Miami

Rather than rushing to catch a plane straight from the cruise, we opted to stay overnight in Miami and travel a day later.  We will probably stay at a different hotel next year prior to our cruise, because this Marriott was not near anything.  We had a cab take us to South Beach as we had all day to explore.  We were there in January a few years ago and it was very cold that time.  It was not that much warmer this year, but that didn't seem to deter the Spring Break crowd from wearing as little as possible and drinking as much as they could.  Ocean Blvd is THE place to eat, drink and if you can stand noise, stay.  It is the center of the Art Deco district so the buildings are very attractive.  Every hotel has a sidewalk oriented restaurant and they all have 2-for-1 drinks for Happy Hour, which is all day.  The drinks are huge and for $19 you get 2, so you can be a drunk pretty quick.  Every restaurant has people on the sidewalks trying to get you in with their specials and they also have all their main dishes on display, made of plastic.  We walked the stretch with the Art Deco buildings and stopped when we got to where the bigger hotels begin.  We had lunch at one place where the main entertainment was watching very drunk college athletes try to split the bill for all the stuff they ate and mostly drank.  We made dinner reservations at the quiet end of Ocean, at DeVito's (yes, Danny Devito!) and then headed back to the hotel to recuperate before our meal.  When we did go to dinner, we thought we would be smart and split some dishes, so we ordered Carpaccio for 2, a salad and a pasta.  When the Carpaccio arrived it was on a platter larger than anything we had ever seen, so we cancelled the salad.  When the pasta arrived we tasted it to be polite, but the beef was the deal breaker.


Pulling into Miami in the morning. Backing into the dock so we had a nice view.


The bridges are too low for many boats, so all traffic stops for the
drawbridge.




Views along Ocean Blvd in South Beach.

Views from our hotel window out onto the harbor.

More views along Ocean Blvd in South Beach.