JamieLogical

Holiday Inn Express Ft. Lauderdale Cruise-Airport 1500 SE 17th Causeway Fort Lauderdale FL 33316 US

We are on the ship! Left our hotel at 9:40 to walk to the terminal, despite the front desk at the hotel insisting we weren't allowed to walk. Since we are at Terminal 2, we are before the security gate that cars have to drive through, so it was no issue at all just to walk right up. There was a pretty mighty line outside and it took us exactly 15 minutes to get through that and make our way inside. Then we had to wait in a VERY slow-moving line to get through security, which included them digging through my WAY overstuffed backpack to get to the bottom just to pull out an EU power adapter and realize it was not a security threat afterall. That all took about another 15 minutes and then we got in the green lane line and through that very quickly to walk onto the ship at 10:33.

We aren't in one of those L shaped ones on the corner. We are one cabin in from those.

Forgot to mention the towels! They only gave us two and they were about the size of the ones they usually give you to use as a bath mat.

We may do trivia. If you wear a woman with glasses and purple hair with a man with grey hair and a beard, that is probably us! Will give you a call onboard about coming to scope out your bathroom.

DO NOT recommend the Holiday Inn Express Ft. Lauderdale Cruise-Airport. The location sucked us in, being within walking distance of Terminal 2, but the hotel is terrible. One of the lights doesn't work, furniture is in rough shape, but the bathroom situation is insane. The only light is the super dim led lighting built into the mirror. It has about the same level of illuminati as a night light. Fine for using the toilet at night, but showering and shaving is a real challenge. I tried propping up our cell phone flashlights to shine towards the shower, but that didn't help much. The shower door made a sound like a dying walrus when opening and closing. But the worst issue was the water in the shower. It just randomly fluctuates from freezing to scalding and the water pressure went from basically no water at all to maybe a light spring drizzle. It particular favored the no water at all mode as my husband was trying to wash his hair. There was a lot of cursing and yelling coming from the bathroom.

Landed safely in FLL only a few minutes late instead of the full hour we were originally delayed. In the Lyft to our hotel now. See you tomorrow!

Well, one carry-on each. That is the miracle of bundle packing!

Our flight from Rochester to JFK just took off. We were able to gate check out roller bags without issue and the bag tracker shows them loaded on the plane. Even though our flight departure from JFK to FLL still shows a 25 minute delay, we are now scheduled to arrive 3 minutes earlier than our original arrival time!

In my experience, the food is much better in the MDR, but that is really subjective, depending on the kinds of food you like. Certainly there will be more complex/fancier options in the MDR.

No, you can only specify "early" or "late", not any of the specific seating times within those windows. If you don't get your preferred time, you will have to make a visit to the maitre d on embarkation day.

One day to go! Got our bundles packed last night. Took one quick trip to the grocery store for pet supplies. And I vacuumed the whole house just to try to get a handle on the existing cat hair so there will be slightly less of it to deal with when we get home. This morning we got a notification that our flight from JFK is delayed an hour. That won't be too bad. If nothing else, it gives us a little more time to grab dinner. Our flight from Rochester to JFK is still showing on time for now. It does mean that we will be getting into FLL an hour later and will miss our hotel shuttle, which stops running at 11pm. At least Uber/Lyft from the airport to our hotel should be super cheap because it's a short drive. Before our flight, I still have several last-minute tasks to tend to around the house, mostly pet-related. Tomorrow we will be on a cruise!

