We arrived in Fort Lauderdale at around 11pm local time. Luggage was generally slow getting off the plane but I think it may have had to do with at least two other planes arriving at the same time. We caught our shuttle to the hotel and were all checked in by 12am. We stayed at the Marriott Fairfield. As a bonus when we checked in we were told that we got upgraded to a mini king bed suite! Score!!! The room was great, the bed real comfy which allowed us some good rest after a long day of travel. Breakfast was included too so we grabbed some muffins, cereal, and yoghurts and took them back to our room in the morning so we could have a relaxing morning before our cruise. Check out was at noon. The best part of all this was that we didn't even pay for the hotel stay thanks to some points we earned through a Visa card!
We decided to pay for a shuttle to the cruise port....$8 per person directly for the hotel. A convenient way to get to the port but you're not guaranteed to be the first stop. Seems like there is a bit of a feud between the cabbies and shuttle drivers or perhaps it was just our driver. Port Everglades is in a very industrial port-like setting, nothing like the cruise ship terminal back home. We arrived amongst what I'll describe as chaos between tour buses, shuttle buses, and taxis all trying to drop off passengers. There was no orderly way about it. The check-in line was extremely long when we arrived at about 12:35pm. We thought it would take forever but it moved quickly and by about 1:10pm we were all checked in and aboard the Ruby Princess - our home for the next 7 days.
We found our stateroom quickly...Stateroom C734 which is port side, aft of the ship on Caribe deck 10. It's a lovely balcony room and is quite spacious with a queen bed. The balcony is much larger than I thought it would be and was great for viewing arrivals, the vast big sea, or having breakfast on. The bathroom is rather small but we had heard they would be. The shower is tiny.
When we boarded the staff all try to direct you to the buffet dining room for lunch, but my trusty resourceful partner knew you could actually eat lunch in one of the regular restaurants if you made it there before 1:30pm. So after dropping our carry on bags in our room we set off to find the Da Vinci dining room. Here we had a quiet peaceful lunch while most other passengers probably would have been battling it out at the buffet. I had spinach and ricotta ravioli while Z had chickpea soup and salmon. It was very tasty. After lunch we walked around the ship a little to orient ourselves, attended the mandatory emergency drill and then found a great spot starboard to watch as we set sail. We were a little tired from the travel so we retired to our room for an early evening nap. You can really feel the ship moving as it is sailing; a couple times I had to reposition myself while walking. It's a neat sensation though when trying to sleep. By the time we got up we had sailed east enough that the cloudy skies had cleared and we could actually catch a bit of the sunset. It was beautiful as it glistened off the water. What a sight!!!
For dinner we went to the Michelangelo dining room and had a fabulous dinner. Z had read that on the dinner menus they will sometimes add fruit smoothie items and tonight they had what essentially was a piña colada listed under the soup section. I didn't quite believe Z at first but then I saw one and decided to also order it because it was included in the meal and so you got a free piña colada. How good is that when otherwise you would have to pay for it?!? Never thought to consider a piña colada a soup. I also had the melon trio with port wine as my appetizer while Z had chicken broth with tortellini. For my main I had chicken with fresh vegetables (no surprise there) while Z had the fettuccine on a bed of parmesan crust. Dessert was tasty too with so many different options, but I settled with the vanilla creme brûlée (pretty good but I know someone who makes it better), and Z had the ice cream but chose a scoop of each flavour - hazelnut (so comparable to Italy), honeydew sorbet (really tasty) and raspberry (least favourite). Dinner was really good overall. We ate late and were still a little tired and I was battling a headache so we retired for the evening so we could be all rested for the next day. Before hitting the pillow we put our order in breakfast room service for the morning and our order for fresh fruit delivery the next day. What a first day!!
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