anwick

Hi !

I went on a girls cruise at the beginning of the month, and the 6 of us agree: FTF is worth every penny! We were at the dock at 10:30, breezed thru customs and check in via a special line, no waiting. We were on the boat by a little after 11am. Our rooms were ready for us so we could drop off our carry on bags before lunch, and our bags were already there too! I think we were part of a group of only about 20 people on board for the first 1/2 hour or so. The halls were blocked off to everyone else as the stewards were setting up the other cabins, but the signs said "closed except for FTF"!

After a quick lunch, we changed into our suits and lounged on an upper deck with our books for some O & R ("observe and relax") The lines for the buffet grew longer and longer, and we watched, while sipping our first cocktails of the trip. All afternoon, people were boarding in long pants and wearing boots, dragging suitcases behind them - while we felt we had an extra day at sea! That experience alone was worth the $25 each.

There are some perks as far as excursions, tenders and a special line at customer service but we didn't need any of those extras for our trip.

The other perk was that we got priority un-boarding as well. We had zone 1 blue luggage tags. Half our group did self-assist and they were off the ship very early (had an early flight so that was good for them). The other half checked our bags and even after a nice breakfast in the MDR, we too were off the ship with the first wave of passengers and our bags came thru immediately with no waiting.

We rented a car at Port of Miami to be returned to the Ft Lauderdale airport. Drove up to FTL and spent the day riding the water taxi, which was a great way to wrap up the trip and then caught our 5:30pm flight back to NH. Where it was 22 degrees. But we are used to that!

So the day we disembarked and the day we returned to port were both lovely vacation days for us, rather than hectic travel days. We all agree: FTF is the way to go!

Have fun on your cruise!

If I plan to carry my own bags off the ship, is there any advantage to having FTF when I return at the end of the cruise?