So...we had an interesting end to our Horizon cruise. Major credit to our Captain. When we left our last port - Aruba - he made the decision to go as fast as he possibly could go, so that he could get into the vicinity of the Port of Miami as soon as possible. As a result, we were in position for them to request to enter the port early on Saturday evening since we were about 12 hours ahead of schedule.
They had been granted permission to do so pretty early in the day on Saturday. So they made an announcement that they would hold an information/Q&A session at 1pm (originally was at 11am, then noon, then 1pm) and everyone should either come to the theater, or watch it on the big screen by the pool or in your staterooms. They announced that they would be docking at POM around 7:15pm and that anyone who wished to disembark would be able to do so, and anyone choosing to remain on board would be welcome to do so and it would be "on us" - meaning the general cruise fare only - but that they did not know when they would be back to the port. It could be Monday, could be Wednesday (today, which is what it ended up being). If you knew you wanted to disembark Sat night, they asked you to fill out a form and get it guest services ASAP. They also said that they put in a request to remain docked overnight to complete a "normal" debarkation (and I assume conduct an embarkation for the next cruise) Sunday morning. We were hoping that would be the case, as our flight home was Sunday afternoon.
They gathered us again about 4:30pm and the Captain said he was 99% sure we would not be able to remain in port overnight and that they would probably have to leave the port by 10pm (this was confirmed about an hour later). So then we had to make the decision to get off that night. My wife went online and immediately looked for and booked a hotel near PBI - where we were due to fly out of the next day. We normally never get WiFi, but had gotten it the day earlier to monitor the situation (at the initial gathering, they announced that everyone would be refunded for the WiFi the last day). We sent a a message to our kids letting then know that we were getting off that night, and immediately went back to the stateroom and finish up packing (we got most of it ready the day prior). We went to get some dinner at Pig & Anchor (we still had a $15 voucher fromthe package they sell), and by the time we were done the ship was docking. We returned to our stateroom to wait to disembark.
It was one chaotic debarkation, not to mention how weird it was to disembark at night. First off, everyone had to carry off all their luggage. They initially said they would start with with the higher decks and work their way down (we were on deck 2 - Family Harbor). They ended up doing the opposite. Also during this time, they changed cruise directors (it was Mike Pack's last cruise before his vacation, so he was getting off the ship and "Cookie" took over). They said it would start about 7:30 and that they needed to get everyone off (who wanted to) by 9:30pm because the port was closing at 10pm and they need to leave by then. They didn't start - or finish - on that schedule. I think we walked off just before 9pm. I believe the ship left about 10:40pm. It was crazy with all the people getting off crowding by the elevators (more on those later!) with all their luggage. There were crew members (including Cookie!) grabbing people's luggage and taking them up the stairs from 2 to 3 so they didn't have to wait for the elevators. According to someone from our FB group had posted that as it was getting close to 10pm, they made announcement that they only had 6 more minutes to get people off (even though they still had several decks to go), and that people started running down the stairs with their luggage. Also that at one point, they closed the doors even though there was still a lot of people looking to get off. They eventually re-opened the doors and got everyone off.
But I can't wait to hear a review of the ship,and I'm sure your trip will be amazing. I've always thought NYE was kind of overrated, but I would definitely be up for spending it that way! 
