About us: Dear Husband (DH) and I are both 65. We live in northeastern Ohio. I retired last September, so this cruise was a celebration. This was our fourth cruise, second on Celebrity. We were joined by Dear Daughter (DD) and her boyfriend (BF) (J&J). They are both 40-something professionals from the Washington, D.C., area. DD is PhDiva on Cruise Critic; see her review below. It's amazing how dis-similar our experiences were.
Precruise: Because of the holiday, DH and I flew to Ft. Lauderdale on Dec. 31. We stayed at the Sleep Inn in Dania Beach, a very nice, older hotel. There is a shopping plaza across the street with 3 restaurants, and a Walgreen's across the parking lot, in case you forget something. J&J arrived New Year's afternoon. We had a huge room, but theirs was smaller than an inside cabin.
Embarkation: The hotel offers free shuttle service to the cruise terminal. We booked the noon shuttle, along with another couple from our roll call. Port Everglades has embarkation down to a science. We arrived at the terminal around 12:30 and were onboard just as they were announcing that the cabins were ready. So we stowed our carry-ons, met our steward, and headed to the Oceanview Cafe for lunch. We had time to explore a bit before muster drill. Then we met with J&J to decide on a time and meeting place for dinner and returned to our cabin with the intention of grabbing the camera and finding a place on deck to watch sailaway. However, our luggage had arrived so we were moving it into the cabin when DH asked, "Is the ship moving?" We both looked out the balcony door and, sure enough, we were pulling away from the dock. So we hurried to get the other cases inside, grabbed the camera, and went straight out onto the balcony. We took pictures and met our neighbors on both sides. Perfect timing.