Background: Two single females myself 29, and my 3rd cruise. My roommate is 41 and this was her first cruise, both of us are from Chicago.
Pre-Cruise:
We stayed a the Intercontinental Hotel in Miami which I got from Hotwire for only $100. Awesome hotel, first class service, very close to the port. Only cost about $30 from the airport to the hotel. Only took about 5 minutes plus traffic to get to the port.