This is my review coming from the perspective of a mid-30's family with a 7 yr old. This was our 7th cruise (previous RCCL, Disney, and Carnival). We flew from Phoenix to Ft. Lauderdale the day before with no issues. So far so good! We got a rental car from Hertz using the family code found on this website. They did question me about it and I felt guilty after fibbing a bit (ok, I lied). It was 40% off but I won't do that again. On a 1 day rental, I saved $22, but I still feel bad about it.
We drove to the Best Western oceanfront hotel in Bal Harbour, about 20 minutes from the airport. The hotel was just like most of the other reviews I read. It's an older hotel and nothing fancy. We got a suite which was large and had a separate bedroom. The hotel was very clean, front desk staff was nice enough, and check in was quick and easy. Parking is tight but there were always a couple open spaces. The hotel is right on the water and we got in with enough time to swim in the ocean which was awesome! Coming from Phoenix, it was a rare treat for us to see ocean. The beach was clean and not crowded. We had kind of a hard time finding a good place to eat and I think we would have had better luck going closer to Miami. We ate at an italian restaurant right across from the beach about a mile south of the hotel. The food was good and they made a special plate for our daughter. We went back to the hotel and swam in both pools. Nothing fancy but it was fine for us.
The next day we drove about 15 minutes to drop the car off at Hertz downtown. No traffic and we dropped the car off in a small parking garage where we were met by a Hertz employee who checked the car over. I went inside and left my wife and daughter outside with the luggage. The office is very small with little or no AC. It was somewhat busy at 11am. I waited about 15-20 minutes to check out and when I went outside the family and luggage were on the shuttle van waiting for me. We took about a 5 minute drive (almost short enough to walk, but we had too much luggage) to the port. The porters were right there and took the luggage and we went in the terminal. We entered at about 11:30 and were on board by 12. There were several lines to wait in which made it a bit easier since we were moving a lot and the anticipation was building.