Blogs from Miami, Florida, United States, North America - page 9

Geo: 25.729, -80.2374Morning always dawns early the day after an TA flight. More so for Peter it seems as he is up and out of bed at 3.30am. Even though I am wide awake I refuse to get up and roll over until sleep returns. I finally awake around 6.30. Peter has also returned to bed at some point. We are both up to watch the sunrise. Cruise ships are already moored at Miami Port. Our ship Adventure of the Seas I am reliably informed arrived around 4.30 this morning.We have breakfast in the club room at the hotel before we decide to take an early morning walk. the weather is glorious. there are plenty of joggers and cyclists about. we stroll through Bayside Park and end up at a CVS chemist where Peter buys a ... read more

Geo: 25.7488, -80.1951'It is good to have an end to journey toward. But it is the journey that matters in the end'.Ernest Hemingway.And so it begins. I love the excitement at the start of any journey. I often catch myself thinking that in so many weeks I will have returned home and the holiday/vacation will all be over and life will have resumed its normal cadence. I think a lot of us make the mistake of thinking those days don't count, that they are in some way, lesser days, simply for being mundane. Early alarms calls, dark mornings, endless traffic, late buses, rainy skies. The point I make is that life shouldn't be measured by just the good days. It's full of many diffrent types of days, each as important as the one before or after. ... read more

Our transfer back to Miami Airport was booked for 11.30am this morning, so plenty of time to finish off the packing and a final grand Starbucks coffee. This had been booked a little earlier so we could get the booked three hours in the airport lounge initially planned. We got a text from our friends in Dallas before we left the motel to confirm that they had already arrived back home. We had originally booked a lounge for our time at the airport, but have cancelled it as we were not happy with its location and the poor services provided. This turned out to be a very wise decision. Today we are flying on an Iberia plane, but booked through American Airlines. We arrived at the American Airlines check in desk about 4 hours before the ... read more

Perhaps no one says it better than Will Smith himself, but Miami has "ladies half-dressed, well equipped," and is a "city that keeps the roof blazing." A town where Lebron James infamously took his talents to, a beach with a diet named after it, and the playground of countless stars like Pitbull, Gloria Estefan, and Enrique Iglesias. It is arguably the trendiest town in America where people come to keep a finger on the pulse of entertainment and pop culture, but for Kristina and me, we came for Spring Break because it was a convenient layover for a quick tan and sight-seeing on our way to the Dominican Republic. The reason Miami was a pitstop on our Caribbean trip was because we had friends in town offering us a place to stay in the youthful Brickell ... read more

Fun Ship Facts statistics: Valued at $500 Million – Made in June 2003 – Top speed 22.5 Knots – 1160 crew – Nationality of Officers, Italian and Croatian – Nationality of Hotel and Cruise Staff: International : 110.000 gross tonnage – 952 feet in Length – 116 feet Beam – 27 feet maximum Draft – 3,700 total guest capacity across 13 Decks. 2,900 guests were on board during our week. Today we head out on our very first cruise. This was a trial to see if we like cruising. We have booked a seven day western Caribbean cruise through Carnival. It looked ideal for us as it did not have too many long periods at sea, just has two thirty six hour periods of continual sailing time. The cruise takes in Grand Cayman, Cozumel, Mexico, Belize ... read more