We arrived in Miami a day early and stayed in the Holiday Inn on Biscayne Dr. It was nice and as requested, we received a room overlooking the port. The parking was $10.00 a day, and there wasn't enough spaces for the hotel, so get there early and leave the car there until you are ready to leave for the port. We wandered over to Bayside Marketplace and ate dinner at a restaurant called Bubba Gump's. It had a Forrest Gump Theme and our waiter entertained us with Trivia from the movie. (Free dessert for answering them all right!) The food was excellent and the prices were about 15-20 dollars a person.

We got up the next day and ate breakfast then headed for the port arriving around 10:30 am. This was way too early. We were corralled into a waiting area with about 150 others and had to wait there until 11:30 to get past the security checkpoint. Once past security, we arrived in another room where the lines were separated into those that had pre-registered on line and those that had not. We had and we were hurried into another line to await our sea pass cards. This process took about 10 minutes for our group of 5 and then we were off to have our photos taken. After the photos, we were placed in line along the wall and given a boarding group number. We received an 8. It was close to 12:30 now and we were told we would not be boarding until around 2:00pm. Thank goodness, at 12:45 they allowed us to start boarding and we were aboard and found our way to our cabin by 1:00 pm.

We found our cabins, and met our room steward. I pre-tipped as we had teen-age boys travelling with us and I knew he would be busy in their room. Next it was off to explore the ship. We thought she was nicely decorated and fairly easy to navigate around her. We made our way to the Windjammer and ate lunch. The food was average for a buffet style eatery, but breakfast was our favorite meal to eat there as the omelette stations were great. Next came the Muster drill which went smoothly. We waited about 15 minutes at the station and then were released. We spent the rest of the night unpacking and exploring the ship. Read more