This was the second time on the Reflection for my teenage daughter and I, but the first for my wife. The daddy/daughter cruise in ’13 was enjoyed so much, that my wife got tired of hearing about us leaving her behind, hence the reason for returning to Reflection in January of 2016 during the week of MLK holiday.

We have been on 20+ cruises since 1989 (this was the 14th for my daughter), so within the last 2 years, I have told the family that any future cruise has to include at least one port we have never been to. There are too many places in the world to visit, rather than keep returning to the same cruise ports. Rules are made to be broken though, and since we all prefer CoCo Cay as the favorite private island, this particular itinerary and ship was at the top of our list. But to be fair, also on this itinerary was the port of Ocho Rios, Jamaica, a port my daughter had never been to before.

Like most cruises, we flew down the day before the cruise, but instead of Miami, we flew into Fort Lauderdale for the cheaper airfare, and also because we have relatives in the area to visit and stay overnight with. On the advice of said relatives, we used Uber for the 1st time while in Florida. About midday on Saturday, we requested an Uber XL to pick us up in Fort Lauderdale and take us to the port of Miami. The driver arrived in 10 minutes with a clean comfortable mini-van for the 35 minute ride to the port with a cost of less than $65 for the 3 of us. From the time we exited the vehicle a bit after 1pm, to the time our feet were on the deck of the ship, only 12 minutes and 34 seconds had elapsed! This included giving our bags to the porter, going through security, getting our keycards, and bypassing the picture taking. And if we had chosen to be photographed, it would have only added 44 seconds to the process. I believe this was a record for us boarding the ship. Celebrity has definitely perfected the check-in process. Read more