We are a married couple (over 55) who choose to spend our vacation dollars sailing on cruise ships. Many people ask why and the answer is simple, we unpack once but get to experience new places as opposed to just one location!

We arrived to FLL via MIA on the Saturday before our departure date of Monday. I priced out flights and we found flying into MIA was about $200 pp cheaper even after factoring in the transfer up to our FLL hotel. We stayed at the Marriott Fort Lauderdale Cruise location for our first night as we had points. Nice hotel, nice rooms and a decent breakfast. Not many options for food in the area but we found the Tropical Steakhouse within walking distance (less than 10 minutes) and the meal was awesome! Try their Key Lime Pie!! The next day we moved over to the Hyatt on 17th. This was our 4th stay here and it has some decent shopping and dining close by. Monday morning we took a taxi to the port cost was around $14 with the tip.

We never get tired of the excitement of seeing our ship at the port. Reflection had one Princess and one RCCL ship in port with her! We have sailed on two other S class ships so we kind of knew what to expect. The Reflection did not disappoint. We had balcony 7305 which is on the port aft side. Occasionally we would have some smoke odors from the port side smoking area but that was rare. Depended on the wind blowing in the absolute right direction! Our steward was polite and unobtrusive. When we made requests (extra towels and wine glasses) he quickly attended to them. Bed was comfy and located by the bathroom. Read more