My Night in Fort Lauderdale

[Robpuffdaddy]

I am still working on my full cruise review to be on the Carnival page, but I wanted to pass on information on this page to let you all know about my night in Fort Lauderdale. We took the Amtrak train from Tampa to Fort Lauderdale. We decided to take the train because I was not in the mood to drive and it was actually cheaper to take the train than to pay for gas, pay to park the car for the week and wear and tear on the vehicle and me. Glad we took the train because when we got back to Fort Lauderdale on Sunday we were in the middle of Tropical Storm Debby and the drive home would have been a nightmare. It took about 4 hours to take the train and got to Fort Lauderdale around 5:30. We grabbed a taxi and we spent the night before the cruise at the Embassy Suites on 17th Street. We had heard so many great things about this place so we gave it a try. Let me tell you they were right. What a great place the ES was. The hotel was beautiful with the large atrium and the koi ponds and the pool area. The room was huge. Plenty of room. We had requested a higher level room facing the port and they hooked us up with a room facing the port. We made several friends on the roll call page and we had a Facebook page and several of us were staying at the ES for the night. We met up by the pool during the nightly Manager's Reception. (open bar)...had several drinks and then we decided to walk over to the Southport Raw Bar. Great food and great drinks. After dinner we staggered back to the hotel. There are plenty of selections of other dining in the area and several grocery and drug stores to get last minute items. There was a Total Wine nearby to get stuff if needed. We got up and looked out the window and saw our ship waiting for us. We went downstairs and had a great breakfast in the Atrium. They had made to order omelets and a lot of other items to choose from. We were going to take a taxi to the port but they had several shuttles there waiting. We went early to the port around 9:45. Took 5 minutes to get there and it ony cost $7.00 per person. Since we got there early there was no line at all for embarkation. Real smooth. It took only about 10 minutes to go thru. First stop was to check ID and passport/birth certificate. Then we went thru the bag scanner. They did not even as to look in the bag. We had 12 bottles of water, one bottle of wine, and a big bottle of pineapple juice. I had heard that they were cracking down on looking at the bottles of water to see if you were bringing other clear liquids instead and the size of the bottles being brought. But in my case, they did not look at my stuff except for the scanning machine and my bottle of pineapple juice was way over the 20 oz size limit. We then went to the counter and got out sail/sign cards and verified our credit account set up. We then went to the waiting area and we were escorted up the elevator to the VIP area. There was a wedding party waiting to get on and about 20 other people waiting. We were allowed to board the ship around 11:30. And the cruise began. If anyone has any questions, please feel free to ask.

[jennmaybe]

I tried to read your post, but without it being broken up, it is very difficult to read.;) I didn't make it all the way to the end. Can you edit it really quickly?

[Keith1010]

Glad it all worked out and glad you can remember your experience the night before the cruise.

 

Keith