Cruising out of Miami?

[Tikitoi]

Glad to have found this thread. We are cruising out of Miami for our Carnival Cruise. So flying into FLL on a nonstop flight from N.Y. We will be getting there the night before our cruise but around 7 pm so hoping it's going to be easy to get where we need to. It sounds like it will be. But we haven't made those arrangements as of yet...

 

[LindyWebb]

Love this thread! We are flying into FLL on the 29th super early for acquire out of Miami on the 30th I kind of want a car because I predict our room won't be available and then we will have no way to go anywhere. However I don't want to pay for a car rental to sit in a port parking lot. Thinking about a shuttle for the way home. I was too nervous to book the 12:45 flight so went with the safer 6:30 option. I will probably regret it when we are twiddling our thumbs waiting to go home!

 

[CesD]

the biggest issue we encountered in Miami was trying to rent a car once we came back. Every single rental car company did not have cars ready for people arriving from cruises. we literally waited hours with other cruise passengers for cars to come in.

The day before the cruise we went to Little Havana and tried their cuban food.

 

[CesD]

We flew into MCO and stayed at WDW a few days and then flew to MIA for only $75/p via Delta. We never had to rent a car and our hotel provided a free shuttle service to the port that was easy. The hotel was Comfort Suites Miami Airport North.

Comfort suites was excellent. the shuttle was very organized

 

[TLovesDisney]

Does anyone know if paying for parking at Miami is anything like Port Canaveral, where you pay with a credit card before hand? Thanks!!

 

[Jennifer777]

Does anyone know if paying for parking at Miami is anything like Port Canaveral, where you pay with a credit card before hand? Thanks!!

Our card wasn't actually charged until we left but we swiped the day we parked. There were no parking attendants when we arrived, just a machine that you had to enter your parking space number in and it spit out a ticket. You don't get a total until you go through the pay exit. They may put a hold on your card of some sort like hotels do though. This was in a lot right at the port. I'm not sure if the ramps at the port operate differently.

 

[AndreAggie]

We stayed in Miami the night before our March 2016 cruise. We're American Airlines folks and flew into MIA and took a cab to the Intercontinental (husband travels a lot and had a free room with IHG hotels). My husband checked us in to the hotel and told the desk clerk we wanted a port view...the next morning we could see the Wonder waiting for us! For breakfast we grabbed starbucks from the hotel lobby and ate in our room. We scheduled an Uber ride to the port and the driver was waiting at the hotel, so no waiting. Our son has to ride in a booster and our Uber driver was very patient while we got the booster installed. We use a bubble bum booster seat for travel. https://www.amazon.com/BubbleBum-In...TF8&qid=1472497234&sr=8-1&keywords=bubble+bum

We joined some friends on the cruise. They flew into FLL (southwest) a few days earlier and had a rental car. The drove over to the port (got lost!) and parked in the garage. I believe it was around $20/day. He dropped off the family with us, luggage with the porters, then parked and met us and we all entered the port together.

Inside the terminal, it was hot and crowded. But it moved FAST. We were in line to sign up kids for the clubs and they called our boarding group. We left that line and got on the ship. Registered the kids at the club onboard with no wait.

 

[Mickeytwins4life]

We flew in the day before our cruise to Fort Lauderdale, and the next morning we used Jiffy Jeff Transportation to get from Fort Lauderdale to Miami. It was easy and went much more smoothly than I expected.

 

[Savikins]

I also stayed at the Comfort Suites Miami Airport North. Not expensive, good free breakfast, and great free shuttle straight to the port. Oh, also a free shuttle from the airport to the hotel (it was kind of late, around 9 or 10 pm, but the shuttle only took about 15 minutes to arrive after we called the front desk). We didn't really explore the area, we just got pizza delivered to our room, but we didn't feel unsafe.

Just a note we didn't fly in, we took a Megabus from our hometown and it let us off at the Miami airport. The bus wasn't real comfortable and the "free wifi" that was excessively advertised didn't work at all, but the fare was so much cheaper than gas/parking would have been. It was clean, on time, and crazy cheap (total fare for 3 from Tampa to Miami and back was like $24, I bought an extra seat so I could bring an extra bag and also stretch out a bit).

I liked the Port of Miami. The terminal is nice and even though you don't get to see a special Disney terminal, all the staff were very friendly and made us feel welcome. It's also very cool to watch the Miami skyline fade away as you sail off.

 

[Hey it's Kris]

We have a large (12 people) family group. We are all flying in to FLL so we're probably going to need a van shuttle for all of us, how far ahead do they need to be reserved?