My company held a seminar for staff from around the world and business partners on this short cruise. Before this, I had never sailed out of Fort Lauderdale before. This was my first Royal Caribbean cruise (previously sailed on Norwegian Dawn on vacation in April 2005).

We stayed at the Embassy Suites hotel the night prior to the cruise. This was arranged by my company. The hotel is large. The pool is being refurbished this month, but we didn't have a lot of time there as our flight from London to Miami was delayed. We used Super Shuttle to get from Miami to Fort Lauderdale, and it took about 45 minutes as we hit traffic.

The transfer to the ship was arranged through the cruise line. We were charged around USD13 each, but it would have worked out cheaper to take a taxi as the hotel is only about 10 minutes away from the port. Read more