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2 hours ago, Charles4515 said:

You should have flown from Fort lauderdale! I think you may be able to use the Turkish Airlines Lounge. I have an AMEX card and use the Centurian Lounge in Miami. 

I love the Centurion Lounge in Miami but  it's far from the United terminal. 

@nancy1031 there is unfortuantely not a United Club in the terminal. 

People who have had these offers and accepted them will be posting answers to you soon, but I will say that if it's something you are interested in taking, grab it quickly!

What did you do in San Juan?  I still don't have plans for the day. 

23 minutes ago, LACruiser88 said:

Emergency Notification from Princess, embarkation to start at 7 pm!

 

wow, you will have to let us know how you make out.  A nice glass (or two!) of vino is certainly called for once you do get on board.

Any chance of seeing the latest patters?

1 minute ago, LACruiser88 said:

We just completed the "new" New Zealand Traveler Declaration online by going to the web site link on the above Princess notice.  It was very simple and only took 5 minutes to complete.

 

We are ready to board the ship tomorrow!  ⛴️

Bon Voyage!  So looking forward to all of your thoughts and pictures. 

5 minutes ago, voljeep said:

and the bar service on board

Onboard Snacks & Drinks | Brightline (gobrightline.com)

If you are in premium, you get a cocktail like in first class on a plane.  They came around once during the Miami/Fort Lauderale route. 

From the Intercontinental Hotel, you will be able to walk to so many places. There is also the free metro mover that you can take around town.

https://www.miamidade.gov/global/transportation/metromover.page

Zuma for sushi is very close.  Right on the River.  For Italian, Il Gabbiano is steps away and wonderful. If you aren into Gordan Ramsey, you have a Hell's Kitchen right there.  I haven't personally eaten there but friends have and all have really enjoyed it.

Steps over the bridge into Brickell brings a whole ton of other restaurants.  A favorite of mine is River Oyster.  Great locally owned restaurant and wonderful seafood.  You also have Trulucks, Capital Grille and Flemings right there.  Yes, I realize chains but that particular Flemings is a favorite of mine with a great bar and I love all the staff.  If my friend Krysta is bartending, she makes a mean cocktail.  

Salty Flame is a great new restaurant in Brickell.  Moxies is a fun casual place in Mary Brickell Village.  

CHI.CVE in downtown is great. I've always enjoyed lunch at Verde at The Perez Art Museum and love sitting outside

If you want something special, take a taxi to Little Havana and go to Cafe La Trova. It just got named one of the top 50 bars in the World again.  It's a wonderful place.

These are just a few ideas and I'll think of more.

6 hours ago, pedirn said:

From where I live it is $39 or $79 one way depending on level of service chosen     So from West Palm Beach to FT Lauderdale would be $78 RT.   Now there are two of us so least expensive would be $156 for two of us.   Now add taxi from our house to train station about $35 each way.   Comes to $226 RT for two.   I can park at port for $140 for the week or use a car service for about $125 each way.   Now car service is a little more but personal service with them picking us up at home, handling luggage.    I am just not seeing the value for me.   

Add in the $35 per bag if you want the seamless travel where you check your bag and they bring it to the ship!  2 bags would bring your total to $296.

What kind of food are you looking for?  There are so many great restaurants and all different price ranges.  

Will you have a car?  What area in Miami are you staying in?

@LACruiser88 looks like a wonderful day. Do we need a new suitcase yet?!!  LOL

9 hours ago, 555 said:

What do they charge for a round trip?

Depends on the day and the time of your booking.  Could run from $74 per person one way to $174 per person one way for the basic fare, more for the premium for the Orlando to Fort Lauderdale run. This doesn't include the 15% discount if you book on the Princess trains.  This doesn't include checked bags which for Princess runs $35 per bag to be delivered to the ship, otherwise it's $25 per bag.  

Capriccio posted their website.  

8 hours ago, JohninDC said:

Depending upon where in Kissimmee, I would plan on 2-2.5 hours for the trip.

 To Port Canaveral?  There is no way it would take that amount of time.

Just did the drive as I have 2 sons living up there about 10 minutes apart and it's about 1 to 1.5 hours from Osceola and John Young which is close to the the OP will be.   Roundtrip for me was an hour each way. 

OP, I would try and get there closer to 11 and leave your hotel by 9:30 so the rush traffic has mainly cleared. 

13 minutes ago, talkorpi said:

Dinner was good! Did a short review with a couple photos on the last page. TL:DR - great food, good service, mediocre atmosphere

I don't know how I missed it!  I'm on the 4/20 sailing and have dinner scheduled there for one night so it was nice to see the pictures.  

Rudi's is in that spot on the Sky so I know the atmosphere because we ate there in December.  I think they moved it upstairs and put Rudi's in its place on the Enchanted.  

Thank you for the patter for tomorrow.  How was your dinner tonight?

I must say that I'm actually floored at the movie choice for tomorrow night's (The Zone of Interest)

Movie under the Stars.  We just happened to watch that tonight and it's a surprising choice for them to show. 

