Saturday in Ft Lauderdale/Disembarkation

We were somewhat sad to be leaving the Crown Princess after cruising around the Caribbean for the last two weeks. 

Arrived into Port Everglades in the early morning hours

We woke up early to have our last breakfast on the ship.  We did a final last pack of our backpacks and double checked all the drawers, cubby holes, and safe to make sure we didn’t leave anything behind.  We left our cabin before 8am and headed to the designated Platinum and Elite lounge in Club Fusion.  Our cruise card was checked at the entry way in Club Fusion and we promptly found some seats near a window.  Our group was Pink 1 and we were to disembark around 10am.  We pulled out our iPads to pass the time away.  There were some delays in calling the groups.  Apparently, there was a backlog going through customs as there were not enough agents.  Our group was called around 10:30am and we left the ship for the last time.  It was easy to find our luggage in the terminal as we were the last group called.  We waited in the customs line for about 10 minutes and went through customs quickly. 

We had a post-cruise day/night in Ft Lauderdale and found the Princess reps to direct us to our transfer to the Embassy Suites (ES).  We waited and waited.  We waited over an hour for our Cabana bus to arrive.  While we were waiting, we saw a lot of folks arriving at the terminal for the start of their cruise on the Crown Princess. 

Sometime before 12 noon we boarded a Cabana bus.  We had three groups going in different directions:  Ft Lauderdale airport, Embassy Suites, and the Sheraton.  We arrived at our destination and dropped off our bags at the ES.  We walked behind the hotel towards the Harbor Shops shopping center to find a place to eat lunch.  We ended up at Lauderdale restaurant.  Thirty minutes later, I received a call on my cell phone that our room was ready. 

View from our balcony:  cruise port and the shopping center behind the ES

After lunch, we checked into the ES and headed back out in the pleasant, partly sunny weather in Ft Lauderdale.  We walked along the 17^th Street Causeway and ended up at the bridge.  We saw eight ships in port. 

Crown Princess docked in Port Everglades

We had toyed with the idea of taking the trolley down to the beach, but quickly nixed that idea as we were getting sleepy and needed to take a nap.  Plus, I did not want Hubby to strain himself from too much activity in one day.  This was probably the most he had walked since visiting the ER two weeks ago.