Fort Lauderdale

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Fort Lauderdale, United States

Friday, March 7th, 2008

Our Taxi took us to the Sheraton Yankee Clipper; which is around 2km south of the main area of Fort Lauderdale beach. As it was so early, our room was not ready, so we asked for directions to a deli. We could not it though, so walking along the road a bus pulled up, and we jumped on. Paul asked where we could go to eat, and we ended up at Denny’s.

After picking our rental car from Thrifty, we drove back to the hotel, but our room was still not ready. The combination lock on Jeff’s suitcase would not open, so we took it to a nearby luggage repairer, and he managed to fix it in a few minutes. We then decided that we might as well go and do the shopping that we had planned on, and return to the hotel later in the afternoon.

We went to Syms, an up market outlet store, and then on to TJ Maxx and Marshall’s. TJ Maxx is similar to Ross, but at Marshall’s and Syms we found very good bargains. Prices are so much cheaper here, at Marshall’s Ralph Lauren and Nautica suits start at only $159.

Jeff had been in contact with Keith and Garry, who we were to meet up with later. They picked us up at our hotel at 7.30, and we went to a bar called Bills for cocktails. It was busy and great fun, after some drinks, we were taken to a restaurant called Rosies, where Keith was once the manager. This was good as we able to chat, Rosies was also busy and very popular. We were able to skip the queue and got a great table.

Garry is a jewellery salesman at a high end Jewelers and Keith has his own cleaning business. After dinner we went to a Country and Western bar called Scandals, and being Friday night, it too was busy. The boys took us back to the hotel at around midnight, and we will definitely see them again when we come to Fort Lauderdale next time.


Saturday, March 8th, 2008

Waking the next morning we packed our bags, and Paul returned the rental car. Marty and Steve from the cruise picked us up for lunch, and took us to a great Sushi restaurant. Marty and Steve were so hospitable, and are really lovely guys. We would be happy to take a cruise with them another time or meet them somewhere in the world. They drove us around Fort Lauderdale and showed us the area, and later drove us to the airport, which we really appreciated.

After check in, we went through security. The dreaded TSA seemed much less strict here, or maybe were a little more relaxed. The gate area was packed and even before the plane had landed many passengers were crowded around.

Once on board, we settled in for a relaxing flight to San Francisco via Phoenix. After a slight delay we arrived in San Francisco at 11.00pm, and we caught a taxi to the Westin Hotel on Market St. There was no bellman to take our bags at this time, which we were a bit annoyed about, and at the reception desk was a trainee. However check in was no trouble, and our nice room is on the 20th floor, overlooking the Moscone Center.

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Photos

Beach View
View from our room