Day 11
Time definitely flies when you are having fun. When we woke up this morning, the first part of our holiday was over, but the next part was what I had been looking forward the most. After breakfast, we were due to pick up the hire car and drive down to Miami, where we would get on the Disney Magic the next day. Excited does not even begin to cover how I felt. We packed the last odds and ends that we had still needed during the night or that morning and then we headed out to get some breakfast. We went just across the road to the Village Inn again. We both had Coffee and Orange Juice. Graham went with the Steak and Eggs, which consisted of Sirloin Steak, Fried Eggs and Hash Browns. This normally comes with Pancakes, but Graham had asked for White Toast instead and this was happily accommodated. I had the Southwest Potato Pancake Benedict Scramble, which consisted of Pork Carnitas, sliced Avocado, Scrambled Eggs, Pepper Jack Cheese, Green Chili Hollandaise atop two Potato Pancakes served with a Melon Wedge. This did not sound like all that much, but again I did not manage to finish it. It was absolutely delicious though.
Once we had finished breakfast, we headed back to the hotel and went to the Thrifty counter to get our hire car. There was one person in front of us so we had a little wait. We were in no particular rush so this did not matter. We had pre-paid the car, but we opted to pay for the petrol upfront rather than having to find a petrol station in a city that we did not know. We also opted to upgrade to a bigger car as this was only $10 more and we had quite a long drive ahead of ourselves. The last thing we had to take care of was adding the pre-paid tolls. We had heard that in Miami, you cannot pay cash tolls. In the end it was a great deal. Thrifty has a flat rate of $7.99 per day for this and the tolls added up to more than that. During the conversation it turned out that the member of staff who assisted us was from Germany. So the rest of the transaction was conducted in German. She seemed to be quite glad to be able to speak German. Once we were all done, we were advised where we would find the car. We asked if we could take the car back to the room to load it up. She told us that this was no problem and when we were ready to leave to just press the intercom at the barrier and advise them that we had collected a car from Thrifty and they would let us out.
We collected the car and quickly went to the room to collect our luggage. Once the car was loaded, we headed off. We made a quick detour. On the first morning, we had spotted some Beringer Moscato at Walgreens and had promised ourselves that we would get some of that to enjoy on our cruise. It just seemed easier to pick this up once we had the car. So we drove up to Walgreens to get our wine. As we were heading towards the aisle where the wine was, something caught my eye. I had seen a great pink sunhat at SeaWorld during our second visit, but I was in a rush to get to the dolphin feeding and then I forgot to go back for this. At Walgreens they had a very similar sunhat and I decided to get this. Better still, SeaWorld charged $29.99 for their version and Walgreens only wanted $5.99 for their version. So this was a bit of a bargain. We paid for our stuff, put the wine in the boot and then we headed off in search of the Florida Turnpike. I had pre-loaded the route on my Google app on my iPhone and even though the first set of directions was quite involved, we found the Florida Turnpike without any problems.
The Florida Turnpike must be the most soul-destroying stretch of road that I have ever encountered. It is just a very straight road with sometimes 40 to 50 miles without an exit. The only interesting thing we saw was vultures. I was quite relieved that we had decided to take a route that comes off the Florida Turnpike near Lake Okeechobee and take a road that was running parallel to the lake. We had visions of a beautiful view. Unfortunately this was not quite how it turned out. All we could see was a dam. So we decided to come of the road and park near the lake so that we could at least see the lake. It was nice to stretch out and we went for a short walk. It still was worth it coming off the Florida Turnpike. We ended up driving through farm country and small towns and villages and saw all kinds of interesting wildlife including what we both thought to be a lynx. Eventually we ended up on the freeway again.
We had driven a while and we both needed the bathroom. It did not take long until Graham spotted the Sawgrass Recreation Park. So we got off the freeway and had a quick stop. We saw some wildlife that is maybe not strictly spoken native like tabby cats and parakeets, but it was still nice to see them. They also offer airboat rides and I am sure if we ever come this way again, we plan a longer visit. Once we had been to the bathroom and stretched our legs, we got going again. It did not take long until we entered the Fort Lauderdale area and not long after this we entered the Miami metropolitan area.
