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Tony and Debbie’s Florida Vacation – Part Three

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This is the third part of our vacation in Florida.  If you missed the previous parts, here are the links to parts ONE and TWO.

Shopping And Relaxing

Hollywood Beach CondoSince my daughters were not coming to stay with us until the evening, that allowed us to have a lie in after our first night in Florida, and to try and overcome some of the jet lag before they arrived, since adding an extra 5 hours to the day having flown from the UK and then going to bed late, catches up with you sooner or later.

Much of the day was already planned, and I had looked up the location of an IHOP restaurant for breakfast (Debbie’s choice) and also the nearest Super Wal-Mart, which is the cheapest and best place to shop.  Although I had lived in Florida for 4 years, the decent Wal-Mart stores that I know are all north of Fort Lauderdale and further away, so we had to do some exploring and make our way to Miami Gardens, not the best of locations, but the drive was simpler than it looked on the map, and made easier because the store was right next door to Dolphin Stadium.

We had an enjoyable breakfast at IHOP, stocked up on groceries at Wal-Mart, then relaxed around the pool until it was time for me to pick up my daughters.

My How They Have Grown

My how the girls have grownThe girls were so pleased to see me and I got some wonderful hugs and kisses from them.  it was really hard not being able to see them for 18 months, a combination of not having enough money for the trip and Debbie getting sick, and despite having seen them regularly on Skype, it’s only when you see them in the flesh that you realise just how much they have grown.

My eldest daughter will be 11 next week, and it won’t be long before she is as tall as I am.  Her younger sister, who will be 7 in a few weeks time, is not too far behind her either.

This trip was very special in another way, since it’s the first time that their Mom has allowed them to stay over with us, so the first time I have been able to tuck them into bed in 4 years, and it felt really good.  We brought some books over for them, both are excellent readers, and so before bed we managed to read some stories, which was nice.

The following day the girls woke up early, and I took them to the beach early, allowing Debbie to have a lie in and to get ready.

We spent the morning in the pool and then the afternoon at the beach, the girls having a great time playing in the ocean, something that they rarely get a chance to do, despite living only 20 minutes from the beach.

Topeekeegee Yugnee Park

The girls at Topeekeegee Yugnee Park in HollywoodBetter known locally as “TY Park”, this is a large park in Hollywood that I usually take the girls to, and which has a children’s playground, water park, a large lake, and lots of paths to walk.

We decided to go here the next day, to make a change from the pool and the beach, but as so often happens in Florida it was hot and humid and at times just too hot!

Fortunately there are shady patches in TY Park, and when you walk close to the lake it’s large enough for there to be a cooling breeze.  The City of Hollywood also provides plenty of drinking fountains with chilled water, as well as water misting stations to help cool you off.

The girls had a great time there, and we returned to the condo exhausted.

Birthday Time

The girls on Hollywood BeachThe next day, since the girl’s birthdays are coming up and we won’t be there to celebrate with them, we took them to the movies, to see Monte Carlo, starring Selena Gomez who they both like.  This was a fun teen movie, which they both enjoyed, and was followed by a surprise trip to Toys R Us where they were given an allowance each to spend on birthday pressies.   Then back to the condo for dinner, followed by an ice cream cake.

Coming Up Next

CLICK HERE for Part Four and join us for a trip to a Nature Reserve and to the Zoo.

Tony and Debbie’s Florida Vacation – Part Two

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This is the second article about our trip to Florida, you can find the first part HERE.

The reason that we picked Hollywood Beach in Florida for our vacation is that I used to live there, and more importantly this is where my daughters live with their Mom, and returning toFlorida is the only way that I can see them.

On Arriving

We arrived on the Friday evening, rather later than expected due to the hold up in immigration, and although we were tired, we decided to head off to the beach and take a walk instead of going straight to bed.

Of course by the time we unpacked our bags and changed ready for a walk along the beach it was 8pm, which was 1am by our body clocks, but we still wanted to unwind and to stretch our legs a bit before heading off to bed.

