Embarkation - Fastest that we’ve ever gotten on a ship once we were at the port.

We stayed one night pre-cruise at the Renaissance Ft. Lauderdale Cruise Port Hotel. The location was great and there was a Walgreens right across the street, which was great to stock up on our two bottles of wine, coke, and bottle of hand soap for our bathroom. (We’re carryon suitcase only people, so it was nice to have the Walgreens to pick up a few items over 3 oz.)

It was about a $6 Uber ride from the airport to the hotel and a $6 Uber ride from the hotel to the port. We had a 10:30-11am check in time and left our hotel around 10:20am, once inside the port, there were all sorts of traffic issues due do how the police were directing traffic. It appeared that each police officer had their own idea of how best to direct traffic and none of it was coordinated, but we’re on vacation, what’s the rush?! We were out of the car walking into the port around 10:50am. There was maybe a one minute wait in the security line and then no wait at the cruise check in counter. We walked upstairs to the waiting area and just as we arrived they had called the platinum and suite guests. We were neither of those, but they directed us right to that line and told us not to sit down, so we went with it. Just as we went through our last check point to leave the port building to get on the ship we heard gold members called, so we wouldn’t have been too far off anyway. I would guess that boarding began at 11am. Read more