My wife and I are both 64 and retired. We live in Gloucester Virginia. This was our 4th cruise, two on Holland America and two on Celebrity. We have been to Alaska(19 days), Panama Canal(14 days), Bermuda(7 days) and Southern Caribbean(14 days). We went on this cruise with two other couples.

We left Virginia a day early and got to Ft. Lauderdale approx. 11:30 am. We retrieved our bags and went to the shuttle parking and there was a complementary shuttle from the Best Western already there. We got to the motel too early and while waiting to get into our room, we went to Mc Donald's next door and got a bite to eat. We got into the room at 1:30. One other couple arrived at 3:15. Later we got a shuttle to a restaurant recommended by the motel staff, Kiki's, and had a nice dinner there. Back to the room and to bed. We stayed at Best Western Fort Lauderdale Airport/Cruise Port and the motel was very nice and quiet. The rooms were clean and the beds comfortable.

We awoke the next day, 1/28/12, had a bite to eat and got ready to take the shuttle to the cruise terminal. The shuttle was $8 per person and we signed up for it the previous day after we arrived at the motel. The day we left was a very busy day at the terminal and also a busy day at the motel trying to get guests to the ships. At our motel there were approx. 100 people waiting for various shuttles to take them to various ships. I think it went well considering the sheer volume of people. When we paid for our shuttle we also paid for the return shuttle to take us to the airport upon our return. We left the motel at 11:15 and arrived at the terminal at 11:45. The terminal porters got our bags and loaded them on the various carts to be put on our ship and we were off to the terminal. There seemed to be approx. 300 to400 people at the terminal when we arrived. We got in line and it went smoothly. We were onboard by 12:30, had some lunch and got into our rooms by 1:30. We had an outside room and while it was certainly smaller than our home it was big enough for us and our four suit cases. It was clean and all of the paperwork we expected, shore excursion tickets, coupon booklet etc., were on our bed. We met our room stewards for the cruise, Mat Syaroni and Vijayen Padayachy, and I cannot say enough about these gentlemen and the level of service they provided. After about three days they knew exactly what we needed and when we needed it. We went to deck 11 to watch the ship leave and what a sight we saw. There were nine ships leaving that day, we were number 6, and what a procession it was. We had dinner in the dining room and saw the show and went to bed at 11:00 pm. Read more