Not quite! I know that looks like a lot of stuff. We are staying with friends for two days in NYC after the cruise so I had to bring more that I typically would for a 7-day, especially since the clothes I wear in real life are completely different from my cruise clothes. Thus the need for jeans, t-shirts, and cotton socks. My normal cruise attire consists of a pair of wide-legged pants, a cotton camisole, a linen shirt over the camisole, a pair of slipper socks, and my "boat shoes." I won't rewear the camisoles because they are basically like underwear... they get sweaty and gross, though I do wear them to bed, so whatever one I wore that day is what I will sleep in. The pants and linen shirts I will rewear one time each, thus the need for 4 of each on a 7-day cruise. I sleep in my camisoles and yoga pants. I will only rewear those two times each and since we have the night in the hotel before the cruise and two nights at our friends' after the cruise, I need 10-night's worth, thus the need for 3 pairs in the bundle (one is in my backpack for the hotel tonight). The trail pants and moisture-wicking shirts and socks are for excursions. I sweat a LOT. All four of our port days for this sailing, the temps are supposed to be around 90. So I need moisture-wicking/quick-dry clothes for wearing onshore and with as gross as they get, no way I will rewear them more than once, thus the need for two sets of everything for our 4 port days. Swimsuit and cover-up are pretty self-explanatory. The spanx, dresses, and sweaters are for our two formal nights. Underwear should be self-explanitory. Should always bring a couple extra pairs of those! One of the bras I am bringing is strapless to wear with my two dresses. The others are my normal bras and like my yoga pants, I won't rewear those more than twice each, so I needed enough to cover the 10 days of the trip. The raincoat is just in case it rains for one of our excursions since those usually don't get canceled for rain. I have no say over what my husband packs, so I will let him justify his choices himself!

I will do my best to compare all the lines I have sailed, the most recent of which have been several sailings on MSC. I had written off Princess after my one and only sailing on the Emerald Princess, but I am more hopeful about the newer ships and even booked another sailing today on the Star Princess, which launches in October 2025.

Bundles are packed. Here are the final tallies of what went into each of our bundles. My Bundle: 4x Wide-legged Pants 3x Yoga Pants 1x Jeans 2x Trail Pants 2x Maxi Dresses 1x Swimsuit Cover-up 1x Raincoat 4x Long-sleeve Linen Shirt 2x Sweaters 2x Moisture Wicking T-shirts 3x Cotton Print T-shirts 7x Cotton Camisoles 1x Swimsuit Bottoms 1x Spanx 1x Pair of Boat Shoes 7x Pairs Slipper Socks 3x Pairs Cotton Socks 3x Pairs Moisture Wicking Socks 9x Underwear 1x Swimsuit Top 4x Bras 1x Collapsible Hamper Husband's Bundle: 1x Trail Pants 1x Slacks 1x Jeans 1x Long-sleeve Linen Shirt 4x Tommy Bahama Shirts 6x Cotton Print T-shirts 4x Moisture Wicking T-shirts 2x Shorts 1x Swim Trunks 10x Boxer Briefs 10x Pairs of Socks 2x Pairs of Shoes

Every bar can make cappucinos and lattes. There are espresso machines and coffee grinders at every bar on MSC.

That would be my best guess. Not sure when they will do the second formal night, since the only other sea day is the last day of the sailing and they don't like to do it the last night due to people needing to pack and get their luggage put out.

Sharing tables are the norm on MSC. The good news is, they do their best to seat you with people who have the same primary language as you. The bad news is, that doesn't always work, depending on the demographics of the guests. On my last cruise, we were seated with a couple where the husband spoke English okay-ish and his wife only spoke Greek. We made it work and still had plenty of pleasant conversations with them! As others have said, even if you get a two-top, expect to have others seated about 4 inches away from you. Those photos are from the Waves MDR on the Meraviglia.

The drink package you get when you are in YC is the Premium package. It's exactly the same package that someone can purchase directly outside of the YC. All of the drink packages fleet-wide now only require you to pay the difference on drinks ordered in bars over whatever your package covers. That being said, if you order a drink in a specialty restaurant that is more than what is covered by your drink package, you have to pay the full price for the drink. Maybe that is what the person on the Euribia was warning you about? If you ate outside of the YC Restaurant at one of the specialty dining venues then you might have to pay full price for drinks?

