We chose this 6-night cruise as a relaxa-cruise -- three relaxing, "beach day" ports with minimal hassles, no pushy "salespeople" like at Nassau, etc. It was me, my friend John, and his wife Kathy all sharing an aft-extended balcony cabin on Verandah Deck 8. Our scheduled ports were Half Moon Cay, Amber Cove D.R. and Grand Turk.

As is my custom, we drove halfway down from Atlanta to near Jacksonville and stayed at the Econolodge in Macclenny, which was open but bursting with refugees from Hurricane Matthew. We arrived at the height of the storm as it was passing Jacksonville, but we were grateful that we had booked the room in advance; there were no hotel rooms available anywhere north of Orlando. Then, after consulting the Waze navigational app, we drove down I-95 toward Fort Lauderdale, through Matthew-devastated areas. We had to detour off the interstate twice to avoid road closings and some areas would not have power restored until two days later; we were lucky to find gas for sale but after we did, we knew we would probably make it to FLL.

At FLL I had booked a stay-park-free-cruise online deal at the Quality Inn Cruiseport South, and that worked out well, with free parking during the cruise and free shuttle transfers to and from the pier. Read more