We arrived in Fort Lauderdale 2 days prior to departure. It was cold & very windy along the waterfront. However we made the best of our time with a nice meal in town, the next day a 3 hour open airboat ride in the everglades, then spent the late afternoon exploring the beach & some shopping. Sunday we enjoyed a leisurely breakfast & about 2.5 hours on the water-taxi enjoying the inter-coastal waterway & fabulous homes with large yachts. By then it was time to return to the hotel, collect our luggage & taxi to the pier.

We have never sailed out of Port Everglades, so it was important we had pre-arranged our ride to the pier on Saturday, as this town is very busy on Sunday & the pier insane with taxis & limos.

We arrived about 1:30 pm at the terminal. Everything went very smoothly & we were on aboard in about 15 minutes sipping our first champagne. We then quickly dropped off the carry-on bag in the stateroom, went to lunch, explored the ship, & returned to find our suitcases. Dressed for early dinner & proceeded to begin our Happy Hour. Our departure was delayed for about 2 hours as we waited for 150 passengers on a flight from Canada. No big deal, the ship remained on schedule for the rest of the trip. Our weather was perfect, never knew we were on a ship as the seas were very calm. ( we have had rougher rides on the local freeways here the states ) Read more