Hollywood Beach

Hollywood Beach FloridaFor those who are not familiar with Hollywood Beach, it’s a long stretch of beach between Miami and Fort Lauderdale on the east coast of Florida, on a strip of land that is separated from the mainland by the intra-coastal waterway.

Hollywood Beach still consists of a number of older buildings, some of which date back to the art-deco period, as well as some newer high rise condominiums and hotels.  Many of the older buildings are apartments and motels that are rented out to tourists, and although some have been modernised, others definitely show their age.  Nevertheless,Hollywood Beach does provide a relatively cheap place for “snowbirds” to spend the winter, and during the winter season it’s heaving with French Canadians and New Yorkers.

However, the summer months, which are hot and humid, and often troubled by tropical storms, are the low season, where prices are cheaper, and if you are lucky it’s a fairly quiet place to spend a summer vacation.

Hollywood Beach BroadwalkAs part of the modernisation program undertaken by the City of Hollywood, the whole stretch of the Broardwalk that runs along the beach has now been rebuilt, with a nice promenade for walking, a lane for cyclists and skaters, the beach on one side and restaurants and gift shops on the other side.

For our first evening we decided to take a fairly short stroll along the broadwalk, and the smells from one of the restaurants made Debbie feel peckish, so we stopped for a bite to eat, Debbie having a Philly Cheesesteak while I had a Meatball Sub.   Many of the restaurants cater to the New Yorkers who come to visit, and so you do find a number of them selling New Yorks tyle pizza and other Italian foods.

Having satisfied our food cravings, we headed back to the condo, and settled down for a good sleep, in what fortunately turned out to be a really comfortable bed.

Coming Up Next Time

CLICK HERE for Part Three, where we have a day to ourselves and go shopping and stock up on essentials ready for the arrival of my daughters the following evening.

Tony and Debbie’s Florida Vacation – Part One

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This is the story of our vacation in Hollywood, Florida, which was a trip to see my two daughters, who I had not seen for 18 months because we had to cancel our plans to travel last Christmas due to Debbie not being well.

The Outbound Journey

Since our flight left London Heathrow at 9:30am, we decided to stay overnight at one of the hotels close to the airport, and use their parking service, which worked out very reasonable as compared with the regular airport parking charges.

This allowed me to work the previous day, and to travel up to London in the evening, missing the horrendous rush hour traffic on the M25, and fortunately the traffic was fairly light on this occasion.

We had opted for a “Mystery Hotel”, since this was cheaper to book, and it turned out to be the Holiday Inn Ariel, which was well located, and serviced by the shuttle buses that take you to the terminals.

The hotel room was comfortable, and despite being on the north perimeter of the airport, we didn’t hear a single plane during the night, and managed to get a reasonable sleep, even though we still had to get up early to be on time for our flight.

Check in at the airport was fairly straightforward, and having passed through the scanners we headed off to find somewhere to eat breakfast.  Places to eat at Heathrow Terminal 4 were sadly fairly limited, and everything was horribly overpriced.  However we did manage to find somewhere that did a Full English Breakfast, and that set us up for our flight.

The flight with Delta left on time, and as usual the cabin crew were friendly and helpful.  We have usually tried to fly with American Airlines before, but since our air miles have now expired (due to cancelling our previous trip) and their prices were far more expensive this time, we opted for Delta, which had the best prices as well as the best flight options.  The other great thing with Delta is that unlike many other airlines, your air miles do NOT expire, so all the miles that I have built up with Northwest Airlines in the last 10 years are now carried forward and I won’t lose them.

The flight to Miami was fairly smooth, other than some moderate turbulence in mid-Atlantic, and we arrived early, however as usual for us, things do not always go smoothly on arrival.

Held Up In Immigration Again

Since I now have US Citizenship we opted to both enter through the US Citizen lane, and thought we were all clear, until the agent directed us to the holding area, where we sat for two hours before being allowed in.  It seems that Debbie is likely to get pulled aside every time she enters the USA now, even though she has a 10 year visa in her passport.  It’s a long story, one that you can read HERE if you wish, and it seems that her problems getting a visa are going to continue to trouble us, especially if we enter the USA via Miami.

