This Flag Ship Cruise was Amazing!

We have been to Florida many times but this was the first time we combined a stay in Orlando and cruised from Port Canaveral.

We arrived in Orlando and picked up a car at the airport. Our first 3 nights were spent on International Drive in Orlando and consisted of mostly shopping, watching World Cup games and a day at Universal Studios to hop on some of our favourite rides.

We then drove the car to Port Canaveral and dropped it off rather than paying for a car for the week that we didn’t need. The car hire companies offer free shuttles from the car hire depot to the port so this worked really well for us.

We chose NCL Prima as the ship had so many facilities for us as a family to enjoy together. We even had a go kart track! There was a sports deck with mini golf, shuffle board, interactive darts and arcade along with the standard kids & teens clubs too.

The food on board NCL Prima was superb. I purchased the Free at sea before we travelled. This gave us 2x adults All Inclusive drinks packages, 120 mins wifi for all of us, $50 per port shore excursion credit and speciality dining (3 meals for 2 of us)

Because of this we only actually ate in the main dining room once! For the specialty meals we chose Los Lobas Mexican, Food Republic global street food & sushi and Cagney’s steakhouse. One of our favourite included dining options was Indulge Food Hall, this was a great offering with multiple different food trucks serving all different kinds of cuisine including Indian, Mexican, Asian, Latin American, Southern bbq and rotisserie meats. You would order from the screen on each table and the food was brought to you. We had some of our best food and drinks here.

We also found ourselves eating multiple times in the pub as they served bar snacks throughout the day in the pub but also a full service menu in the restaurant too. This was open 24 hours serving local pub fare and sandwiches.

We also made use of the $50 shore excursion credit as we took a tour to Jost Van Dyke. This was a lovely little beach where we spent the morning before heading back to the ship via boat.

We also used the credit by booking a tour at Great Stirrup Cay, this worked well for us as anyone with a tour booked here was able to take the first tenders over to the Island meaning we had lots of choices of where we could park up for the day. I have done many private Islands in the Bahamas with lots of different cruiselines however this one again had the best food we have ever eaten on a private Island. There was so much choice with a standard buffet, pop up trucks serving different options and even small food carts.

Overall we had a great cruise with NCL, I would recommend the Free at Sea as it offered us great value at just £249 per adult. The ship suited us as a family as there were so many activities on board for us to enjoy as a family, including all the speciality restaurants.

When we disembarked the ship we headed straight to the car hire shuttle location to collect our car for the day. This worked out really great value at just £50 for the car for the day and we were able to drop this off at our hotel. You could too drop the car at the airport if you were heading straight home on a flight. This was around 80% cheaper than taking a cab back to Orlando.

The next stop on this holiday was 5 nights in Universal Orlando, we stayed on site at Aventura hotel and I would recommend this to families for the convenience of getting around the 4 parks, Islands of Adventure, Universal Studios, Universal Epic and Volcano Bay. From our hotel we could walk or take the boat or bus shuttles to the parks. This hotel also offered early park access, if you are only planning a couple of days at the Universal parks then I would recommend upgrading your stay to either Hard Rock Hotel, Portofino Bay or Royal Pacific as these hotels will also offer Universal Express Passes, having stayed at both Hard Rock and Royal Pacific in the past our preference would be Hard Rock for its closeness to City Walk and the parks.

Our final stop on this holiday saw us picking up a car in Orlando for our last 3 nights and we headed out of Orlando to the Gulf Coast where we had a relaxing few days in Clearwater. The beaches and sunsets here are absolutely amazing and some of the best we have ever seen.

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