Up The Farway Tree

Florida Part 1: Miami


Well here I am, blogging from sunny Florida!  We are now at the villa near Orlando but spent the first couple of days in Miami so thought I would do a little update on part 1 :-)

Miami Beach

The journey was a little eventful but all worked out well in the end.  The minibus was picking us up at 3.40am on Thursday to take us to the airport.....at 3.50am we were still waiting so thought we better phone.  They had written down 3.40pm!!  So there was a minor panic as we waited on the now very late minibus which got us to the airport a lot later than planned, hence joining a very long check in queue.  We had tried to do online checking but the website was down, which has also meant we couldn't reallocate mum and dads seats in advance which were not together on the Paris to Miami flight.  By the time we got to the front of the queue all the seats were allocated so we were told to try and sort the problem in Paris!  We didn't have any time to stop before boarding for Paris but at least I can't complain about hanging around the airport.  Next drama was then boarding the plane to Paris when Anne realised the airport staff had torn her Paris to Miami ticket instead of the Edinburgh to Paris one!!  So aircrew had to call ahead to Paris to explain the situation.  Paris airport was a security nightmare - hundreds of people for various flights were being herded in a haphazard fashion through the scanners regardless of timing of connecting flights only to discover that at the gate all passengers had hand luggage searched and were frisked down regardless of the fact we had been through scanners twice already!  The guy opened my hand luggage containing 2 weeks worth of medication, syringes, nebuliser etc and looked at it all in despair, sighed loudly before just zipping it back up and handing it back over.  Clearly he thought it just better not to ask...


Again we boarded with minutes to spare before embarking on a 9.5 hour flight.  We then discovered that due to the seating issue they had upgraded mum and dad to premium class - the rest of us were somewhat jealous as we sat cramped in the poor people section!  Anne couldn't even open her paper because the lady in front refused to put her chair more upright and the guy next to her kept shush-ing every time she tried to turn a page!  Being so tiny I don't really have a problem with leg room so the flight was actually not bad and I passed the time watching a couple of films so it didn't seem as long as I expected.   Arriving in Miami at 3pm local time we endured the   immigration procedures and grabbed a taxi straight to the hotel.   The hotel was amazing!!!  It was a boutique hotel in Miami Beach which I had found on Trip Advisor and it was stunning  - very luxurious, comfortable and elegant.  Great start to our holiday!

Mum and Anne enjoying breakfast outside hotel

John having breakfast (the wee metal thing coming out his head is what we use to wind him up for the day!)

We headed out to Miami Beach for dinner and sitting there outside in the warmth, having just left snow at home, it was hard to believe we were actually here.  Everyone was shattered so we headed back fairly early and crashed in our massive super king size beds!   We had a lovely continental breakfast the next morning sitting outside and I thought I could maybe get used to this :-)   We headed out for our day in Miami and first of all went to take in some of the Art Deco architecture that Miami Beach is famous for, stopped for lunch, walked along Ocean Drive, wandered around some of the shops on Lincoln Avenue, went down to look at the beach and then booked ourselves on a Duck Tour.  I am tired just thinking of it!

Art Deco Buildings

Lunch stop

 The Duck Tour was on a 2nd world war landing craft which is a vehicle that also goes into the water so the tour takes you around Miami Beach and then down to the marina and into the water around the artificial islands where the filmstars have their homes.   We were only 10 minutes down the road, just getting into the tour when there was suddenly an almighty bang, the vehicle shook and the tour guide was knocked to the ground.  We sat in stunned silence for a moment wandering what the hell had just happened.  A car has just driven straight into the side of us and now had the bonnet right underneath us (our vehicle is raised off the road).  Luckily the people in the car weren't injured but I guess rather embarrassed having just driven into the side of a gigantic duck tour boat!  Of course we then had to just sit back and wait on the police -after hanging over the side of the duck boat taking pictures and video of the offending car first ;-)

Car crash

Police arrive..

Mum was peering over at the police car to see if it was the police cop she asked to have her picture taken with earlier in the day.   The poor man hadn't been quite sure what to say although did kindly oblige....although when I shouted over 'you could just pretend to arrest her as well' he started looking really worried and didn't quite get the humour intended...

Check the police mans body language....stay away scary lady!

After a busy day we had a lovely dinner in the hotel and sipped on Mojito cocktails (obviously) before another earlish night - especially after John fell asleep on our balcony.  I threatened to blog the picture but I still have the rest of the holiday to survive so I better not.   The next morning we had a leisurely breakfast before picking up our rental car, a big 8 seater Toyoto Sienna, which dad was nominated to drive.  Dad is used to driving various cars so he was nominated as the main driver, with Andrew as copilot - although we had bought the USA sat navigation maps so that if we did get lost it was no ones fault!  The drive up to Orlando was about 4 hours although we had a lunch stop and the journey didn't seem bad at all.  There were no incidents, we didn't get lost and we didn't hit any cars or pedestrians.  Always a good start.  We arrived at the villa (called Florida Palms) late afternoon .....and were all delighted when we saw it!  I had done quite a lot of searching for villas and the website had looked fab but you are always nervous that it won't be quite the same in real life - but this was even better.   I am probably saying that because myself and Andrew were awarded the master suite which has the most gigantic bed ever - it is also really high up and I have to take a run and jump to get onto it - no kidding!  There is another double room and two twin rooms, so a coin was flipped for the second double.  Anne and John lost and entering into the spirit of all things Disney, John decided they would take the Mickey Mouse themed twin room - clearly meant for any kids staying with its Mickey Mouse duvet covers and stickers all over the walls.  Anne later gave herself the fright of her life with the giant Mickey face on the shower curtain.  I always knew John loved Mickey Mouse and we all know he can hardly contain himself waiting on his trip to the Magic Kingdom ;-)  The rest of the villa was lovely and it has a small private pool with jacuzzi, and also the garage has been turned into a games room with air hockey, darts and a pool table.  Perfect.

And so the next stage of the trip began..