We were visiting Miami from Northern Ireland. We took our flight from Dublin direct with Aer Lingus to Miami 5 days before the cruise, this allowed us a few days to explore the Miami and Fort Lauderdale area. We picked up a hire car for our stay before the cruise then returned it to MIA on the embarkation day. TIP - the taxi drivers are a bit crazy and the set fare seems to be $27 from the airport to Port of Miami. I recommend an Uber - this works out at around $14 and a much comfier ride - head to the car rental ground transportation level and your Uber will find you.

Moving on to the cruise, we arrived at the Port of Miami around 11:30am, at this point hopped out of the taxi and had a very awkward greeting from a baggage collector who moved our bags away and immediately turned to us and said "We will load your bags for you, so I will accept tips now and ensure your bags arrive safely". Being a British tourist in a foreign country I gave him $5 for our 3 bags as I wanted to make sure they would definitely get on the ship. TOP TIP – have some small cash handy when you get to the port, by chance I happened to have a $5 in my pocket or it would have been awkward.

Next we walked through a quick security check, nothing much to report, just a standard TSA like check but not as strict and then a very quick visit to receive our XpressPass cards and a check of our passports. We have British passports however there were no visa requirements for the countries we were visiting (obviously just ensure you have an ESTA for landing in Miami!). Read more