"" Writer's Wanderings: Solstice--PreCruise

Sunday, February 01, 2009

Solstice--PreCruise

With the chance of bad weather always looming in the winter, we planned to arrive the day before the Solstice sailed from Ft. Lauderdale. There are quite a few choices of hotels near the port but since we had Marriott points, we chose to spend the night at the Marriott Beach Resort.
The Marriott has a beautiful campus with beach access. The pool was large and heated which was welcome since the temperature fell the morning we arrived. Our son and his family drove up from Miami to spend the afternoon and evening with us and our grandkids enjoyed exploring the beach.

Prices for rooms are a little on the high side and our breakfast was out of sight. The buffet was $20 a piece. We ordered ala carte and it still cost the two of us $40 to eat (with tip). I don’t know what dinner prices were like since we had my son’s car and drove around until we settled on a PF Chang’s.

Our room was quite nice on the eleventh floor with a view of the Ft. Lauderdale area that was quite breathtaking at night with all of the city and harbor lights. From our balcony, we could see several cruise ship berths and on the morning of our sail date, we could look across and see the Solstice just waiting for our arrival.

The hotel has a nice spa and a gift shop, fitness center, and hot tub and I’m sure many other amenities we didn’t take advantage of. A nice place to spend a few days but we were eager to get on to our cruise.

Tomorrow: We board the Solstice.

No comments:

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...