Hey Gang I need Advice

[kapeka]

newbie here, (not to cruising, but to this board) and looking for a new cruise board home and perhaps I've found it. You folks seem so friendly and non-judgemental. Nuff said.

sorry, I can't address the beach issue...however I'm hoping I can hopefully give some suggestions on the hotel question.

many hotels in large cities offer what's known as a "day rate." Pretty much designed for the red-eye traveler that needs a place to crash, shower, change clothes, etc- usually at a fairly attractive price. Depending on the property, you could check in at 7am and out as late as 3pm-- showered and freshened up and perhaps even a nap.

this same room will, of course, probably be occupied that evening by someone else. The hotel comes out ahead of the deal-- and at least for myself that's one shower I'm happy to pay for. As we say in our house-- we need to "wash the airplane off".

call various hotels in the area ask for the "day rate"- or perhaps do a google search for "day rates" in the area. (you may get some interesting responses......trust me, I've only used this rate to recover from long overnight flights.... :rolleyes: )

[TheSkipper]

Joey and David,

The couple of times we did the red eye thing into Lauderdale we rented a car on an hourly rate and did the tourist and/or the shopping thing. Had a great lunch in the Las Olas district, turned the car in and they drove us to the ship.

Antigua has a beach for every day of the year! Ask your Cruise Director's Staff members and they will steer you in the right direction. They know the best spots in any of your ports. Count on it. :grin:

[JoeyandDavid]

Skipper thanks for the advice as always it makes sense, actually what we ended up doing is, we changed the flight to a morning flight the day before and booked a hotel room for the night, I seriously couldn’t think of any other solution that worked for us..

~~~~Antigua has a beach for every day of the year! Ask your Cruise Director's Staff members and they will steer you in the right direction. They know the best spots in any of your ports. Count on it.~~~~~ <]

Ok skipper I will count on that Thanks again

..kapeka,

Thanks for your input! its great to see your post, Welcome to Cruise Crazies

Before I originally posted this thread I tried googleing day rate hotels Fort Lauderdale and really didn’t come up with anything, so I just figured that they no longer offered those options, ( I have been accused of living in the past), Glad to hear that those are still options, I will remember that for future reference. Thanks for advising me!

[kapeka]

Joey-

thanks for the warm welcome!

I must admit I've never done a day rate in Fort Lauderdale. I've done them in Chicago, New York and Los Angeles- all of which have more business travel than Fort Lauderdale does (I would think anyway). Maybe they don't offer them in Fort Lauderdale area as people don't check out as early.

Either way- we always go the day before the cruise. Just to be sure we're there, our luggage is with us, etc. It's just part of the trip for us and we know lots of people that go the day of and do okay- guess we just don't want to take a chance.