We arranged our airfare on our own online through Spirit Airlines, we booked to leave on Friday March 19th. Our flight was supposed to leave at 7:20 AM, Chicago O'Hare to Fort Lauderdale, unfortunately, due to bad weather on the East Coast the day before, our flight was delayed and we didn't depart until 10:30 AM, we had arrived at the airport at 5:30 AM, we were disappointed that Spirit did not contact us to let us know about the delay, but all in all, it wasn't too bad waiting, after all, I was going on a cruise! They did provide all the waiting passengers, free snacks and drinks. The flight was smooth and uneventful, landed in Fort Lauderdale at 2:30 PM.

We had booked our hotel through Priceline and stayed at the Holiday Inn Fort Lauderdale Beach. This hotel is directly across the street from the ocean, we traveled during the peak season of Spring Break so traffic from the Airport to the hotel was horrendous, traffic was stop and go all the way. After checking in, we went to check out our room, we had requested a nonsmoking room with 2 double beds, this is what we received, this room did have a nice view of the ocean, too bad we could not open the windows to let the fresh sea air into the room. This hotel was OK, room was clean, it's very basic and I'm glad we used Priceline and only paid $75.00, other guests at the hotel were paying $259.00 per night!! We ate breakfast at the restaurant, food was OK, but very expensive.

We had arranged to be picked up at the hotel at 11:30 AM by a limo company, we used a limo instead of a taxi due to the 4 people and 8 pieces of luggage plus our carry ons, we would have had to take 2 taxis instead of 1. Driver was early, he arrived at 11:00, I was in the lobby waiting in line to check out when he arrived. DH and my son brought the luggage down and helped the driver get it all into the limo, thankfully, the driver had a bungee cord so all the luggage was able to fit into the trunk and not in the car with us. We were finally on our way to begin our cruise! Read more