This cruise was the 2nd cruise for our family aboard this ship in less than a year. We flew into Ft. Lauderdale the day before and stayed at the Hampton Inn, which was nice and was also very close to the terminal. We arrived late (midnight) and just went to bed excited about starting the cruise the next day.

There was only one van that the hotel used to ferry passengers to both the ship terminal and the airport, so we decided to take a cab instead. It was only a few dollars, and let us go on our schedule instead of the hotels. The only downside here was that when we were let out at the baggage drop off area, the bag porters were VERY pushy for tips. This was a short cruise (4 nights) so we had small suitcases for everyone and I should have just rolled them aboard myself and avoided the bag handlers.

Embarkation was easy as we had completed all of the paperwork online, and thus it took us only a few minutes to get our seapass cards and we were onboard. We bypassed the welcome aboard pictures (I have enough) and just walked up to the Windjammer to get something to eat. Read more