We chose this particular sailing date because it was the first sailing of the new western Caribbean route on smoke-free Paradise. We have been wanting to try the Paradise for some time but were not intrigued by the old routes. We were a group of four. It was my 8th cruise, my husband's 4th

cruise, and our friend's first cruise. We are mid-twenties and our friends are mid-thirties.

We flew out of Milwaukee on Saturday and arrived at Fort Lauderdale's airport about 1 pm on Saturday. With the weird winter we have been having in Wisconsin we decided to fly down to Florida a day early to avoid any last minute weather delays. As it turns out this was the smartest decision we made about the whole trip because they did have bad weather on Saturday evening and Sunday morning and we would have most likely missed the ship. We used Tri-County Transportation to get us from FLL to our hotel, Hyatt Regency, in Miami. It was $55 for the 4 of us for this town car ride to Miami. We won the Hyatt Regency hotel on priceline.com for $45/night. We had no problem checking in early and got wonderful rooms. We had an ocean view and could see the cruise ships from our balcony. We walked down to the Don Pan Bakery and had some of the best sandwiches I have ever had. This is a Cuban bakery and is a great place for breakfast and lunch pre-cruise. The prices are very reasonable and the food is so good. To get to the Don Pan walk out the front doors of the Hyatt and turn left. Go under the Metrolink rail and it is across the street, only about 1-2 blocks. That evening we walked to Bubba Gump's for dinner and to check out the Bayside marketplace. Bubba's is good food, a little pricey but a good way to start your vacation. It took about 10 minutes to walk there. Read more