This is a second cruise for my husband and I on the same ship. It felt like coming home to be back on board the Sun.
My hubby and I arrived in Miami 3 days before the cruise to enjoy a pre-cruise trip down to the Keys. This turned out to be a wonderful idea and I'm so glad we did. We stayed one day in Homestead to be convenient for a trip to the Everglades, and the next two nights in "Gulf View Waterfront Resort", a small modest well located hotel/resort midway down the Keys.
On the Saturday of the cruise, we had a bit of trouble getting rid of our rental with Enterprise, as we were stuck in traffic for a lot longer than we expected and ended up feeling time pressured to get to the pier. We were charged quite a bit (20 dollars) to get from the Hilton Enterprise rental drop off site (near the pier) to the port. However, we arrived at about 2:00 and we had no problems with either our luggage or embarkation. I did feel that our greeting could have been much warmer at the terminal by the NCL personnel. We had booked a mini-suite on the same ship in June 2007 and when we arrived our papers were in the VIP box. So this time, I asked on arrival which line we should go in and really, the woman looked at me like I was crazy and said NO.. not THAT line. That wasn't warm or polite, and I was a bit embarrassed by her "scorn". On disembarkation, I have to say another person who was directing the lines (NCL employee) what shouting orders and patronizing... "if you don't have your papers out, I'm going to send you back and you will have to do the whole line over again..." Really! My husband, who is a teacher of "at risk" kids, finally engaged her and asked her if she could speak with more courtesy, stop shouting, and add a few special words to her commands... like please and thank you, and she very graciously accepted his criticism and truly changed her manner. Everyone in that line appreciated that change.