YUKATAN DISCOVERY Discovery - DAY 4 MIAMI

DAY 4 MIAMI - UNTIL NEXT TIME 

We had no dinner plans for last evening.  This is because our original plan was to see the Miami Heat play the Detroit Pistons.  Since 2010 we have gone to one or two basketball games each time we stayed in Miami for a pre-cruise.  The last few times there was the added benefit of Miami having a wonderful team with Lebron James, Dwayne Wade and Chris Bosh.  None of them play for the Heat and the team is so-so and the prices for tickets were high so we decided not to purchase tickets.  Given how much we ate last evening, we decided to have a light meal in our room and watch some television.  After all, we will be on a cruise.

We had a bit of an incident in the middle of the night.  We were awoken to an alarm with a recorded voice that kept repeating that a fire has been detected in the building and would everyone leave their rooms and proceed down the stairwell.  We did precisely that.  We walked down twenty-four floors.  People did well and were orderly.  At around floor eight we could hear something on the speaker but could not quite pick out the words and from that moment on we could not hear anything else.  We thought it might be that it was a false alarm and we could return to our rooms but we didn’t want to take a chance and everyone continued heading down to the main floor.  Sure enough by the time we got outside the hotel we learned that all was clear.
 
You can often find a positive or two about most situations.  Here goes:
 
There was no fire, and we were able to return to our room. 
 
Our room includes the amenities of floor 29 but they didn’t have the category of room we reserved on that floor so we ended up on floor 24 saving us from walking an additional 5 floors.
 
The only funny part was that for us it was the middle of the night.  Not true for others.  When we got down to the lobby area some people were decked out in trendy attire.  All of a sudden a couple of people are walking up to one of the Kardashian’s who was in the lobby to get a photo.  We have no interest in them.  Now if it was Stephen Curry or Tom Hanks that would be a different story. 

In our younger years maybe we would have been up at that hour too.

We began our day with breakfast at the Club Lounge.  We kept it simple as we do when we travel and when we are at home.  We each had cereal, a banana and some melon.

After breakfast, we took a nice long walk around downtown Miami.  We eventually headed up Brickell towards the Four Seasons Hotel.  Since many businesses observed today as a holiday there was very little traffic on Brickell.  We passed by some other hotels including the JW Marriott and the Conrad Hilton.  We normally stay at the Four Seasons Hotel so we thought we would stop by for a few minutes.  One of the benefits of the Four Seasons is that it is in a very quiet location of town.

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Our next stop was the St. Jude Melikite Catholic Church. From there we visited a nearby park and then stopped by Publix Grocery Store and a Walgreens and finally a CVS to get some last minute liquid items for the voyage.

We also stopped by the Brickell City Centre and we had lunch at Perricone's that Italian Restaurant that reminds us of a neighborhood restaurant.

Weather was delightful with a breeze from time to time.  The construction is far less then two years ago.  There are a pocket of areas with construction.  The area looks so nice.

There is a down-side which we commented on as far back as 2007.  With small buildings being replaced with high rise buildings but no possibility to add or widen streets there is more traffic on a typical weekday.  However, this is not very different from most cities from our own nearby city to New York City.  Traffic is a challenge in most cities. Some cities have more solutions then others when it comes to mass transportation.  

Final stop before returning back to the Hotel was Whole Foods.

​Back at the hotel we relaxed and packed for tomorrow before going back out again.

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We took another long walk before dinner which included a walk over to the small island where the Mandarin Oriental is located.  As we walked arond the island we saw several cruise ships in port.  We took photos of some of them.

TODAY'S THOUGHT FOR THE DAY.........

Tomorrow we board Crystal Serenity.  As often as we have sailed Serenity we are as very excited to be returning to a ship where we have made a lifetime of memories.  We look forward to this cruise as if it was our very first.  

Keith & Anne Marie

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