Don & Kully's World Cruise on Viking Neptune

Actually, arrived in Fort Lauderdale on Thursday 12/21 for a two-day pre cruise vacation. We always try to arrive at the embarkation port at least a day early in order to avoid any potential travel related delays or hiccups. It’s also nice to have a day to just unwind and get into cruise mode, and it worked. We are well rested, relaxed and ready to start this incredible journey.

Port Everglades is our favorite place to begin a cruise. The port is close to the airport, a 10 or 15-minute taxi ride, as a matter of fact you can see the tops of the ships from the airport terminal. There are also many hotels that are right next to the port along with numerous restaurants, shopping and of course the beautiful Fort Lauderdale beachs.

This time we stayed at the Weston Fort Lauderdale Beach Resort because it was the hotel that Viking uses for their pre -cruise packages. The hotel/resort was wonderful however, it is a little further north on the beach than we like. However, the stay included transfers from the airport and to the port which meant all of our luggage was handled by Viking. These two services made the pre-cruise package worthwhile.

We’ve stayed at a number of hotels in the past and the Embassy Suites and Marriott Courtyard are our favorite pre-cruise choices.

Port Everglades is the third busiest cruise port in the USA. Last year nearly 3,000,000 passengers embarked on cruise ships from here. Today alone there are 8 different cruise ships in port.

We arrived at the port around 12:30 and were so excited to see our beautiful ship awaiting us. We had a short wait for check in, but the process went very smoothly and within 45 minutes we were on board sipping a glass of Champaigne. All of the Viking ships are decorated in a Scandinavian them that is absolutely beautiful. I will do separate post throughout the cruise showing different parts of the ship.

We had a beautiful sunset sail-away from Port Lauderdale which we enjoyed from the top deck of the Neptune. There was a total of eight cruise ships in port today, so it was fun watching several of the other ships leave the port ahead of us. The above picture is of Kully and I in front of the grand staircase in the center of the ship. We had an amazing dinner in the ship’s main dining room where we met several couples. It was a little ironic as the couple on one side of us was from Durand, Wisconsin which is about 60 miles from where I grew up…dang cheese heads are everywhere. On the other side of us was a couple from Lake Okoboji, Iowa, which is where our nephew Bryce’s wife Amy is from (but they said they didn’t know the Nelson’s). It is truly a small world!

We will spend tomorrow, Christmas Eve at sea. Our next port of call is Cozumel, Mexico on Monday.

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!