My wife and I had just sailed the Norwegian Epic for our honeymoon in September around the Mediterranean, which was amazing, and were not planning to take a cruise again for awhile. Being from the Northeast, we were looking for a vacation for March to get away from the snow. After shelling out big dollars for our honeymoon, we were looking for a deal (All inclusive in Mexico, The Caribbean, etc.) We planned to go with another married couple who we went to college with.

After searching through multiple deal sights, our friends were able to find a deal on CruCon where by booking a cruise on Celebrity we were able to get both the daily per person gratuities and the basic drink package (All beer, coffee, juice up to $5 & wine and mixed drinks up to $8) usually $44 dollars pp per day FREE! As drinks generally are the largest expense on a cruise we booked immediately. This saved us easily $800.

We flew South West direct to Ft. Lauderdale early Saturday morning and took SAS from the airport to the port. SAS took over an hour to pick us up, citing a large concert of thousands being held at the Port that was causing traffic delays throughout Miami. When we finally got to the terminal, the check in rush had mostly subsided, and we were able to check in quickly. We decided to upgrade our drink package to the premium by paying the difference, $10 pp per day, as we walked up the gangway (All drinks on board up to $12) normally $54 pp per day. Nice to be handed champaign as you boarded. We got to our ocean view rooms on the third deck around 3:00, changed and b-lined for the buffet before the muster drill. Note: this was one of the largest rooms/ bathrooms I have ever had on a cruise ship. Read more