Mourning over the failure of not getting my passport over on time and not being able to take our cruise, we decided to go to Florida anyways.... and looking back, I think that the trip was worth it.... every penny of it....
We got to Reagan on Friday, Jan 2nd, more than an hour early anticipating rush hour Friday traffic. When we got there, we came to know that the Miami AA flight one hour before ours had not left yet- thanks to T's on the foot thinking, we immediately went to the gate and asked the dude if there were any seats left in the flight. The flight was not full and we got a seat. We reached Miami an hour earlier as anticipated. We decided to take a cab from the airport to South Beach. The ride was supposedly about 20-25 min long. We mistakingly thought that the cab fare should be around $22, but it came out to be a flat rate of around $32.... We started a nice chat with the cab driver who happily told us about things to do in the area, showed us the downtown as we were passing by, the arts center, the AA arena etc... we asked him where to eat and we were told of a nice Mexican place in South Beach, Lime.
We arrived at our hotel, the Albion (wasn't too sure how good or bad it will turn out to be). Seemed like a pretty decent hotel for the price we paid. The location was the key, we were in the middle of the South Beach hotspot of food and night clubs- Lincoln Road area. Unable to decide where to eat, we ended up with the only choice we had - Lime, and we don't regret it. It was one of the best Mexican food we have had and that too very cheap yet healthy. We spent the rest of the night just wandering around in the area, getting familiar and to be honest just enjoying the weather !
On Saturday, our first task was to call Carnival and try to figure out a way to get a refund from them or book a future cruise, both of which failed. We had to contend with advice from Carnival people to just write them a letter and hope that they will take pity on us.... It's amazing how rigid systems are that sometimes you have no control over them.... Anyways, finally we ate breakfast (I think at Einstein's) and proceeded to our next hotel (since we didn't book 2 nights at the Albion) Dorcester which was just a few blocks away from the Albion. This was another "ok" hotel, a bit more pricey than the Albion, same "Art Decco" style... We decided to take it easy that day too, just relaxing, recovering from the shock of not going for the Cruise... At night, we thought of going to the Aventura mall.. that didn't prove very well as it proved to be a very long ride and in the end we decided to cut it short, took the bus and got back....
Come Sunday, we woke up bright and early, went checked out of hotel and went for breakfast at a nearby cafe, Dolce Vita. We ate waffles and omelette (the lady wasn't very intelligent, gave us bacon in omelette, we had to get it changed). Following that, we went to Enterprise car rental to pick up our rental cars. We ended up waiting for almost an hour and a half since they had run out of cars... Anyways, we picked up our Accord and soon we were on our way to Jungle Island. We had fun over there, especially with the "ligers" and the animal show with the little tiger cubs and monkeys... Just as we were done, it was close to 3:30 and even though we wanted to go to Villa Vizcaya we couldn't as it closes at 4 PM. We decided to start looking for hotels for the night and expecting to see the Everglades the next day, we thought of finding hotels near the Everglades. After a couple of hours of search, other than the Mikosukee hotel, we couldn't find anything and ended up in a La Quinta in Hialeh. We ate yummy burritos (from the grovery store) late at night, watched TV and went to sleep.
Monday, we ate breakfast at the hotel, and started our long drive towards the Everglades. We got there and decided to take the trolley tour as we were not too enthusiastic of meeting our dear friends, Alligators, all too much :-) The tour ended up being one of the very good things we had done on the trip, and we thoroughly enjoyed it. We definitely wouldn't have covered so much by ourselves in such a short period. A must see for everyone I think !
We started our drive towards, Key Largo and reached at our hotel, Ramada around 8 PM. It was a nice hotel and the Jacuzzi (which we didn't ask for) just made our day ! We ate dinner at a (crappy) restaurant/bar (Coconut Grill, I think) , came back, watched TV and went to bed...
Tuesday- we started driving towards Key West. As expected it was a reallllllllly pretty drive with vast open skies, colorful waters and the long pleasant drive..... We stopped on the way once to take photos on one of the small Keys. We reached Key West in the afternoon (around 3'ish) and checked in our B&B (Avalon). This was one of the modestly priced B&B's in the overpriced Key West.... definitely not the best B&B you will ever find, but pretty decent. The innkeeper was a nice lady with a British accent and quite helpful.... She told us about the Sunset cruise and advised us to buy the Adventure Day pass (which comes with a free Sunset cruise). We bought it thinking that it would be a good test and will help us figure out if T would be able to make it to the long trip for the day adventure on the boat. We also bought Dramamine and boarded the boat. The trip went ok and we reasonably enjoyed it. T had taken Dramamine half and hour before the cruise, and we came back happily from the cruise and went to a nice almost vegetarian restaurant (). Food was ok, but service was not good. We headed out, with T feeling a bit dizzy.... almost fainting... thanks to a nice couple walking by who bought some ice from the pizza place closeby.... Not sure what was the cause, may be the Dramamine, may be the food...
Wednesday, was the fun day.... hmm.... may be too much fun... having canceled the day adventure, we decided to Jet Ski... we bought tickets for the 4 PM tour of the islands, ate lunch and went to our room to relax a bit before the show began.... around 3:30 we reached the resort from where the cruise began... we had to wait for about 40 min as the tour which left before us were a bit late.... anyways, finally the tour guide came, gave us a brief introduction (hmmm... remember the thing about grass getting stuck in the jet ski!) we boarded our skiis and out we were ! after getting into the sea for about 7 miles, suddenly my ski wouldn't move... and as I was beginning to realize that the worst had come true.... we couldn't believe our eyes... the skies were turning dark.... with clouds.. and here comes the rain.... a heavy downpour... and us waiting for the tour guide to come save us... for miles we couldn't see anything but water and dark clouds.... with no sense of direction whatsoever, it was perhaps one of the more scary parts of the trip :-)
By the time the tour was complete, we were scared shitless and just glad to be back....
We packed up next afternoon and soon were on our way back to Miami... we had booked a room at the airport La Quinta.... and I can definitely say that I won't ever book another hotel near an airport.... it was pretty bad with no fridge, ok service and a location which litererally makes you completely inaccessible..... On friday, just before returning the car, we managed to eat breakfast and go on a whirlwind tour of Key Biscayne.....
We relaxed that evening.... had a six pack, ate chips, watched TV and went to bed...
The trip will always remain in our memory, not just because it was a cruise gone bad... but because we actually enjoyed it.... our style....
Labels: carnival, miami, vacation