Our desire to return to Miami was greater than our desire to explore Key West further so TWWNCBUIP got busy with TripAdvisor and the telephone and was lucky enough to score an incredible deal at the Fontainebleau Hotel on South Beach in Miami.
Garrett had been perusing the internet where he had discovered this Miami institution and had proclaimed it “beast” which must be the 2013 word for cool, or neato or excellent. Something like that, I’m sure.
We arrived at the hotel before noon and were beach people within minutes of arriving. Outfitted with a sun resistant hat and doused with SPF400 I settled in under the Fontainebleau umbrella and onto my very own Fontainebleau beach chair and dove into my Brad Thor paperback. Everyone else dove into the ocean.
As I sat on the white sanded beach under my umbrella with a view of the turquoise ocean I was very glad that we were back in Miami. I was content to watch Carnival cruise ships passing on the horizon and banner towing airplanes cruising over the beach advertising the parties that I would not be attending later that night.
My reading was interrupted by a sudden downpour. The sand castle that was being built next to me was washed away and in mere moments the beach and the pools were empty. We gathered up our beach gear and were heading into the hotel just passing by the pool when the downpour ended. What luck … four perfect pool lounge chairs surrounding the pool were now vacant and just waiting for us. We quickly became “pool” people instead of “beach” people.
Being a pool people is better because there are pool people attendants that bring you drinks with little umbrellas in them. Mine was called the Miami Vice (a concoction rather like a smoothie made up of rum, pineapple, and strawberries). Olga, my umbrella-drink server, dressed in a pink flamingo suit, mentioned that many of the Fontainebleau cocktails were named after the famous players that congregate at the hotel. I asked with a big grin, “ever heard of the Rusty Nail?” She just squinted at me, said “no” and went off to the next cabana. I guess it’s not a popular drink in this century.
Many of the NBA players were partying here in celebration of the big win in the “Big Game.” LeBron James, Dennis Rodman, Shaq and many others that I don’t know (okay, since my stories are somewhat based in truth, I will admit that I wouldn’t have recognized any of these famous faces were it not for my nephews who knew every player) were all over the hotel pool and in the clubs. [wpvideo CmbA0gvY]
We enjoyed all that the Fontainebleau had to offer for two days and then got on the road to Orlando where we were to meet up with Mr. & Mrs. Chicken Boy-time to visit Mickey and Minnie.
The last time we were in the Magic Kingdom was before CB was CB, before he was Chef Pierre, before he was the Little Man – he was Pudding. I just know that he will love that I have shared this with you.
After checking in at the Great Ceremonial House of the Polynesian Resort, we got lei’d, we found our room in the Aotearoa Longhouse and joined up with Misty Dawn (Duck Alumni now living in Florida) before hurrying off to see Capt. Jack Sparrow.
