Spring 2013 – Day 2

Well day 2 started out a lot better than day 1.  We finally left the room at 11:00am as we didn’t need to hurry as the sun was not out.   But, we are lucky that we are not arriving tomorrow as as the weather man just said that the coldest days of the year are coming next week for Miami. 

First we drove over to the beach in the hopes that it might clear up, but it didn’t so we continued down the beach taking side streets to some of the exclusive islands to look at the expensive houses.  The rich truly live different!!

Then we drove to the Fontainebleau Hotel – one of the greatest hotels on the beach and a classic Miami Beach hotel.  It was built in 1954 and was the luxurious hotel on Miami Beach.  When we walked through the hotel, you cold tell that it is still the home of the “pretty people”.  It was supposedly built with Mafia and Teamster money and when Ed was in school here, it was the home of many Teamster meetings and conventions.

After walking around the hotel, we went to one of the top delis on the beach and had lunch. 

Then it was a drive over to Sawgrass Mills, one of the largest malls in the country.  We walked around the mall until late afternoon and then headed out to eat again.

On our way to the restaurant that we were heading to, we ran into a parking lot on food trucks.  It is a practice in the Miami area to have a group of about 10 food trucks, like we had with Festival Foods, park for one night only and sell their food.  So, we stopped and had dinner and even talked with one of the owners about our shared memories of the business – that was fun.

Barb had a Boston Lobster Roll and Ed had pizza. 

Then we headed back to the hotel and are crashing for the evening.

So today was sightseeing and eating – isn’t life grand!!

We didn’t get to spend a lot of time in the sun this trip but we relaxed and enjoyed the Florida life.

Tomorrow the ship – we are ready.

Ready to go our in the morning

Ed with the "Big Boat"

The Fountainbleau - just one of the pool areas

Lunch

Dinner at the Lobster stand

Spring 2013 – Day 1

Our trip was supposed to begin on Wednesday, February 27 at 6:00 am; however, for the first time that we could every remember, our plane leaving Bloomington via Delta was cancelled.  The good news is that we were re-booked for that evening leaving at 5:00 pm. 

We left Bloomington on time and after stopping in Atlanta, GA, we arrived in Miami at 11:30 am.  We were really lucky in that they gave us a choice of cars, a new Ford Focus or a 2011 Ford Crown Victoria.  Needless to say with all of our luggage, we choose the big boat, the Crown Victoria.

Getting to the hotel was a snap with the GPS and we arrived a little past 1:00 am but then the nightmare began.

We had booked the rental car and hotel together using Orbitz.  I am sure there are many good things that Orbitz does and has done for people, but we will never do it again.

The hotel had no elevator so we had to lug everything up the stairs, but that was the best part!  The hotel must have been 60 years old or older and was in really bad shape.  Barb didn’t even want to take her shoes off.  We don't even want to list all of things that were bad about this place.  At least we didn't see any bugs, but we are sure that they were there.  We couldn't even lock the door with any kind of secure lock.  We went to sleep and were awakened at 7:00 am by the sound of building right next door, about 20 feet away.

After Ed’s “free” breakfast of toast and juice, he immediately went online to find us somewhere else to stay.

We left without telling them and checked into a Courtyard by Marriott about 15 minutes from the beach.  Then we called Orbitz and they did refund two of our night, so at least that helped.  It was too bad because the location, right on the beach was wonderful, but there was no way we could stay there. 

We called Orbitz and they did call the hotel to tell them we had left and we were able to get our money back for the two nights were not gong to stay there - so at least a little good happened with Orbitz.

We left the Marriott after checking into a wonderful King room and at about 11am and went to a neat little deli and split a sandwich.  Then it was off to our favorite beach, Haulover Beach.  We stayed there for a couple of hours in partly cloudy conditions, but it was very relaxing.

Then we went to the Opla Locka Flea Market one of the largest in the State of Florida.  Surprise, Barb found a really neat pair of Crocks!

We ate dinner at a Deli on Miami Beach and got back to the Marriott at about 9:00am and really crashed.

I am writing this at 9:30am on Friday, our last full day in Miami before we board the ship tomorrow.

We are off to somewhere – watch for our next blog.

Leaving Home

The crane drilling in the morning

A real Deli for lunch

The flea market

Barb's new Crocks

A snack at the flea market