FOPMan

A friend also got married on HMC, and just got off a five year anniversary cruise. We surprised them at the wedding- we didn't know they were getting married, let alone were aboard the same ship as us. I looked over and realized I knew the wedding party- the Mother off the Bride was one of our neighbors growing up- she was among my first babysitters, and I had looked after the bride when she was a toddler.

One risk to manage is priority disembarking. If you are in Club Orange, you shouldn't have an issue if the ship docks on time and you get off quickly. How are you getting to the helipad? Do you need to find a ride, or is the tour operator picking you up? If you aren't first ashore and need to get a ride, there could be some delay.

If you are flying into MCO, I would change hotels (and stay in the MCO Hyatt or another hotel that had a direct shuttle to DCL. If flying into Sanford, I'd rent a car for drop off at the cruise port. And please make sure what port you are sailing from- Port Canaveral or Port Everglades.

Be sure you allow sufficient time to clear customs.

Taxis are plentiful at PortMiami. You will need your ship to be docked promptly and it will be most helpful if you self-disembark. In most circumstances, one needs to arrive at the airport no less than 3 hours before the flight is scheduled to depart. MIA is a large airport and it can take some time once on airport property to get to your airline's terminal. Safe travels!

There should be a few cabs and rideshare drivers around, unless it is exceeding late and yours is the very last plane. I'd then ask a police officer for assistance- they usually have a cabbie connection. The Fort Lauderdale area is a diverse community- not everyone celebrates Christmas.

HAL's guarantee is for an excursion found AFTER booking with HAL. Your (cancelled) booking was BEFORE booking with HAL. If there is no availability for the 1pm excursion other than through HAL, then there is no comparable offering available (at least from that vendor).

PBI is about an hour's ride in light traffic from Port Everglades.You should be OK for a 1:45 domestic flight if you get into a ride by 10:15. If a rideshare driver won't accept your request, a taxi will. You probably don't need to carry yourself off. You might want the driver to stop at a fast food place before you get to the airport. PBI is not large and may have limited food offerings.

It's not the same time. That's probably enough to be different. And there's obviously a potential reason for price differentials based on time. More demand for the 1pm?! The guarantee also states the order in which excursions must be purchased- through HAL and then through another provider (which, among other things, enables HAL to buy out a particular trip, making it unavailable for separate purchase).

It is going to be a messy day all around. Many of the folks disembarking may find additional chaos at the airports. There are delays at both MIA and FLL. Hopefully, the flight delays will enable at least some passengers to make what otherwise would be a missed flight.

Several of the rental companies maintain rental offices for the port and do offer shuttles between those offices and the ships. These offices are distinct from the airport snd are NOT in the same location. The rental car companies don't want to offer free transfers from the ships to the airport.

Getting an Uber or Lyft driver for port Everglades to the Fort Lauderdale airport is almost never an issue. You may have a little more of an issue in getting a driver interested in going to PBI. FLL is 10 minutes from Port Everglades. A driver can make multiple circuits, potentially taking new passengers from the airport to the cruise port for the "next" cruise. PBI is about an hour's drive from Port Everglades. There are comparatively few passengers wanting rides from PBI to Port Everglades, and PBI is nowhere near as busy as FLL, so it may be more challenging for the driver to get their next ride.

Sadly, the parade has been cancelled due to weather.

They should be able to assist you through the SkyConnect train and to the car rental center. I'd be prepared to tip well, especially if they wait in queue with you while you are getting your car.I don't know if assistance going from the rental center back to the terminal is available.

St. Thomas can be a tender port, depending on the day- there are only so many places to dock, and if there is no space, one to three ships may tender. HAL is usually pretty efficient in tendering. That being said, St. Thomas can get very, very busy with too many ships. I'd personally get ashore early, do what I wanted, and get back aboard by 1pm to avoid crowds.

I recommend routing from the FLL airport out 595 to 95 North to Broward Boulevard to SE 7th Avenue to the Riverside. It's a bit roundabout, but should avoid as much of the car traffic associated with the parade as possible.

If the OP's flight lands @ 5:30 and is on time or late, getting to the hotel any time before 7:00 on the parade night may, unfortunately, be unlikely, US1 will be a mess. and the Andrews and Third Avenue bridges will be worse. The SW 4th/7th bridge can also be a bit messy.

The parade's official start time is 6:30. At that point, attention will be focused on the river, not roads. I'd go from the airport to 595 to 95 north to broward boulevard east to SE 8th avenue and south to Las Olas at the time/date you're in town. Or stay elsewhere.

Here's a list of companies with accessible taxis licensed in Broward County, which is where Port Everglades and Fort lLauderdale's airport are located: https://www.broward.org/Consumer/Forms/Documents/TaxiListWAV.pdf.

You will likely need to upgrade to premium wifi to use FaceTime effectively I'm nkt aure how successful you will be with Whatspp without premium, either..

The cruise line is required under US law to provide accessible transportation.

We were in that cabin several years ago for two weeks around Christmas. Noise was not an issue.

Taking a ship' excursion to the airport is an easily implemented solution to do something more exciting than sitting in the airport for a few hours (and a good use of excursion credit if you have some).

Assuming they have US passports, and/or are US citizens without a criminal background, there should be little delay. Most of the Port E terminals use facial recognition technology that's pretty efficient. The manual line is usually less than 5-10 minutes on a 3000 passenger ship. I'd take the ship's tour of Fort Lauderdale rather than go straight to the airport.

Not to mention a tripping hazard that would be amplified if the passageway were encumbered by smoke. Furthermore, in response to an emergency, there is no convenient place to get them out of the travel corridor (not that that extra task should be put on the crew, especially when in response mode.