Miami is a cool destination if you like sun, traffic, frequent rain storms, lots of spanish speaking people, palm trees, and sand. Getting there was an adventure in itself for us. We flew from Birmingham, Alabama where we live down to Tampa, Florida--only taking a quick 1 1/2 flight, which seemed like only 30 minutes on Southwest. Got our bags & rode the shuttle to the rental car place. Got our car (a Hyundai) and drove from there to Miami. Doing this saved us a ton of money and, although it ate into our vacation time a bit, wasn't that bad, as we caught some scenery, like the Everglades & Alligator Alley (I-75), so that was okay. Finally making it to Miami we drove to the hotel. And man, what a hotel!
The Mayfair is by far the coolest hotel I have ever stayed at in all my years. Located on Florida Ave. in Coconut Grove it's not only in a terrific area, the place looks to have been created out of someones vivid imagination. I say this because it resembles a place I have freqented, not in reality, but in a computer game! I've play WOW (World of Warcraft) for years and so I instantly recognized how similar it looked. Here are two pictures-the first is of the inner area of the hotel, the second is a photo of the game local I was talking about that it resembles (it is of an area within the Sunken Temple in the game-aka the Temple of Atal'Hakkar)
At any rate, we found our hotel stay very enjoyable. A small shopping mall right next door to the hotel was very convenient for us as well as we ate there a couple times (Chili's), did some shopping, and even caught the "Dark Knight Rises" at the cinema, which has 13 screens and is as good a theatre as any I've ever been too--with stadium seating and very nice-though my friend said his seat was broken.
While in Miami we saw 3 baseball games at the new Marlins stadium. That place is a marvelous arena for watching a baseball game. Having a closable roof in a place like Miami is a great idea, with the heat & humidity. The only potential drawback is that maximim capacity looks to be somewhere just over 40,000 people, which is kinda small if they get into the World Series again. My camera phone went on the fritz when I was trying to take and send photos while there, I'd caught a bunch of good ones of the stadium, but then it wouldn't send them to my email & when I tried to take more photos I got the error screen "FAILED". This morning I finally fixed it somehow & its taking photos again.
We did other stuff too, like visiting the beach on Key Biscayne. We even saw the tennis complex there-where they play a pro tennis tournament you can watch on TV. We drove to South Beach and hoped to be able to walk around on the beach there too, but that place is kinda a nightmare: way too many people & cars, so there was nowhere to park & get out unless you want to walk a mile to get to it, which we didn't. So we just drove outta there. Ocean Drive is like a wall of hotels, one after another, so it seems like unless you're staying at one of them your chances of seeing the beach are slim. One night after a game we visited a place with a familiar sounding name: The Magic City Casino (Birmingham, AL. is called the Magic City). Luckily, both me and my friend Rick came out ahead.
Finally, after spending several days we drove back to Tampa, Fl. to catch our flight back to B'ham. & man we just did barely make it in time. After the 3 hours or so to drive back, filling up the cars gas tank, turning in the car, getting to the airport, checking bags, running to out terminal, & getting through the security checks, our plane was already boarding. Fortunately, when we got there they were just about to call us to board-so I guess we were just in time.
We finally got back home & can now rest up from our vacation, heheh.
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