This is my first review, but not our first Cruise, We have cruised on Carnival, princess each once, NCL three times, Rccl 10 times, and Celebrity three times. This being our first 10 day cruise with Celebrity.

Travel day and Hotel: We live in the Northeast so we opted to fly down the day prior and stayed at the Embassy Suites, in Ft. Lauderdale. What a nice hotel. It has been recently updated and it shows. We would stay again in a second. Very close to port and airport. Taxi ride is about $15.00 for four people for both port and airport. Many places to eat within walking distance. Also a wine store right out back which we bought two bottles of wine to have in our stateroom. (we were celebrating our 25 wedding anniversary) No problems or no questions asked by Celebrity, We had them in our carry on. They state this in the pre-cruise documents that you can do this.

Sailing day: We had our free cook to order breakfast at the hotel, and went for a morning walk, then off to the ship. Taxi was called and arrived in 2 minutes. We were able to fit our luggage into one taxi (four of us) so when getting to the port. My husband tip the luggage guy, and so did our friends.) So we double tipped.. but this might have helped with getting our luggage in our rooms before 3pm.. I have never gotten it that fast. We are in CC rooms, could that have been why? From unloading our luggage we were on the ship in like 15 minutes. We pre-printed our paper work at home. We were greeted by white gloves, and champagne.. HOW nice! We were told that rooms were not ready, it was just 1pm, we could get a buffet lunch upstairs deck 10, and when rooms are ready they would announce it.. 3pm rooms were all ready.. and our luggage was there also. I was amazed. Read more