Easy Dream Vacations

We started our trip today, looking forward to getting away for a week as well as seeing some new ships and cruise lines we have never inspected or sailed on. More on that later in the week,  on to Day One, Travel Day.

All I can say is be very careful with connecting flights.  We made our connections but some of the air fare deals that are be being sold have some very short layovers.  We had flights from Milwaukee to Memphis and then Memphis to Miami.  The layover was supposed to be 30 minutes, no problem.  They didn’t say that included boarding time.  Out flight from Milwaukee landed in Memphis on time at 6:50. Our flight to Miami started boarding at 6:50.  We had to rush, the gates were in the same terminal but had almost 40 gates between them.  We made it, but we really wondered about the luggage.  After all the running we ended up leaving 20 minutes late, seems they were waiting for some luggage from connecting flights to be loaded.  Probably was our luggage, yes it met us in Miami, so all was well.  The flights, they were ok, the first flight from Milwaukee hit some strong turbulence, there were even people throwing there arms up in the air as if they were in a roller coaster, “6 Flags, more Fun!” as the commercial says.  The changes in the air industry just amaze me though.  We purchased tickets on Northwest Airlines, now part of Delta, the flight from Milwaukee was operated by Compass Air, the flight between Memphis and Miami was operated by Northwest but they served us Delta cookies.  Can’t complain too much though, for $74 we made it to Miami.  

We arrived in Miami, picked up our luggage and were off to the Holiday Inn Miami Airport.  We normally stay downtown Miami near Bayside Market but opted to try out the offer of free shuttle service as well as a better price.  The Holiday Inn Airport had a rate that was almost half the cost of the downtown hotels. Their check in service was awesome, very friendly and efficient. As priority Club members we also were given a welcome package of snacks and a coupon for a free drink.  They have a free shuttle that runs every half hour between airport and hotel and they also offer a free shuttle to the port of Miami.  The hotel lacks the activities that you have in downtown Miami although they did offer shuttle service to local restaurants.  We took advantage of the shuttle and had a light night (or should I say early morning) dinner at Bennigan’s. Thank goodness Bennigan’s was open 24 hours, we were pretty hungry and the Priority Club snacks were just not what we had in mind for dinner.  Goodnight.