Nashville to Fort Lauderdale

We started early today thanks to a 4am wake-up. Ted unfortunately didn't have a good sleep as he was sick the whole night. Getting to the airport wasn't as easy as we'd hoped as the original Uber we requested was over half an hour away. We finally found one closer and were on our way.

After checking in, we had a pretty decent breakfast of coffee and waffles before heading to our flight. Our flight on Southwest was far from memorable, so it was something of a relief when we reached Fort Lauderdale. Well, at least it was until we tried to find our airport shuttle. Continuing our tradition of always having dodgy airport shuttles, our over-worked, stressed out, elderly Hispanic driver finally turned up in a plain white van to collect us. First however, we had to wait for other passengers who similarly couldn't recognise that the plain white van was their shuttle service. After all this confusion, we were finally departed.

Our check-in for the cruise was actually quite smooth and simple until we reached the counter. When the agent couldn't find the USA entry stamp in Ted's passport, they were not going to check us in. It was exactly the kind of stress and confusion we didn't need, so we quickly retrieved the passport and managed to find the stamp in a few minutes. Once the initial panic had waned, we headed towards our cruise ship!

We have previously sailed with Celebrity, and this cruise company is Royal Caribbean. Whilst the boat is quite fine, it still looks like the Walmart variety in comparison! We previously had a balcony room on Celebrity but the window room we have on this ship is fine. We tried to have a snooze on the boat but unfortunately all the passengers were called to the deck prior to departure for the emergency drill. It wouldn't have been so bad if we didn't have to stand in the blazing sun to do it!

Since a buffet lunch was available, we wasted no time in going to the zoo, um dining room, to get something to eat. With Ted being diabetic and myself being vegetarian, fortunately there were still plenty of food options for both of us. We had a walk around the ship to orientate ourselves, and could see how it is definitely different to the Celebrity cruise. It isn't necessarily a bad thing though, as some of the things on Celebrity seemed a bit too high end.

We considered going to bingo but at $33 a game, changed our mind. After our buffet lunch, we decided a buffet dinner was the perfect way to finish the evening. After this big day, it looks like an early night is the best option!Read more