After many months of planning, it was finally time to put the suitcases into the car and begin our vacation! We kept the fact that we were flying from Atlanta to Fort Lauderdale a secret from our kids (2 boys 10 and 15 years old). They were surprised and ready to go! We traveled with two other families that we are very close with, so there were 12 of us in all.

Our flight to FLL was perfect and we took taxis to the hotel, The Bahia Mar. This hotel was very nice, has a walkway to the beach and a pool - accessed by your room key. The a/c in our room was broken, but we were moved to another room very quickly. There is a restaurant in the hotel, but it was very expensive (oatmeal was $8). We walked to the little Bahia Cafe on the property and got sausage biscuits for $4, coffee and we were good to go. Check-out was 11 a.m., but we didn't want to arrive at port too early, so we stored our luggage at the hotel, checked out and walked on the beach for a while. There are picnic tables on the beach in the shade, very nice. The evening before we walked to the Beach Side Cafe that has the glider tables, fun it was a little expensive but good food.

We talked with the hotel concierge, and they hooked us up with a taxi driver with a van that could hold all of us for $50 and take us to the airport. It was about $20 per family for the taxi from the airport so we took it, and arranged with him (Hernan) to pick us up the following Sunday. Read more