I guess this was marketed as a game changer for Floridians because the only way to use the seamless bag check onto the ship is if you take the train on the day of your cruise.  

And if you go to the Brightline page you can see that there are only 4 that are marked Princess going from Orlando to Fort Lauderdale.  They are the 6:50, 7:50, 8;50 and 9:50 am trains.  Guess those are the only ones that you can use this on. 

8 hours ago, LuCruise said:

Thanks so much for the feedback. Good to hear from personal experience that you were happy with the hotel.  We typically take an uber to the port as we are 4 and like to go on our own time, but will keep it in mind in case we go with the shuttle.

Take an uber.  The port is only 3 miles away and a 15 minute.  An Uber XL will run you about $24. There are premier SUVS in the area as well and that will run about $38

2 hours ago, Retired-N-Happy said:

Hopefully you get 100.00 in OBC for the inconvenience so you get a free specialty dinner out of it.

Princess didn't do anything wrong in this instance though.  Another passenger went to the cabin before they were supposed to and left their belongings as the door was propped open.  Sounds like Princess has handled it well and cleared out the stuff and will replace the mini bar.

One example of why they say to not go to your stateroom early until they are ready. 

Bon Voyage!!  So looking forward to following along.

23 minutes ago, LACruiser88 said:

Today turned out to be a beautiful, warm day!  It had to be 80°!

 

We strolled and shopped thru the Saturday street market at the Rocks.

 

 

 

Debbie doing what she loves, shop!!!  (She is in the white shirt)

 

And then we walked and walked...

The Royal Princess in the background.

 

 

We walked to the Royal Botanic Gardens looking for cockatoos.  And we found them, a huge flock of Greater Sulphur-Crested Cockatoos!  It always amazes us to see parrots in the wild that we bred in our aviaries.  Over the years, we bred 8 different species of Cockatoos, the Greater Sulphur-Crested being one of them.

 

 

 

 

We also spotted a Rainbow Lorikeet, a species that we also bred.

 

We returned to the Rocks dripping in sweat for a cold refreshment!

 

 

Before returning "home," we walked to a wine shop that was recommended by the Concierge at our hotel.  The clerk was extremely helpful helping us select 6 bottles of wines that are not exported outside of Australia.  These we will carryon to the ship.

 

 

 

They are all screw caps and were in the $50 to $70 AUD.  I'll report back on how they tasted.  🤞

 

Tomorrow, we are planning on taking the ferry to Manly.

 

 

Looks like the perfect day. Love all the bird picture. Can't wait to hear how the wine was. 

Thank you @reedprincess for posting that link. 

49 minutes ago, CruisinFinsUp said:

Is it just for Florida residents or could we possibly fly into Orlando and use the train to get to Ft Lauderdale? 

We'd consider adding a couple days in Orlando to the vacation.....  

you can always take Brightline and they run specials frequently. Just Uber from the station to the port. 
 

and the tie with Princess is for anyone. They just did PR making it seem like it was a game changer for those who live here. But I would take advantage if you want to stay in Orlando before. 
 

The premium lounge in Fort Lauderdale and Miami are both nice. The trains are very nice. Haven't been to Orlando yet. 
 

below is their latest promo. 

This will be interesting to see how this plays out. . Anyone remember when Brightline was rebranded as Virgin Trains USA?  They even renamed the Miami station to Virgin Miami Central.  All was going to tie into their cruise line and the hotel they were going to build in Brickell on a friend's property.  

Thanks @LACruiser88 for the press release.  Interesting to read.  

Guess they have raised the price of the checked bags for their service.  I'm surprised to see it's only a 15% discount on the fare.  

3 hours ago, talkorpi said:

Walked down Las Olas boulevard. Very nice shops but not exactly in my price range. It’s a beautiful day - 70° and not a cloud in sight!

 

Getting some lunch at our hotel (Riverside Hotel) while we wait to check in. 
 

Fun story about the hotels - when I was booking our room for the night before, everything was so incredibly expensive. Like $700-1200 a night average price. I finally found a room at the Riverside Hotel for less than $250 on a third party site and thankfully when I checked in it was legitimate. 
 

Turns out, there’s a massive three-day music festival called Tortuga going on. The entire town is practically shut down for it and hotels are so expensive as a result. I’m glad I booked a flight and hotel early!

 

Trying to do the water taxi this afternoon but I have gotten conflicting information - they told me it’s closed and being used as a shuttle for the festival but my hotel said they told them they are operating as normal. I guess we will find out in an hour or two…

The festival is down on the beach and there are street closures. 

The water taxi is open to everyone and they do encourage people going to the festival to use it due to all the traffic and parking issues.  It will be much more crowded than normal.  I do know they were selling $35 3 days passes to encourage people to use it.

The last act today starts at 8:25 pm so expect it to get crowded about an hour after that.

Enjoy Las Olas.  There are so many places to go within waking distance a lots of great restaurants.   

Louis Bossi is a great Italian place for dinner and happy hour and within walking distance.  

Enjoy your night.