My wife and I chose this 14 day cruise for two reasons. First, we always love a cruise vacation and we were interested in experiencing two 7 day back to back cruises.

We always fly to Ft. Lauderdale the day before the departure date. This takes the stress out of airline schedules, flight delays and lost luggage. It is also a relaxing beginning to the vacation.

Arrived at the Port Everglades just before 11:00AM. Check-in was very quick and easy. One interesting observation during this process. As you arrive at the terminal a HAL staff member gives you a plastic number, which is used to call groups of people go to the check-in counter. This keeps the process from being total chaos. We had number 6. When the number was called one gentleman turned in his tag and the HAL staff member politely returned it to him as his number was actually #9. One would think this to be a common mistake as #6 and #9 look the same if turned upside down. However, HAL has their corporate logo in the upper left hand corner. I just had to laugh because this gentleman had placed his thumb over the logo before handing it to the staff member. Guess everyone is just in a hurry to get on board. We went through the check-in process and were having lunch around the Lido pool in 15 minutes. Read more