So two hours later than expected, we picked up our baggage, took the shuttle to the car rental centre, a new centralised multi-level facility that will soon be connected to the airport terminals by monorail, picked up our car, and were off on our way.

Jeep Patriot from Dollar Car RentalIf you are travelling to the USA I highly recommend using Car Hire 3000, since the rental rates are less than half what I would have paid if I tried to rent directly in the USA.  The only condition is that you must have a non-US drivers licence and passport.  The rental company is a mystery until you purchase, but they use the main car rental companies, and in our case it was Dollar, who I have used a number of times in the past.

Since they were short of mid-sized cars we got a free upgrade to a Jeep Patriot, which I didn’t really want since it uses more fuel, however in the end it did turn out to be handy.

Off To Hollywood Beach

So off we set for Hollywood Beach and the condo that we had rented, several hours later than expected and in the middle of the Miami rush hour, which I had hoped to avoid.

Fortunately, having lived in South Florida for 4 years, I know the highways pretty well, which helped a lot, and it took us less than an hour to reach our destination.

Finding a place to rent in Hollywood is not easy, especially if you are on a tight budget.  There are always hotels and motels away from the beach, but some can be in bad neighbourhoods and not that well located for what we wanted.

Hollywood Beach Condo just feet from the pool and 100 yards from Hollywood BeachDebbie is an expert at finding great places to stay however, and she found a condo for us that was not only a reasonable price, but it had a pool and was also only 100 yards from Hollywood Beach.   Luckily the summer months are actually low season in South Florida, so not only were we able to find a good place to rent, many of the other condos were empty, so much of the time it was quiet and we had the pool to ourselves.

The pool was only 10 feet from the condo entrance, as you can see in the photo, and ours was only one of four condos that faced the pool, and these also had the only four parking spaces on the road as well.  Debbie really did find us a great place to stay.

Next Time

CLICK HERE for Part Two to see how things went with our vacation in Hollywood Beach.

 

We Found A Really Cheap Way To Call South Africa From The UK

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Debbie calls her daughter in South Africa regularly, and she has been using Skype, which is 8p/min, but her daughter’s laptop has finally packed up, and to call a mobile phone costs 13p/min (about 20cents in the US).  OUCH!

We found a great calling card today while searching around, the IDT Gold Card, and this has lowered the cost of her calls to 7.67p/min, which is practically half price!

The card is practically perfect – you can register your home/mobile phone so you just have to enter their access number and it will recognize your account (Pinless Dialling), and it rounds up every minute too, so if you go a few seconds over a minute when calling, you don’t get charged for another 3 minutes like some cards.

Best of all there is no additional charge when you make a call (unless from a payphone), no maintenance fee, and having purchased the card it stays active for a whole year after the purchase date or the date that you recharged it.

I looked at their cards, and the rates are really good.  If you make any international phone calls, even just a few times a year, this ought to save you a fair amount of money.

They have a variety of rates and cards for calling from and to most countries in the world as far as I can see.

L Is For Lime Cay In Jamaica

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This is the third and final part of three articles that describe my first trip to Jamaica, which was to install a computer system for one of the petroleum companies.

You can find a link to the first part of the story under J Is For Jamaica.

Where we left off last time, the three of us who were working together in Jamaica had spent a weekend touring around Jamaica, taking in Dunn RiverFalls, Montego Bay and Negril, and had headed back to Kingston for a second busy week in the office.

We had enjoyed our previous weekend and were eager to not waste a minute of our second one, so on the Saturday morning we got into the car and headed off around the harbour to explore what was left of Port Royal, the old pirate town from the days of Captain Henry Morgan, and featured in just about every pirate movie.

Port Royal, which you can learn more about in The History Of Port Royal, was probably the most ill reputed place in the Caribbean by far, worse than South Beach in Miami even, but it all came to an end one summer day in 1692 when a strong earthquake and tsunami sent most of the town to the bottom of the ocean.

