Marc Van Niekerk

Echoing the thumbs up for John. I emailed him a couple questions last night and he replied within minutes! Thanks to the @AnnetteJackson and the MEI team for all their work on our behalf!

Great blog, thanks for sharing!

Not much mystery in mine. Total lack of creativity and the mvannie of twitter and periscope is a legacy from when usernames could only be 7 charaters (thank you NOVELL)

At first I saw the old background too until I pressed CTRL-F5 to refresh and now I get the updated ones.

Appears the graphic in the background changes....

Thanks for taking us along on this adventure!

New Cruise added to the list, Mar 26, 2021 Explorer of the Seas, 9nt Southern Caribbean

Argh! I typed our departure date not sail date. Fixing....

four cruises to add to the list: Ovation June 5, 2020 Vision Oct 19, 2020 Empress Jan 23, 2021 Majesty Jan 22, 2022

We have used this service and it worked very well although the need to get to the ship early is one you will need to sacrifice. We flew in to Orlando and stayed at an airport area hotel. Because we had a group of 4 and arrived early in the day we did a short term car rental to allow us to do some running around and sightseeing. In general you need to use the hotel shuttle to get to your hotel, this service does not actually cover that piece. Once at the hotel things go as usual and in the morning you go down to the lobby where there is a representative from GoPort who will help arrange the transfer. The buses they use are generally the large coach type. They take passengers to all the different terminals on one bus and pick up a multiple hotels. We visited the Carnival and Norwegian terminals before Royal. We were definitely not early arrivals, the terminal was busy. If memory serves we did get there before noon. Post cruise was the best part. We exited the ship, had a porter help with luggage and then passed through CBP. From there we exited the terminal and walked to the ground transportation area where there was a podium with the GoPort logo. The took charge of our luggage and we were shown to the bus. After a short wait (until the bus was filled up) we left for the airport. At the airport we were instructed to keep our seats while they unloaded the luggage and then everyone exited the bus. We had a relatively early flight (1PM) and arrived at the airport with plenty of time to spare. WE loved the service in particular because we had some guests with us who were first timers with limited mobility. The service was predictable and reliable and the overall cost was more than reasonable for our party. Would I do it again? Probably and partially. On our last cruise we used their service back to the airport. We were travelling just the two of us and I had enough points for a free hotel in PC proper. We rented a car at the airport again, did our sightseeing and met up with friends. Spent the night at hotel, drove to terminal in the morning about 9:30, dropped off luggage, drive to rental return, returned car and got the the port by 10:30 which was much more to our taste of arriving early. The post cruise experience was exactly as before and we loved it. Hope that answers some of your questions @Cruising_Woj and if you have any specific questions I would be happy to try to help.

Biggest mistake was probably on our first cruise. We had arranged air travel and cruise through a travel agent and flights were the same day as the cruise. The travel day was so tiring and stressful due to weather and traffic getting the airport, finding our transfer from airport to ship, etc. that once cabins opened we went to our cabin and passed out, completely missing sail away.

I second the recommendation of @WAAAYTOOO. We took an excursion to Tulum years ago during a cruise on Celebrity and thankfully we did book through the cruise line because we arrived back to the ship so late that they brought in the walkways directly behind our group's arrival and set sail from the port (at about 8:30PM)

Based upon our trip there on our own before a cruise and some feedback I have seen here, I would suggest that if there is an RCL excursion that may be your best option. They cover the transportation, admission and from what I understand they give a bit of a priority to the bus tour around the site. We spent 2 hours waiting in line for the bus tour which takes a large chunk of your time. Also the RCL excursion will ensure you get back to the ship on time.

Yes, they use coaches not passenger vans. That was actually a big requirement for us as getting into that back row of a passenger van can be trouble for taller individuals.

We used GoPort Canaveral both with an without hotel reservation included. Last time we used it (Oct 2019) it was $35 one way from port to MCO for 2 passengers. Before that we had used for 4 people at an MCO airport area hotel with transport to and from Port Canaveral for approx $330 inclusive. Their service was great. https://www.goport.com/