My husband and I flew to Miami from Ontario, California on Saturday, the day before the cruise was to leave. We met up with a group of people coming from the San Francisco Bay Area and Orlando that evening at our hotel. We all stayed at the Holiday Inn at the pier in Miami. We had a great view of our ship from our room window! My mom got a late checkout (1pm) so the rest of us stored our luggage there until it was time to leave for the ship...this also helped us NOT get stuck in the mass check-out that morning of all the people going to the cruise ship!

Since we couldn't board until 2pm, we spent some time Sunday morning at the shopping center across the street from the hotel. They've got some great shops and my mom, sister and friend all got henna tattoos for the trip!

Our friends that drove down from Orlando drove us to the cruise ship and parked their car there at the pier. It was $15/day which was about $5 more/day than the Holiday Inn (they could have parked there) but there is a lot of construction going on outside the parking lot at the hotel and they just felt the car would be safer in the lot at the pier. Read more