Travelling to Fort Lauderdale

March 6, 2010 – We leave Victoria to start our "four flight" trip to Fort Lauderdale. Everything goes smoothly… the only thing that was a little strange was the shuttle at LAX. To switch terminals they send you to this gate to wait. We, and about 50 other people, all ask the two girls texting on their phones the same question “Is this where we wait for the shuttle?" They could have saved themselves the trouble and perhaps put up the sign that said “Wait here for the shuttle”, which probably would have been more satisfying than what they actually said (while barely taking their eyes off their phones) which was “just sit down and wait”.

Anyway, the shuttle eventually comes… we go out a door, down a lot of stairs in the rain (I'm not sure what happened to the lady with the cane, there was no way she was making it down there) and on to a shuttle bus that probably holds 20 people. Jammed in like sardines we start driving in the dark through the rain around the tarmac… there are planes pulling out, planes pulling in… we just zoom around them. At one point the bus fills up with light because of the giant headlight of the plane that is coming towards us… this is when I tell Steve that the ride feels 'moderately frightening’. Of course we zoom around another corner, eventually reach a dark door with no sign, and are at our gate. The whole trip (all four flights and stopovers) took almost 24 hours but it was worth it because now we are in sunny (well mostly sunny) Fort Lauderdale.

March 7, 2010

We arrive at our hotel “W” to discover our room isn’t ready (well it’s only 9:30 in the morning, you can’t really expect it to be ready 😊 ) We hang out on the terrace where they have these awesome big couches and take advantage of the free wifi.

* Side note: We got this hotel on priceline for $130 a night, which is less than half the cost of the room. We really lucked out this time!

Waiting on the terrace at the Hotel W

Then, we decide to go find some breakfast. We find a little restaurant with tables out on the patio overlooking the main strip and the ocean. It doesn’t get much better.

View from my table

Steve gets some kind of healthy egg white omelet (yes he ate eggs!) and I had yummy waffles with bananas and strawberries (yes I ate the bananas!) … see it’s an adventure already!

We watched the fancy cars drive past, the hung-over young people and everybody else… oh don’t let me forget the man in the bikini. He had on a bikini similar to one I may have owned in 1987… bright pink and blue… clearly too small for him… socks and some kind of hiking shoes… he may have also had a headband I can’t quite remember…. Anyway, he was what I would call “pleasantly plump” and hanging over and out of his bikini everywhere. This didn’t stop him from strutting up and down the strip saying hi and smiling at everyone.

We get a call that our room is ready, head back and check in. The room is very awesome.

Here we are on the balcony!

I can sit out on the balcony in the sun and look at the ocean (as a matter of fact I’m sitting out here while I type this!). We take a nap, get cleaned up and head back out.

View from my balcony!

We walk up the main drag again checking out all the restaurants (it seems like we just ate, but I guess it was a long nap!) and find a place that catches our attention right away… why?... well because they had GIGANTIC margarita glasses. We looked at the menu… looks good… we look at the giant glasses again and decide to go in. Again we get to sit on the patio overlooking the ocean and Steve and I decide to share a giant mudslide. We notice that about 1/3 of the way through the drink we are both getting tipsy (good thing we didn’t order one each).

The music is great, the view is fabulous, the food is delicious and we are having a fine time! Our waiter, who seemed to REALLY like Steve, was a little slow, but who cares we are on vacation. Steve wants another mudslide, but when he realized he was talking a bit like Johnny Depp in Pirates of the Caribbean I was able to convince him we didn’t need another.

Oddly, the wind has come up and we’re both cold so we walk down to the generic beach stores and get a hoody (mine is ridiculously ugly, and Steve’s is a 2X… what are the big people wearing???)

We go back to the hotel to check out the pool which closes at “dusk”… it’s way past dusk now, but the hot tub and pool both look super-cool in the dark. Being the rule-follower that I am I convince Steve we can go in tomorrow 😁

You can tell we are in Florida... somehow an alligator got in my hotel room!!!!