Fort Lauderdale/Miami tips

Good morning all, getting in to finalising details now for Miami|/Fort Lauderdale/Cruise next month.

Outbound all sorted, VS 117 & then car transfer to Fort Lauderdale for a 2 days R&R before boarding cruise ship.

Looking though for a little guidance/input on our return in to Fort Lauderdale.

Ship due to dock 7am & we are on VS006 (22.30 home) the same day, hoping to change to the earlier flight (18.30 I think) but as we are on reward tickets just keeping fingers crossed that UC seats become available.

As we will have spent two days in FL prior to cruise guess we will probably head off to Miami for a bit of sight seeing as never visited before so just wondering about how to do this best

ie Head straight to airport drop off luggage somewhere & head in to town

Head straight in to town drop off luggage somewhere

After previous cruises elsewhere we have found hotels that will rent you a room for the day which is good as you have a base & can shower etc before catching flight, anyone know of Miami or Miami Airport hotels that do this?

In addition to the above, any intelligence ref the lounge UC passengers use at Miami International, think I recall reading on here before that it is fairly basic so may need to consider eating at one of the airport restaurants.

Any thoughts regarding any of the above would be much appreciated.

Thanks

oldboy

Most cruise lines sell a half day Miami sightseeing package whereby they pick you up from the ship after your cruise, store your luggage on the bus while they show you the sights then drop you off at the airport.

So that's one option but of course you may prefer to sightsee independently in which case I'd probably try and find a left luggage place or a hotel day room downtown.

MIA airport is, to put it bluntly, a hole and the lounge VS use is as basic and soulless as you can get so I'd recommending spending as little time as humanly possible there and as much time as you can in the sunshine.

Many thanks gumshoe