to be in Miami on the 23rd for a Wedding, so I decided while we were in Florida, to do a cruise before the wedding. I had decided I would surprise my wife and daughter (6-yrs-old) and take them on a Caribbean cruise, and decided I would take my mother and father in-law with us, to make it extra special for my wife. I kept everything quiet, and we met my in-laws at the airport the evening of the 16th of December 2006. Surprise to my wife and daughter!!! We stayed at Newport Beach Resort in North Miami Beach for the night of the 16th and 17th and our cruise was schedule to set sail on the 18th. We had a wonderful day at the beach on the 17th.
Monday 12/18/2006 Embarkation: Monday December 18th 2006, we arrived around 1:30pm at the Port of Miami. We drove our own vehicle to the port and parked at the parking garage. $60.00 cash for parking. We parked our vehicle in the parking garage, and made our way to the embarkation area. We checked most of our luggage, tipped the person we checked it with and then headed through to the embarkation. There was a long line, but everyone was in a good mood, including ourselves as we were all excited about boarding the boat and being on vacation! The line seemed to move smoothly, and soon we were on the boat, and at the Lido deck eating from the buffet. That night we went to the Welcome aboard show at 7pm, it was wonderful. Excellent singing and dancing, and very lively! It was just a whole lot of fun. After the show we went to dinner, we had a late dinner at 8pm in the imagination dinning room. We were supposed to be eating with our mother and father in laws, but some how our two reservations did not get linked. No problem, the maitre d fixed the whole thing and put us at a table together, not problem at all, and with a smile. We had a wonderful meal. David and Mario were our waiters, and they were absolutely wonderful, extremely friendly and good people. The food was great!
We then went walking around for a while, and then headed off to bed, to prepare for an early day at Key West.