Moon over Miami

Sorry for the fuzzy picture...taken through the glass and my camera settings are a bit wonky.

After our false start, the remainder of our drive to Miami was uneventful. We spent the night at the Sofitel, which was the perfect place to stay and allowed us to have a relaxing morning before heading to the airport. I was tickled pink to find a mini box of gourmet french chocolates in our room when we checked in, a chocoholics dream for sure. This was truly the hotel find of the year for us...free parking for two weeks, a comfy bed to sleep in close to the airport, and a complimentary shuttle in the morning for $87.00. Thanks to an employee travel perk, this was probably the best hotel deal in all our years of traveling.




Be still my heart....they must have known I was coming :)

The transition from hotel to terminal was quick, easy and relatively painless. Roger was pleased and quite impressed when the shuttle driver offered him a cold bottle of water almost before our bottoms hit the seats. Almost had the entire shuttle to ourselves as there was only one other couple traveling with us to the airport. Our trip was all of 5 minutes, and we were deposited at the AA terminal and turned over to a very friendly, and competent porter. Little did we know just how helpful he would prove to be...everything should be that easy.

Amazingly, our check in at the American Airlines counter was equally as smooth...apparently, the porter thought nothing of checking us in at the first class counter, no one else was in line, no wait at all...pretty darn cool :) Even after it was finally decided that we needed to check an extra bag (don't ask), the line at security was a only few minutes and we ready to find some lunch and relax until boarding.


Comfy beds....asked for a king, a high floor and late check out at 2pm...well 2 outta three ain't bad!


Nice bathroom and my favorite L'Occitane products....sweet :)


Verbena...smells yummy!


Loved the lighted magnifying mirror...all hotel bathrooms should have one...I miss mine when we travel :( getting old means never having good enough eyesight to put on makeup without some sort of magnification!


Shoes off...ready to relax....ahhhhh


Peeping tom on our window ledge...looks to me like a non-paying guest...from the looks of the perch, that little birdie visits often...ewwww


View of pool are from the room...no time to check it out up close


Cabana....not sure what goes on behind the curtain....poolside massage perhaps?


Outdoor pool cafe....I think


Lunch was a bit uninspired....



Neither of us had eaten all day, except to snack on crackers and water. Our plan to have breakfast by the pool quickly evaporated when we realized that 10 am had come and gone and we were both still being lazy in bed. No worries, it had been our plan all along to take the morning to do a whole lot of NOTHING---I'm pleased to report we were very successful in that regard.

We had a tasty lunch of tacos and nachos..... cheese, chips and guacamole go down really easy as a breakfast/lunch combination. Although it was good, I'm thinking my last meal in an airport was a clear winner over this one. As I recall, it was crispy cheese fries with a ton of crumbled bacon..."heart attack on a plate" I think you could call it....but oh so good!

It's almost time to board, and I'm a little bummed to think that it may possibly be a day or two before I post again. Not 100% sure about reliable wi-fi connections until we board the ship on Sunday. We did reserve the Yotel at Heathrow for 4 hours in the afternoon, so I'm hoping that wi-fi in our little mini-room will be sufficient to get online for a quick post. Depending on how much sleep I get on the plane tonight (my track record pretty much sucks), after our quick tour of London, I might not have the brain power to put together two words, never mind an entire sentence.

Signing off for now...next stop the UK...cheerio