FloridaKeith

Click here to view the cruise review

Hi I have just found Cruise Crazies through a link on another site. My wife and I are now addicted cruisers as you will see below after a recent start. We spend the winter in Florida and the summer in the UK so we are beginning to cruise in both places. We have deliberately been trying most of the cruise lines in turn in order to sample the differences between them. Preferences are developing as you can guess but we wouldn't turn down a bargain cruise on any! Being only 35 miles from Tampa we have been lazy and tried most from there, but this winter we are taking two from Fort Lauderdale which is only (ONLY!) a 300 mile 5 hour drive south. That gives us a few more options. In the UK we are only 44 miles from Southampton but as we discovered this summer sailing from there south has the disadvantage of at least one cool, often dull and sometimes very rough sailing day (and the same back) to get to the sun. So next year we have booked a Mediterranean fly/cruise and will jety straight to the sun. I am looking forward to getting to know you all.

FrankiRN's suggestion is a good one. We live only 35 miles from Tampa so we don't need to stay overnight but here are other suggestions. The airport is about 6 miles away. There are lots of hotels around the airport so it wouldn't be a problem to find one in any price range. I doubt if any run shuttles to the port so a taxi would be needed. The Tampa Marriott Waterside Hotel & Marina is the nearest and one of the most expensive as it is just a few hundred yards along Channelside from the Port Terminals. You wouldn't want to walk though with cases.

While we did two transatlantic voyages on Cunard's Queen Elizabeth ll in 1984 and 1990 our first modern style cruise was was a 3 night Bahamas "taster" in October 2001 on Carnival Fantasy. As you can see we enjoyed it so much that we are now hooked! We have been enjoying trying out various cruise lines to establish our preferences. So far Celebrity is our clear favourite, followed by Princess/P&O and RCCL, but we would never turn down a bargain cruise on any ship!