This is a review of the NCL Jade 5 night cruise out of Miami. This cruise was a Christmas gift for my wife - our first cruise without the children. When booking, I envisioned a short relaxing vacation to get away from the cold of the Northwest. To that extent, the cruise was a success. As we had previously sailed on Disney and RCCL, I was looking forward to trying out another line. What got me to choose NCL was a good price and a lot of reviews touting the quality of the food (which is highly important to me).

We flew into Ft Lauderdale the day before departure and took an Uber to Miami (Southwest doesn't fly into Miami International). The Uber cost ~$40 and was super simple. Just grabbed the bags, walked out to the ride share curb, and ordered up a ride. We stayed at the Hyatt Regency Miami which is about 2 miles to the Port of Miami. Downtown Miami was what you'd expect from a major city - lots of concrete and tall buildings. The most memorable thing about Miami was the traffic. I've never in my life heard so many horns being honked. It's like they have their own language/communication system consisting of just the horn (and a few hand gestures) :)

We ordered another Uber in the morning to get over to the port (~$6) and arrived at around 10:15. The check in process was extremely quick which I'm guessing is from the early arrival time. Security was quick - metal detectors & routine stuff. We waited in line for maybe five minutes to get to the counter. Showed the agent our boarding docs, got our freestyle cards, and was assigned boarding group 2. Then up to the terminal to wait for boarding. I checked the time when we completed the process and it was 10:29 (yup, from curb to terminal waiting area was a whopping 14 minutes). We expected to be waiting until 12:00 to board, but the ship was ready early and we were onboard at 11:30. I couldn't be happier about the process. Read more