June 5, 2025
We flew from Columbus to Fort Lauderdale on Southwest in the afternoon and took a Lyft from the airport to the Hyatt Place Hotel in Dania Beach. We got checked in to the hotel and then around the corner to Buger Fi as we were both hungry. After about a 40 minute wait and constantly checking and figuring out they lost our order we got our burgers and onions rings and ate. We then walked over a mile to the nearest Walgreens in the Florida heat and humidity to get some items we couldn’t pack but wanted to take on the ship, like drinks and larger sunscreen and such. We both decided to not walk back to the hotel and ordered a Lyft to take us back to the hotel where we showered after the walk and settled in for the night.
June 6, 2025
We woke up and had breakfast at the complimentary breakfast at the Hyatt. We repacked our bags for the ship, checked out of the hotel and took a Lyft to the Port Everglades Cruise Terminal, which was only a couple of miles away. It was cheaper and quicker than the shuttle offered by Hyatt. We made it right through security and were on the ship in about 10 minutes. We dropped our bags off in our room that wasn’t ready for us yet, and left to get lunch at the buffet. We loved watching the boats go in and out fo the harbor and looking at all the homes. We watched us take off out of port from our balcony. As soon as we gout out to sea the temps dropped and were very comfortable. We enjoyed the balcony for over an hour and then wandered around the ship a little bit before going to dinner at the buffet. We then headed over to the Reflection Theater and watched the show “Feel the Funk”.
June 7, 2025
Key West is wonderful to visit, even for the 2nd time in 9 months. Even with all the touristsis maintainw qn ole Florida feel with lost of flowering trees and shrubs and small businesses. We walked to our bike rental shop were we reserved bikes for the day. We loved tooling around on the electric bikes we rented for a few hours in the morning before it got too hot. We stopped at a 7-11 for some more drinks to take back to the ship. We then found a little coffee and ice cream shop with Archie, the adorable litsl West Highland white terrier, who couldn’t hold his licker! We were only out for a couple of hours to limite the sun exposure. We turned the bikes back in took a Lyft back to the ship. Once on board we showered and cleaned up and went to the buffet for lunch. We then visited the future cruises space and put money down for a future cruise on Celebrity as right now that is our favorite cruise line. They found out were were celebrating our anniversary and gifted us a complimentary bottle of wine. We then went back to our room and the veranda and backed the boats pass our balcony. Lots of sport fishing, pleasure and ride on watercraft. We sipped out bottle of wine and enjoyed the scenery and stayed there as we left port and watched as we sailed away for over an hour on the veranda. We brough binoculars with us and were still close enough to the keys to see different islands and shores. We had dinner and watched Sam Fedele, a comedian, as our nightly entertainment in the Reflection Theater before calling it a day and heading to bed.
June 8, 2025
We were up and had breakfast as we approached Bimini. We watched them back the ship up to the pier from our balcony and had a first hand view of how they moor the ship.It was gorgeous on our Veranda and we watched the fish under the pier. Nikki went out and got another cup of coffee as she enjoyed it sitting out with me on the Veranda and enjoying the view of Bimini’s beaches. It all felt so cozy and nice at that point and we were really looking forward to exploring the small island on rented bicyles together. Little did we know . . . We took the free tram from the ship to the Bimini Resort beach and then Bimini Resort Casino. We did not get off the tram at either stop. The last stop of the tram was the end of the very long pier which did have shade as we were trying to limit our sun exposure again. We walked a short way and were picked up by a couple from our ship who rented a golf cart and dropped us off right at the bike rental place. We got our rental bikes, which were old cruisers, but they did have comfortable seats. The place was owned by a local lady and she was very nice as was every local we came across on the island. We rode the almost 4 km before the heat and the amount of trash along Kings Highway made us decide to turn around and head back. We were almost to the end of the road anyway and the shade was getting scarce as well. On the return ride we saw several iguanas that were bright green and several feet long, although mostly tails. One of them was very large and looked like he may have weighed slightly more than 15 pounds. We dropped the bikes abck off at the rental after only being out a little over an hour. The bike rental owner was worried we did not like the bikes and we explained that we are not used to the sun and heat and only planned a morning ride anyway. We thanked her for the bike rental and then walked back to the start of the pier where we caught the tram to take us back out the 1/3 of a mile to the ship on the unshaded pier. We showered and cleaned up and got an early lunch at the buffet and took a short nap. As we enjoyed the sights of bimini beaches from our balcony we saw the weather was in the upper 90’s and the feel like temps were in the low 100’s. We left port to make room for another arriving ship and they let the ship drift about a mile off shore from bimini. We had dinner and watched a comedy and magic show, Brent and Sarah, that was very entertaining. (brentandsarah.com) We then to to an audience participation show called the naughty list that was in a hidden theater we didn’t know existed. That show was raunchy but very fun and funny. After that we watched the late adult oriented show of comedian Same Fedele.
June 9, 2025
We arrived back at the port and had scheduled an post cruise excursion for an airboat tour of the Everglades at 8:30am. We took the hour plus tour bus ride to Holiday Park in the Everglades and saw lots of wildlife and plenty of alligators in their natural habitat. We also watched an alligator wresting show after the airboat ride before we were dropped back off at the Fort Lauderdale airport where we had lunch/dinner at the airport before catching our flight in the evening back to Columbus on Southwest again.
