Our trip began by leaving a lovely 2 degree midwest winter and arriving in Florida with the temp of 87. We fly Southwest so always go into Fort Lauderdale. In the past we have come in only one day early and stayed in Fort Lauderdale. This trip we come in on Thursday and stayed at South Beach. In the past we have consistently used QLS shuttle service, which is great, but I read about SAS on these boards and they quoted us a cheaper price to South Beach ($15.00 each). SAS called us as we were getting our luggage and arrived a few minutes later. They had a couple of other people in the van who had to be dropped of at another hotel, but this was no problem and we were soon dropped off in front of our hotel. I would definitely use SAS again.

South Beach - We had some reward points and stayed at the Beacon. This hotel is right in the middle of where you want to be. Right on Ocean Drive and easy walking to everything South Beach. I had read about this hotel on Trip Advisor and it had pretty good reviews. Yes the room was small, but it was clean. No we didn't have a view, our room overlooked the fire escape and back alley and at 7:30 both mornings the trash truck dumped the dumpster. It was still a great place to stay. The staff was very friendly and the room was clean. We definitely liked South Beach and will probably stay here before our future cruises.

Celebrity here we come - The morning of our cruise we took a cab to the pier around 11:00. It took about 20 minutes and after check in we were on the ship by 12:30. Very easy and on par with other lines we have cruised. The ship was very nice, as we expected with it being new. The champagne welcome was a great little extra that you don't get on other lines. We did some exploring then we decided to start making use of the drink package we had purchased. We took up seats at the Martini Bar (with the ice bar top) and spent the rest of the afternoon sampling. In the past we would have gone up to the buffet, but we had so much fun in the Martini bar that we drank our lunch and three martini's each later we headed to find our room. This bar is the hot spot for this ship. In reading previous reviews I was expecting the Molecular Bar to be the "go-to" place, but on this cruise it was the Martini bar and the two times we went to the Molecular bar it only had a handful of people. Read more