My cruising buddies included my friend, my friend's sister and their mother. We treated ourselves to this cruise for Mother's Day. We left our husbands and children behind and had the best vacation ever! It was our first cruise. My review is lengthy, and I hope it helps provide an insight to our experience. I know we crave all the information we can get prior to cruising! I'm repaying my debt by writing this review! Please email me if I may answer any questions.

The Paradise left from Miami on Sunday, the 5th, so we drove from North Florida the day before (to avoid getting up and out by 4:00 am). We got two rooms at the Comfort Inn in Ft. Lauderdale; in the morning it was an easy half hour or so drive to the port. No traffic to deal with since it was a Sunday morning.

As we approached the Port of Miami, it was a thrill to see the cruise ships lined up -- folks were disembarking at the time, so it was quite a zoo. Arrive early to get a secured parking spot. Even though it was 9:30 am, one of the parking lots was already full and the gatekeeper would not accept new vehicles. I am not sure if cars from the previous cruise were still parked there, but be prepared and arrive early. My advice is to drive to the area where the porters are loading the steel bins with luggage. They are located right in front of your docked ship. We were very careful to make sure each piece of luggage was properly tagged by the porter with our ship's name on it, and would not drive away until we saw that the porter loaded our stuff on the steel bin. He looked up our room number on the passenger list, and put our names and cabin numbers on the tag. Be sure he does this. We tipped him generously -- $12 for eight pieces of luggage. I personally checked one large piece and wheeled my smaller case on board with me to be sure I had all necessities in case something was lost. Our luggage arrived to our cabins around 8:00pm or so. Read more