Caribbean Cruise January 2013

January in Chicago....it's cold and there's snow on the ground. It gets dark at 4 p.m. It's ugly.

If there was ever a good time to take a cruise to somewhere sunny it is January. This usually means the Caribbean-but which one? Western-over to Mexico or Honduras, Jamaica and Grand Cayman?
Southern- to Aruba, Curacao or Bonaire (the ABC islands)? or Eastern to the most popular islands like St. Maarten and St. Thomas? All of these are reachable in the 7 days we have at our disposal.

We always arrive one day before the ship sails and stay one day after the cruise, so it's 9 days away from work and the bone-chilling cold.

In 2013 we chose the Eastern Caribbean route and the ship we chose was a new one to us-the Ruby Princess (built in 2008), leaving from my favorite cruise port-Port Everglades, in the city of Fort Lauderdale, Florida (where it is NOT cold!)

We are dressed warmly when we arrive at O'Hare Airport in Chicago on a Saturday morning. It is 30 degrees F. We check our bags and the bag checker says he wishes he was coming with us. We sit in the United Lounge and watch the crew de-ice the aircraft's wings.

Soon we are up in the air, looking down on the white landscape below.

Three hours later we are in a room at the Marriott Harbor Beach hotel....

This is the Atlantic Ocean

The temperature is 77F. Nice. Warm sea breeze on the balcony-nicer still.

Comfy room...

We first stayed in this hotel a year before when we sailed to the Southern Caribbean on the Crown Princess. We stopped at it's beach restaurant "Sea Level" for lunch and liked the look and location of the hotel so much that be booked it for our one night stay after our cruise.

It's a comfortable hotel, with a great pool area, access to a soft-sand beach and has 3 restaurants.

The lobby

Their signature restaurant where the chef, Paula da Silva was a runner up in TV's Hells Kitchen

A casual restaurant called  Riva where they serve a buffet and a la carte breakfast.

One of the many reasons why I like this hotel is that it is one of the few on the beach and the closest one to the mouth of the harbor at Port Everglades. Each weekend in winter I log on to the Port Everglades webcam to watch the cruise ships leave port at 4 p.m.

As I am so close I have to walk the 3/4 mile along the beach to see the ships leave....first to leave at 4 p.m is the Grand Princess the largest cruise ship in the world when she launched in 1998.

Next comes  Carnival Freedom

The Grand Princess is already far out to sea

Caribbean Princess- we didn't know at the time but we would sail on her a year later to the Western Caribbean

 Caribbean Princess, 113,000 gross tonnes.

 3,000 passengers onboard.

Then came the World's Largest cruise ship- Oasis of the Seas at 225,000 gross tonnes. She has a sister called Allure of the Seas who would sail Sunday.

She can carry over 6,000 passengers

Here is the Celebrity Eclipse, with the dramatic sunset as her backdrop

2800 passengers in a 122,000 gross tonne frame so plenty of space for each passenger

Once the Eclipse had passed it was time to leave our comfy rock and take the long walk back to the hotel

Back at the hotel

Here's a video of the ships sailing away from Port Everglades