There are some interesting ruins here, old fortifications and other buildings, and a place that everyone ought to visit at least once, the Giddy House, which used to be the Royal Artillery Store, and which was tilted at a very odd angle by the earthquake.   You can read a lot more about Port Royal and see some splendid photographs HERE.

The Giddy House Port Royal JamaicaThe Giddy House is tilted in all axes, so that walking inside it gives you a really giddy sensation.  Normally as we walk up a slope, the walls of the building that we are in are vertical, but in the Giddy House they are at an angle, and the floor tilts both up as well as to the right, confusing the brain and making you feel off balance.  It’s a really odd sensation.

We found out that from Port Royal you could get a boat ride over to Lime Cay, which is about as close to a stereo-typical cartoon style desert island as you can get, and it’s only about 15 minutes off Port Royal, so we decided to return the following day.

On our way back to Kingston we stopped at Morgan’s Harbour, a marina and resort that had some jaw dropping yachts tied up, and we spent a couple of hours enjoying drinks, local food and the music of Bob Marley.

Other than my friend Jorge and myself, the third person was from the software house that had written the system we were installing, and since he did not swim, he decided to stay behind in the hotel on the Sunday while Jorge and I packed our snorkeling gear and drove back to Port Royal.

There we obtained the services of a fisherman who took us out to Lime Cay, and promised to come pick us up in a few hours.

Lime Cay Port Royal Jamaica

Lime Cay is wonderful!  It’s a small island off from Port Royal, and the sea was fairly calm as we were motored across to it, in an open boat that was about 15 feet long and was powered by an outboard.

There were quite a few people on Lime Cay when we arrived, and a handful of nice cabin cruisers anchored as well.  We found out that Sundays is the most popular day there for the locals, and some people had brought over the typical Jamaican oil drum barbecues and were offering Jerk Chicken with Rice and Peas to eat.  Others had coolers with beers and soft drinks.   Saturdays are less busy, and apparently during the week when it’s really quiet, it’s clothing optional too!

The island is small, surrounded by soft fine white sand, and has a clump of palm trees and other vegetation in the middle that offer some form of shade.  With it being 380 meters long and only 80 meters wide, it’s definitely small, but on a hot sunny day it was pretty close to paradise.

Jorge and I snorkeled around the whole island in several goes, saw a Barracuda and plenty of other sea life, including Rays, Snapper, Kingfish etc.  I got a nasty sting off some coral, but it was a perfect day.

Finally the boat came to pick us up, and it also picked up a few other people.  It was barely better than a rowing boat, with low sides, and as the waves had got up by then, the sides of the boat were a scary 6 inches above the water at times.  Spray kept coming over the front of the boat, and since there was no protection, those who were in the front half of the boat just got soaked, period!

We got back to the hotel tired and burnt, but having had a fantastic day.

We had a night flight back to London the following Saturday, but decided that we ought to not waste the day, and the two of us drove out to Lime Cay again, this time for an adventure.

With it being Saturday the island was almost deserted, and there was no food or drink to be had either.  The boy who took us over there looked barely 13, but we got there, and had some good snorkeling, even though the sea was not quite as smooth as the previous Sunday.

By the time the boat arrived to pick us up about mid afternoon, we were wary that the clock was ticking and that we needed to get back to the hotel, to pack our bags, and be ready to head to the airport for our flight home.

We got under way, and had only made it about halfway back to Port Royal when the engine stopped.  That left us bobbing about in the ocean, and although the boy claimed that he had enough fuel, when Jorge shook the tank it was obvious that it was empty.  So GREAT, stuck in a small boat in the middle of the ocean, bobbing up and down and out of fuel.

Time after time the boy tried to start the engine without fail, but without fuel we knew it wasn’t going to work.   Several other boats went past, but a good way off, and despite our waving to try and get their attention, it was a good half hour or more before we finally did get someone to come over, explained the problem, and got a tow back to Port Royal.

Off back to the hotel, to pack our bags, check out, and off to the airport.

This was my first trip to the Caribbean, and the first of 4 in total to Jamaica for work, but a wonderful experience that served only to heighten the travel bug in me.

Stay tuned for more travel stories…