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Published: March 15th 2014
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We caught the hotel shuttle bus back the airport at 7.00 am this morning for our 10.30 am flight to Miami.
We tried to check in at one of the American Airlines terminals, but as we have USA entry Visas, and not an ESTA travel authority, it would still not allow us. It is at this point, we normally try to purchase Group one boarding for a low fee.
The person that checked us in advised that she could not sell us our requested Group one boarding, normally issued at the machine, but instead gave us free Group One boarding as a compromise. – Result. This is better than priority boarding. Note to self - Remember how to get this free next time too. It saves the stress of wondering if there will be any overhead space for hand luggage. The alternative can sometimes mean you travel with your overhead bags several rows away from you and not always in sight.
American Airlines is our airline of choice for America, the Caribbean and beyond.
We had two seats together with a window on row 32, just behind the port offside wing.
The flight was of the
normal high standard you would expect from American Airlines. We could not fault the service in any way. Flight time was 9.5 hours. Pretty smooth most of the way. It was wall to wall, food, drinks, kindness and top hospitality all the way.
We took off twenty minutes late and arrived on time in Miami at 2.30 pm, Five hours behind UK / Tenerife time. We had a nice of welcome of almost 82 degrees.
On arrival at Miami International Airport, it took us only just under one hour to clear the border and customs. It has taken us four hours before now, so we were well pleased with today’s outstanding speedy process. There must have been around 2000 passengers waiting to cross the USA border which was processed quickly in a highly efficient manner. We believe some key changes have taken place since our last passing through Miami two years ago.
We were picked up by the shuttle bus from the Ramada Inn North and taken to the Hialeah region of Miami.
This was a freebie hotel paid for with our American Airlines points from last year’s holiday. The room was far superior than we would normally book. Normal rate for our room was $189 (about €140) per night. This was very nice thank you.
Note to self - We must keep on collecting American Airlines Advantage points.
We wandered out of the hotel to find some dinner and found Fuddruckers on 1645 West 49th street, a place that specialises in high quality home-made cook to order burgers etc. We placed an order for food and drink of $16 (about €10) and there was more food and drinks than we could consume. For the food connoisseur, there were even Elk and Moose burgers available and those bottomless endless free refills for drinks.
The wi-fi network here was atrocious, dangerous and hardly usable at all. This was very disgraceful for a large well known hotel chain. The excuse given was the hotel was busy. In addition there were very strong indications the network had problems or viruses or both. Our virus protection confirmed this, so we decided to terminate the session immediately.
www.tripadvisor may get to hear about this. This normally gets a quick response and sometimes appropriate compensation.
Fitting into the new time zone is essential. We managed to stay awake until 9.00 pm USA time, 2.00 am UK / Tenerife time. It’s essential to stay awake for as long as possible to acclimatise to the new time zone as quickly as possible. This can sometimes be a nightmare.
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