Saturday 21st May to Thursday 26th
May 2016
….not having slept for about
20 hours we were, to say the least, a bit tired by the time we deplaned; Miami
International had very kindly closed nearly everything down and American
Airlines were of little use.
Even at this time of the
morning the temperature was hovering around 28C and the humidity felt quite
high.
Found the carousel where the
bags came off, a lone AA representative disappeared quick smart when he found
out there were some tired upset passengers.
It took a little while to
find the link shuttle train to the hire car centre – the end result being that
we finally arrived at our hotel at 5am – at least the front desk was open and a
lovely person there was of immeasurable help – we were in our room by 5:15am
and asleep by 5:30.
Both of us were tired but we
woke around 10:30am and thought that a walk outside might help – it was even
warmer than when we arrived and the sun was blisteringly hot – at least to us –
there were plenty of very-fit people running around looking, well, fit.
After an attempt at walking
along we sought the cool refuge of the shady restaurant and with it being close
to lunch time anyway and not having eaten properly since early Friday morning
we sat down to a scrumptious seafood and pasta lunch – very decadent and very
expensive but worth every cent – on top of which it was lovely and cool and we
had great views of the sea and the sand.
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| Lobster, pasta, mussels, pippis - delicious... |
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| ...and the view was great as well |
Diane had wifi for the phone
and found out that the FA Cup was on – I had thought it was a Sunday game –
there was a bar right where we were staying which was a sports bar and we asked
politely if they would be able to change the channel of one of the 20 odd
screens to FOX for the game – “Where would you like to sit and which screen would
be best for you to see?” came the reply – I love this place – so we sat at the
bar; screen directly in front; lovely bartenders (female) to attend to our
drinks needs and to talk to as well – this was a little piece of heaven – at
least for a few hours.
And on top of of all of
that, Manchester United one in extra time 2-1 – it couldn’t get any better than
this; and we hadn’t even woken up yet.
Back to the room and Diane
had a spa in the bath in the main bedroom, but we were both still pretty tired
and made it as far as 9pm.
All-in-all whilst we had had
the delayed flight on the previous day we had made up for that with a great
Saturday.
Could it get any better?
Well for Diane it did – the
French Open started on Sunday and with the time difference it meant an early TV
start and she had a choice of 3 different TV’s to watch – depending an where
she wanted to sit, so she was set for a while, but still managed to excuse
herself away to make it downstairs to visit the Croc shop and leave some money
there.
Sunday was essentially a day
to rest and recuperate – and with the views that we had from the balcony it was
hard not to do just that.
Here are the views from our unit - both during the day and night
Our plans had suffered a little due to a computer problem with our travel agent and we would only be here for 6 days and not the original 7 days and with the delayed flight this now meant 5 days, so we weren’t about to rest around too much.
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| Our apartment - the third level up and the right and centre windows - a 2 bedroom apartment with lounge, dining and kitchen between |
Monday came and we decided
that a visit to see some of the local wildlife was in order; but we didn’t wish
to spend a complete day there so a local wildlife park was found and we drove
out to there – Sawgrass
Recreation Park
Having only seen the air
boats on screen it looked like an interesting way to get around and we had
little or no time to brace ourselves for the experience – about 2 minutes after
getting the tickets we were seated and off – the noise was dampened by the
earplugs – Diane managing to get a couple of extra pairs – as she said, they
were to help her sleep with my snoring – lovely.
It was a warm humid day and
little sun so we were hopeful of seeing some but probably not a lot of
alligators – the pilot found a couple of them on the surface and we happily
snapped away at them, and then at more wildlife around – mainly birds – but
equally enjoyable was the experience of riding in one of these shallow-drafted
craft, skimming along the water and over the reeds.
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| Just breaking the surface to observe what is going on... |
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| ...still keeping an eye on us all |
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| these guys were in the enclosure.... |
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| ...as was this one |
The little rain that fell
was if no consequence.
After that experience and a
coffee we went to see the other exhibits and to actually handle a “baby”
(small) alligator – it was after all 2½ years old and could cause a nasty bite.
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| Not too dangerous - especially with it's mouth taped close... |
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| ...safely behind an enclosure |
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| seeking shade |
We had seen our fill of
locals for a while – at least this variety of locals; Diane had in her
investigations of things around the area, found a shopping mall which including
factory outlets – I knew that she couldn’t get too much before she needed to
start chucking other things out – our luggage limit wouldn’t allow too much
more.
She found a Vera Bradley
outlet and the same style of carry-on bag that Sam had purchased a couple of
years ago and also a matching handbag – we could accommodate those – both within
the luggage and the budget.
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| The spoils of the battle with the mall |
With so many man-made and
natural waterways around we thought that we really should take a tour of them
as far as we could – it also afforded us a waterside view of how the other half
live (whilst they were here).
For just $25 each we were
able to use the hop-on-hop-off water taxi which took us as far south as Hollywood (Florida ); into
the eastern area of Fort Lauderdale
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| The larger boat is a carrier - partly submerging to allow around 10-15 other boats into the carrying area |
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| The beach area was quite perfect; the waves did come up but were mainly flat |
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| Down at Margaritaville with sunshine and wave machine to ride the surf a bit more easily |
The running commentary of
the houses that we passed as well as the boats yachts mega-rich
yachts that we were shown was a bit unbelievable – there was just so much money
around this area, and you could tell that a lot was also spent on just being
able to say where you lived and the size of the house and the boat.
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| This is listed at a cool $3,695,000 - not sure if that includes the boat |
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| Just a lazy $49 million will get you into this one... |
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| ...and this a bit more for this at $100 million Still deciding on which one we prefer |
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| Roundly agreed as an ugly boat, but I think we would take it at the right price |
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| This was originally owned by Johnny Depp but now it is called home by JK Rowling |
We also found out that a lot
of the large boats are being moved before the hurricane season starts which is
generally from June to September – even the cruise liners do not come here
during that period; a good point for us to remember for future visits.
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| at the Irish pub and the Guinness was as good as we have had anywhere |
There is no doubt in our
minds that we would love to come back here; we have enjoyed the hotel and
all of its facilities (maybe we didn’t get to use the gym, but it was there in
case we got silly enough to want to work out), but the hot tubs were very nice;
the suite was great and the location was just about perfect; and that is before
we think about the sports bars.
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| Diane was extremely happy after a victory at Fusball |
We have managed to work on
the tans without any effort; we have walked a bit more and just had a good
time.
All of those things had to
come to an end and so we had to leave on Thursday – early again - but without any hassles – we found our way
back to the airport, which looks lovely in the daylight; checked the bags in
and this time with no flight delays we were off and in Dallas on time and in
daylight – time for the last part of this trip to commence…
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