We flew into Miami from Wisconsin the night before the cruise. There's just no telling with the weather. Spent the night at the airport Embassy Suite. They were overbooked so we got a room with a different sleeping configuration than we wanted. I was crabby from travelling. The next morning I had to admit that this configuration worked better for my family anyway. Otherwise the hotel was nice, clean and the front desk service was really good.

Because we were a family of 5 it was cheaper for us to take a taxi than to take the service everyone raves about on this site. It was an easy ride, detour at the grocery store for diet coke, coke, water, box of wine....

Went through the lines. Paid $15 corkage on a bottle of champagne we brought with us on our carry-on. I felt like they caught me doing something wrong even though I knew about the corkage and planned on paying it. The security guy didn't even talk to me, he pulled it out and walked me over to the table. I wasn't trying to be sneaky. I'm just looking for a "ma'am follow me to the table here and we'll settle up your corkage fee." Not a problem, just a feeling. (I might have had a guilty conscience, but we'll get to that later) Read more