The travel for this cruise was different than our normal cruises.  We normally fly into the departure port for our cruises.  In this case, since the cruise was a part of our Christmas Trip to Walt Disney World, we drove our rental car.  We left the Magic Kingdom parking lot around 1 pm on December 23 and started driving south.  I didn’t drive on the Florida Toll Road (which was a mistake) and instead made our way to Interstate 95 and headed south. 

We stopped about halfway down for a late lunch.  The drive was uneventful until we arrived in the Miami area.  The traffic was pretty heavy and we narrowly avoided a traffic accident that happened about 100 yards in front of us.  We eventually did arrive at the InterContinental Miami, our lodging for the night.  We’ve stayed at the InterContinental several times in the past.  As always, we used the free night that comes with our Chase IHG Rewards Credit Card.  This one benefit of the card is worth the $49 annual fee alone.

We got a standard room, but it did come with this view that we were able to take in the next morning.  The room had two queen beds.

We were going to walk to a pizza restaurant that is close to the hotel, but it turns out it was closed.  We instead decided to walk to a nearby Whole Foods.  We picked up some snacks  and beer for the cruise, in addition to dinner, dessert, and some croissants for the morning.  After a restful night, we grabbed some coffee from the Starbucks in the lobby and had breakfast.  Around 10 am, we headed downstairs and got the car from the valet.  We headed towards the Port of Miami. 

We probably arrived at the port a bit early because the cruise ships there were still discharging passengers.  It took us a while to actually get into the parking area. 

To enter the parking area, you had to go through a gate that gave you a ticket.  There were lots of terminals to pay once you were ready to exit.  The cost was $20 a day (we paid $120 to exit after the cruise).  Once we got the car settled and collected the bags, we headed towards this beauty:

In our next article, we will talk about our first day onboard the Disney Magic!

Full Trip Report:  Planning | Travel  | Boarding | Day At Sea | Cozumel | Day At Sea | Castaway Cay | Disembarkation

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