Last year, when Jaime and I went on vacation we were lucky enough to stay at the Marriott South Beach and just absolutely loved it. The hotel is beautiful and the amenities are fantastic, including access to the very south end of South Beach which is the most beautiful beach in the continental USA. When we came back again this year we talked my sis into staying there with us.
I know how weird hotels can be about check in times, so when we ended up disembarking from the cruise earlier than I thought and were in South Beach at 10:30AM, I thought we would just have to make do and wing it. The Marriott was extra awesome to us and gave us our rooms right away and upgraded me and Jaime to the concierge floor with an amazing room that had a gigantic deck with beautiful views of the city as well as the beach. The deck proved to be a great place to hang out.
When we got all checked in, everyone decided that it was nap time, so I headed down to the pool. I mean, I can nap at home, right? I definitely can't enjoy tropical weather at home...
Anyway, once everyone was awake we enjoyed a beautiful time on South Beach. The water was ridiculously warm, too warm in fact, and we had fun swimming around trying to find cooler water currents to sit in. We had some great sunshine and good fun too.
We went in around dinner time and got ready for the evening. We decided to splurge on nice sea food and went to a restaurant called Quinn's. Quinn's had amazing food, and I enjoyed some of the biggest and best king crab legs I have ever had. I was even feeling generous and let my little sis try a bite. Just watching her expression as she ate the king of all seafood was well worth it (my sister is a bit of a foodie).
The next morning I woke up extra early for a sunrise swim, one of my very favorite things to do. It was so calm and so amazing. I will live somewhere with great sunrise beach access someday.
With that, we packed it up and headed to the airport to finally be heading home! At this point the vacation felt like a very long one, all legs of the trip felt like their own vacation (Keys, Cruise, South Beach) and we were ready to see our kids again.
Well, mother nature had other ideas for us.
We made it out of Miami just fine and had to fly through Atlanta. We arrived in ATL at 3:00PM for a quick layover to catch a 4:30 flight to ABQ. That flight was delayed and changed to a 7:30 flight. Lame! So, Jaime and I did a thorough tour of the ATL airport. And then we waited some more.
As we got to our gate, nearing the time we were supposed to leave we saw that our flight (along with many others) had been postponed until 9:30. We checked with Delta and it turned out that we were waiting on a flight from DC and it hadn't left yet because of lightning in the ATL area.
At this point, Jaime and I were exhausted. You can only spend so much time in the ATL airport. We watched a couple of shows on the iPad, read, walked some more...
We sat there some more and around 8:30 at night the lady at the gate announced that our flight still hadn't left DC and wouldn't be there until 11:30 or maybe later. At this point I decided to capitalize on my platinum status and give Delta a call. I calmly explained that I understood it wasn't their fault but that there was no way I was going to spend another minute at the airport. Delta took care of me and put Jaime and I on a flight the next afternoon (first class I might add, thanks Delta!).
I logged onto the internet from my phone, found us a great rate at the Marquis Marriott in downtown ATL and we decided to call it a night and enjoy a 4th leg of the trip, Atlanta!!
Jaime and I spent some time in Atlanta a couple years ago and really loved it. The Georgia Aquarium is the largest in the world and is worth going to Atlanta for by itself. Jaime and I took the opportunity the next morning to spend some time there enjoying all they had to offer, especially the 6.5 million gallon tank that houses 4 whale sharks!
Another thing we really liked about our last trip to the A is a certain dessert we got at the Fox Sports Grill called Banana Bread Pudding. Now this isn't bread pudding made with banana bread, but it is a mix of banana's foster and bread pudding and is almost worth a trip to Atlanta all by itself! So after we finished up at the Aquarium, we took a cab to get some lunch (and dessert!) and then took another cab to the airport. (it is much easier to travel like this when you have no luggage, everything we checked had to stay at the airport...).
Once back at the airport, we only had some minor delays and finally made it back home after a 30 hour layover in ATL.
All said, this vacation was one of the longest and best we have ever taken.
Here are some pics from legs 3 and 4 of the vaca...
This was the view from our room at the South Beach Marriott. Beautiful. I love South Beach!
That is me in the water, most people in South Beach are concerned with being cool, I was mostly concerned with enjoying the beach.
At dinner, Chelsie was obsessed with these Popover rolls. They were delicious!
We came back to the hotel after dinner for desert up on our deck. Great views of the city (although a tad post-apocalyptic looking in my opinion)
This was the view toward the beach that night.
This is the crazy elevator at the Marquis Marriott in ATL. There are 47 floors (we were up on 43) and there is an atrium that goes all the way up with glass elevators. So creepy!
Another view at the hotel.
Jaime and I at the aquarium. We really do love it here!
Such an amazing place! It was fun to also pick out all the fish we had seen that week whilst snorkeling.
Whale sharks are so awesome!
Jaim and I spent about an hour just sitting by the giant 60'x40' looking glass at the world's largest tank. Jaime could have spent all day there but I was getting hungry...
For this! Oh Banana Bread Pudding, how I love you so!!
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