This was where the problems started. I think we took a wrong turn at one point. The road network in Miami is downright strange. There are often three or four roads that run parallel and suddenly one branches off. So this would have been quite easily done. The problem was that even though we were in a major city, the mobile phone signal was very patchy and by the time Google Maps had recalculated the route, we were already past the turn off that we needed. Google Maps ended up sending us round in circles. Graham had spotted a Wal-Mart and decided to stop to get a map. It was not a full-size Wal-Mart, but it was still a decent size and I was surprised that they did not sell maps. We tried at a nearby petrol station and the answer was the same. We had planned to drive to the hotel first to drop off our stuff and then drop the car at the airport. By then we had given up on the idea and decided that heading straight to the airport would be a more sensible decision. What really surprised us that there were no signs for the airport. The person at the petrol station also could not give us directions to the airport. Fortunately something had happened with my Google Maps app while Graham was in the petrol station. Rather than trying to recalculate the route, it showed a map of the local area. I realized that the road we were on was leading straight to Biscayne Boulevard, which is where our hotel was. So when Graham came back, I told him the good news. We just headed towards the sea and once we got close to the exit for Biscayne Boulevard, the port turned up on the signposts. I knew that the hotel was pretty much across from the port so that was good news. Once we entered Biscayne Boulevard, we saw the Bayside Market Place, which is right across the hotel. When we were actually on Biscayne Boulevard, we also saw the hotel. That left us with the next challenge. We needed to find the car park and to do so; we needed to navigate the one-way system. It took us a couple of laps, but then we found the car park.
That then led to the next challenge. The car par attendant did not actually speak any English. He challenged us about parking there as we did not have a car parking permit and we tried our best to explain to him that we had not actually checked in yet, but were about to do so. We also tried to explain to him that the car would not actually be staying, but we would take it back to the car hire depot as soon as we had checked in. In the end, we just gave up, parked the car and unloaded our stuff. Access to the hotel was somewhat unusual. The door from the car park led into the courtyard where the pool was located. So we had to take our luggage through the pool deck into the main building. Check in was smooth and we were given a goody bag with water and a variety of snacks. We then headed up to the room to drop off our luggage. I was delighted that we were on a high floor with a clear view across the port. We quickly used the bathroom and then we headed back downstairs to take the car back.
In the meantime, I had received some text messages from the friends that we would be cruising with. They were booked at one of the hotels near the airport, but were concerned about the area where the hotel was located and had moved to a hotel that was a couple of blocks away from us. I updated her with our progress as we had discussed at one point that we may be able to meet up at the Bayside Market Place. We checked for directions to the airport at the front desk and this seemed straightforward enough. Indeed, it was pretty easy. Again we were bewildered how patchy the signposting for the airport was. At first there were some signposts, but they suddenly stopped. We knew we were going in the right direction as we could actually see the airport in the distance. When we were nearly there, we saw signs for the Car Rental Centre. This was organized really well and was the same kind of set up that we had experienced in Houston last year. Essentially all the car hire companies share a parking structure. We looked out for the signs for Thrifty and had no trouble finding this. We got in line and had a bit of a wait to be checked in. It looked like they had a sudden rush. Eventually we were able to check the car in and asked directions to get back to Downtown Miami. The attendant sent us to the 4th floor and advised that there were ticket machines just before we got to the train platform. When we got there, there was somebody on hand to make sure we got the right ticket. When I had asked for public transport options to get from the airport back to the hotel, people thought I was crazy and suggested that we just get a taxi. Well, it took us less time to get back to the hotel by public transport than it had taken us to drive from the hotel to the airport. We took the Metrorail from the airport to the Government Centre station and we could easily have walked back to the hotel from there. However, we had spotted the Metromover when we were driving around to find the hotel car park and decided that we want to give this a go. This is free of charge and we got on at Government Centre station and got off at College/ Bayside, which is just around the corner from the hotel.
Once we were back, we decided to get some dinner. We had planned to check out Bayside Markey Place. As soon as we entered this, we saw Bubba Gumps Shrimp Company. We had eaten there in Galveston and although I really enjoyed my food, Graham was not too keen on his. He was still happy to give Bubba Gumps Shrimp Company a second chance. Well, this turned out to be a big mistake. The food was delicious, but the service was diabolical. We ordered some water, but also decided to share a bottle of White Zinfandel. Our server brought the bottle of wine, but had no idea how to open it. After she tried for about 5 minutes with no success, Graham asked her to hand him the corkscrew and he would open it himself. She advised that she could not do this, as she would be fired. After trying a few more times, she then went to one of the other servers and she opened the bottle. We should have been warned then and should have run far and quick. We both fancied the same food and both ordered the Dumb Luck Coconut Shrimp with Cajun Marmalade and Fries. We expected to get a portion each. However, they only brought out one portion. In the end, this actually worked out as it was quite a big portion and half of it was about the right amount of food for me and this left some space for dessert. Graham had Key Lime Pie and I went with the Chocolate Chip Cookie Sundae, which consisted to a fresh baked Chocolate Chip Cookie served warm with Vanilla Ice Cream, topped with Chocolate and Caramel Sauce, Peanuts and Whipped Cream. Even though I had only half a main course, I did not manage to finish my dessert.
Once we had paid for our meal, we headed back to the hotel. We just chilled out for a bit and I caught up online. After a while we got ready for bed. I knew that when I woke up in the morning, the next part of the holiday would have started and this was probably the part I was most excited about.
