We had such fabulous cruise and I'm depressed now that it's over. It was truly a wonderful experience. I was traveling with my husband and two daughters (ages 8 and 10) and my parents had the cabin next to us. We arrived in FLL two days before our cruise and stayed at the Gallery One. Our flight was delayed getting into town so we arrived around midnight but our shuttle driver from Quality Limo Service was there waiting for us (the poor guy had to wait 3 hours) and drove us directly to our hotel since we were the only ones on the shuttle. I'd highly recommend using this service if you are traveling between Miami and FLL.

We had a 2 bedroom suite at the hotel and it was a perfect set up for us. We got up early the next morning and headed to the pool. It wasn't crowded and my kids basically had the pool to themselves for a couple of hours. Later in the afternoon we got on the water taxi (there was a stop right at our hotel) and loved seeing all the mansions on the water. We got off at the beach and walked around a bunch and then finished off the water tour. It was a great way to see the town.

The next morning we got ready to head to the ship. They had a bus shuttle that took us to the port from our hotel. When we arrived at the port, our terminal was pretty chaotic. Our shuttle driver had to wait in a long line before he could drop us off. Once we got off the bus, there were people immediately waiting to take our luggage which was nice. Then we had to get into a very long line. I was told that the ship before us was a charted cruise and there were some paperwork issues which caused a delay for those passengers to get off which bottle necked our cruise. We were out on the hot sun for over an hour before we set foot into the building. Being from Seattle where it's been so cold and rainy, the sun felt really good to me and I had no complaints standing in it all day. However, the majority of passengers around us were not as pleased but there was no outright complaining or bitching. People were excited and ready to cruise and most people were pretty patient. My only complaint was having to use the port a potty in line since I was drinking so much water from the free water bottles they were handing out. Read more