Within a few minutes, Nick had convinced his dad to follow the commands from the backseat (my phone GPS) and we were on the FL Turnpike headed for Miami.
Most of the trip down the FL Turnpike was relatively uneventful. Nick slept a lot. Kim and I had the backseat and we passed the ride chatting, flipping through the Disney Cruise brochure we had found in the hotel, looking at pictures, and joking about our driver, who had decided it was ok to listen to something separate, since he would have 2 ½ hours without “heather commands” (aka...navigation directions).
We did pass through 2 thunderstorms, which were typical FL thunderstorms: relatively quick in duration, but brutal. Kim was visibly nervous about them. Hmm...I hope the forecast for widespread thunderstorms while we’re in Nassau and Castaway Cay turns out to be as false as the forecast for widespread thunderstorms the previous two days!
By the time we reached the West Palm Beach area, we were pretty hungry, and everyone needed a stretch break, so we stopped at one of the turnpike rest areas. We were more than a little excited to see that they had Earl of Sandwich. Nick’s parents had never eaten at one before, but...it was evident from their reactions to lunch that they will probably eat at Earl of Sandwich in the future. Everyone thoroughly enjoyed their lunches.
As we were leaving the rest area, we noticed a “windshield washer” at the edge of the parking lot. And I’m not talking about the people in movies who randomly pop up at city traffic lights to wash your windshield. This was some sensored thing that when you drove up next to it, it blasted your windshield with water. Being from NH, where we don’t have anything like that, we thought it was great, and had to join some other cars in passing through it. Yes, we’re dorks.
From here, the rest of the trip was pretty short. We arrived at our hotel in Miami, the Doubletree Grand Biscayne Bay just a few minutes before the official check in time of 4 pm. We shooed the valet guys away, unpacked the car, and headed in to check in. Nick and I checked in first, and headed to our room, a standard king, bayview room with a balcony on the 8th floor, agreeing to text Nick’s parents in a bit to meet up.
Nick and I had stayed at this hotel on our last trip, and had felt a little meh about it then. It had the bones of a “grand” hotel, but was missing something, like completed maintenance perhaps? I had debated heavily as to where we would stay for this trip, but then saw that they had just completed a mega renovation of the hotel, so, since we loved the view of the cruise ships last time, we decided to give it a second try.
It was evident immediately that the renovation had been successful. For one thing, the elevator button wall plates were actually hung appropriately. When we got to our room, almost at the very end of the hallway, the renovations were evident there too. I, of course, was most excited to see the view. Nick was most excited to see the bidet. Boys!
Shortly after we got to our room, we got a text from Nick’s parents. They’d been upgraded from the partial bayview junior suite John had booked to a 2 bedroom, 2 ½ bath condo on the 36th floor of the other part of the building. They told us to let them know when we were ready to come up, and they’d meet us in the lobby, because apparently our key wouldn’t work for their elevator.
We hung out, enjoying the view for a bit, and then headed for the lobby, where John was waiting for us. We took the elevator up to the 36th floor, and he lead us to the condo. Woah.
We spent quite a bit of time exploring the condo, enjoying the view, checking out what a lobby looks like from 36 floors up, and watching planes make their final descent into Miami airport. We are definitely not in NH anymore! Caution: items in cell phone pictures are closer than they appear!
After quite awhile, we decided it was dinner time, so we made our way down to the “retail gallery” and checked out different menus. This hotel has several restaurants, including an Italian place, a Chinese place, a Brazilian steakhouse type place, a deli, some way too healthy smoothi and fruit bowl place, and a seafood restaurant. In the end, we decided on Italian food at Primo’s. Nick and I had eaten there before, and enjoyed it, and the menu appealed to everyone. It was a great meal.
Following a couple of jam packed days, we all agreed that the hot tub was the place to be after dinner, so we agreed to meet “shortly” and went our separate ways in the lobby to change.
This hotel has an amazing hot tub. It’s like a giant four leaf clover, so a) it’s a very large hot tub and b) a group can have their own section without the awkwardness that goes with small, basic round hot tubs. Aside from the view and Primo’s, it’s absolutely the best thing about this hotel.
The hot tub was also a perfect temperature, so we stayed up on the pool deck (10th floor) for at least an hour, before deciding we were sufficiently relaxed and ready to crash. Absolutely no one had to be rocked to sleep that night, despite the excitement that was rapidly building for the next morning.
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