We arrived in Miami on Saturday morning and used Quality Limo Service to get to Ft. Lauderdale. After a short delay in finding our driver, we were on our way to the Marriott Harbor Beach resort. Our older daughter flew directly into FLL from school, and all of us met at the hotel. Luckily, all of our flights, even hers on Delta, were on time! It was nice to be able to spend the day in Ft. Lauderdale the night before the cruise and not be so exhausted on the first day. We were able to buy provisions for our cabin at the Total Wine store nearby and have wine for dinners and beverages in our cabin.

Check in at the Emerald Princess on Sunday morning was fairly smooth. The system they use to get on board could be better, but all in all, it wasn't too bad. There seemed to be quite a delay in calling the various group numbers up to the check in counters, even though those counters appeared empty. There also didn't seem to be any method to the way they distributed check-in numbers as we entered the building. They asked my younger daughter, 17, how many adults were in our party and then just handed us a number out of a stack. Disembarkation was a nightmare, but more on that later.

We got to the pier around 11:30 and were on board by about 12:20. Our cabins were ready and we then met the rest of our group on deck for some lunch and beverages. We also went to Sabatini to make our reservations for there and the Crown Grill for later in the week. For some reason we decided on early seating this year, so we wanted to make sure that we did specialty restaurants on our two later port days so we didn't have to rush in to get ready. Read more