We decided to travel to Miami a few days in advance of our cruise to explore a place that none of us had been so far. High on our list of must dos were taking in a Marlins game (another new stadium for the list) and eating some Cuban food! Beach time was not high on our priority list, as we were about to embark on a cruise and would have several opportunities to go to the beach. I’m not sure South Beach is really our style, anyway.
We stayed in an awesome 2 bedroom apartment at The Guild Downtown that I booked on Hotels.com for not much more than a hotel room, and were able to split it with Chris’ parents. Aly loved the rooftop pool, which also had a small turf area. There were also some foosball tables, ping pong tables, a little play area for dogs, and a coffee shop in the building.
I scoured the internet for “the BEST Cuban sandwich” in Miami, and a few places came up. One restaurant that came up was Doce Provisions, but alas the coveted Cuban in Miami was not meant to be, as they weren’t serving them that day. Chris, Aly, and I decided to take some Lime scooters to the restaurant as it was a few miles away, and very hot out. We had great fun on them, until they turned off all of a sudden and we realized we were out of the boundary zone! So, we had a sweaty walk to the restaurant about a mile away. It was a great decision to stay there and eat dinner, despite the disappointment of no sandwich and the steamy trip there, as the dinner was DELICIOUS!!!! Chris and I had great fun explaining the menu to Chris’ parents, as they don’t often eat a lot of non-American food, and they definitely don’t speak Spanish 🙂
After dinner, we hopped an Uber over to Marlins Park for another new stadium. Thank goodness for the roof, as it was pouring rain when we got there! We never really care who the visiting team is when we choose the games at all of the various stadiums, but we were lucky enough to see my team, the Atlanta Braves, pull off a win over the Marlins on this night.
Honestly, Aly’s highlight of each baseball stadium is the kid’s play area, and we also try to order some food item that is unique to that stadium (and remember, I haven’t been to them all, so the foods I post may be found at another stadium, the point is that we try to avoid chicken fingers and hot dogs!). The play area was a little TOO little for Aly, but we sure did enjoy the bubble waffle ice cream sundae that we all shared!
The next day, we had some time to explore Bayfront Park, as it was only a few blocks from our hotel and we had some time to kill before arriving at the Port to get on the ship. Chris and I did a nice run along Biscayne Bay through the park earlier in the morning, and when we went back, we spent some time at the playground with Aly. There are also shops and restaurants in the park, but we were content to play and enjoy the nice day before we got on the big boat!
After our cruise, we had a few hours before we needed to go to the airport for our flight home, so I scoured the internet for something to do and stumbled upon Flamingo Gardens in Ft. Lauderdale. Chris’ parents had some Uber snafus, but we all eventually made it there and enjoyed the gardens and the wildlife. There was a wildlife talk, a small home museum, a small snack area right by the flamingo lagoons, and plenty of different plants in the botanical gardens. I definitely recommend this if you are looking for a way to spend an afternoon before a flight out. Though we didn’t have much time in Miami, we had great (albeit HOT) time there!
