We flew into FLL the day before and stayed at the Hyatt Place North. We had to wait about a half hour for the hotel shuttle to pick us up but we didn't mind, it was a very busy port day with Oasis going out. Once we arrived at the hotel (around 1pm) we decided to store our bags in the locked waiting room and head to the beach because our room wasn't ready. We took the trolley from the Harbor Shops Mall across the street for $.50 each, what a deal. We just did some people watching (yikes) at the local bars along the strip and a little shopping and headed back to the hotel around 4pm when our room was ready. We headed to dinner, after getting settled, to the Southport Raw Bar - great food and right on the waterway. Also a note - you have to sign up at the hotel around 3pm or so for the shuttle the next day to the port. We signed up for the 10:30 time slot. Everyone at the hotel and the hotel was great, I'd stay there again in a minute. Very close to everything too.

Embarkation - arrived at the port around 11:00am. There was a line but it went pretty fast. We had to wait in a waiting room for about a half hour before they started calling numbers, we had 8 so it took a little while. I did notice the line was getting longer behind us so I'm glad we went early. Once on the ship it seems like everyone was on the lido deck and it was also raining. We were able to get a table outside under the overhang on lido and proceeded to fight our way through to the food lines. I decided I would drink a couple DOD's first and it would make the fight more enjoyable. Our room was ready right at 1:30pm. By this time it was pouring so it gave us a chance to get our stuff put away and enjoy the room and balcony for a while. That's one thing about beer, it tastes good no matter where you're at or what the weather's like. Muster drill was pretty painless and we headed to our meet & greet with the CC members. Everyone was so nice and it was great meeting everyone. We had about at hour and half delay setting sail due to the weather but before we knew it we were on our way. Yeah!

Sea days were just wonderful. I have to say, this is the calmest I have seen the seas. Our guides in Grand Cayman said that it usually means bad weather is coming. After the first day we never had another bad day. The only gripe I have is the chair hogs, they were out in full force so we just hung out on the 10th deck and usually could find a chair. We didn't have our kids with us either so we really didn't want to be around where they were anyway. Read more