I sailed Celebrity several times after the restart, but ultimately switched to sailing MSC as pricing on Celebrity became more and more prohibitive and I kept reading about more and more cuts on Celebrity. To be clear, I only sail in "steerage" (did get one great deal on Retreat on the Summit on a short cruise post-COVID, but have otherwise sailed exclusively in balconies on all lines). MSC ships will feel more crowded and not do quite as well with what I call "live music in small spaces", but MSC is generally a MUCH better value for your money. On Celebrity, I always had to upgrade to the Premium dink package just to get Bailey's in my coffee. On MSC, the included Easy Plus package covers Bailey's. Unlike many reviewers, I really like the MDR food on MSC. The main drawback on MSC is fixed dining times versus MyChoice dining or whatever they call it on Celebrity. I never found the main theater entertainment on Celebrity to be all that great, so I would say MSC is at least on par, though they do not allow drinks in the theater! The buffet, to me at least, is similar between both lines, but MSC has by FAR the best pizza at sea. MSC ships may not have Al Baccio, but they do have espresso machines at every single bar so you can get specialty coffees at any bar on the ship, including Cafe Mochas, Cappuccinos, Lattes, etc.

Watch that bundle packing video I linked! You would be amazed how much you can fit in a roller bag carry-on with that method.

Two days to go!!!! Made a lot of progress last night. First I did all of my laundry and while that was running, my husband and I sat down to go over our packing lists and determine if we need to bring a checked bag. On our most recent cruises, we have flown first class and got checked bags for free, so have been sharing a checked bag. However, this time we are not flying first class and this is a shorter cruise (we have been doing a lot of 11-12 day cruises), so we would like to avoid checking a bag, if possible. So, we reviewed our lists and decided to give it a shot. Another factor is that I had to downsize to a smaller backpack since we aren't in first class. The backpack I've been traveling with lately is huge and may not qualify as a "personal item" on Jet Blue. It hasn't been an issue when we've been flying first class, because I had just been checking my roller bag and only carrying on my backpack, in which case it was counting as my carry-on and I've been putting it in the overhead bin. Since I will actually be carrying on my carry-on-sized roller bag, I don't know if I can get away with bringing my big backpack as my personal item. So, last night I tried squeezing all of my backpack stuff into a normal school-sized backpack. It was a VERY tight fit and some stuff is just going to have to squeeze into my roller bag with my bundle tonight. We'll see how things go with packing our roller bags. If we can't get everything to fit, I am just going to transfer everything into my bigger backpack and risk being forced to pay to gate check my roller bag. I have no issues gate checking my roller bag for free and might offer that when I get to the gate tomorrow, but not every airline lets you do that for every flight. In other cruise prep progress, I painted my toenails last night. That is always a big production that I hate very much, but I endure it so as to avoid causing my fellow passengers to vomit if/when I wear sandals around the ship. The big tasks for tonight are to pack our bundles and clean the house a bit. I also need to stop by the grocery store quickly to get fresh salad fixin's for our lizards. Then all that will be left for tomorrow morning are last-minute toiletries, running the dishwasher, and feeding the pets. I guess I will go ahead and leave my usual PSA about the wonder of bundle packing here. If you don't know what bundle packing is, watch this video. It will change your life!

You should receive instructions on your Welcome Aboard flyer, but the main thing you will want to do is initially connect to the ship's wifi be selecting it in your device's network settings then go to login.mscwifi.com to log in.

Three days to go! As predicted, I didn't have time to do anything last night due to trivia (we tied for first!), but I did get a few things done during the day. I got my pet-sitting instructions/schedule updated, I went to the bank to get cash for tips, and I ordered my AARP gift cards, confirmed their balances, and printed them out. Today will be a much bigger day. I plan to get my laundry done, pack my backpack, pack the stuff that's going into our shared checked bag, and paint my toenails. Tomorrow night the plan is to pack my bundle, clean, and get everything situated with the pets. Our flight leaves at 4:43pm on Friday and I will be working all day, so I won't really have any time to do anything on Friday except last-minute toiletries and such before work.

Oh, that is an excellent point. I tend to handle all the financials and travel planning, so it didn't even occur to me that we could do some of it in his name/account!