Finally – a sightseeing tour by bus and boat in Miami!

Our body-clocks were still on European time so we both got up rather early, when it was still pitch black outside. Tom put on some coffee and we had some peanut butter filled Oreos with it, while sitting out on the balcony overlooking the ocean, waiting for the sun to come up. We watched the sun come up, then took a shower and went downstairs to the restaurant to have breakfast. The hotel restaurant offers a buffet breakfast and it is really nice.

After we had had breakfast we went back to the room for a little while before we waited for the sightseeing tour bus to pick us up. The concierge at the hotel told us it would arrive at around 20 past 9 and he was right. After a few more stops to pick up more passengers for different tours we made it to the central meeting point at Bayside Market Place. We were lucky, as we were on the correct bus to begin with and could stay in our seats.

A lot of other passengers joined us and off we went. The sightseeing tour took about 2 ˝ hours and was really interesting. The year before, we had planned on doing a similar tour and had not been picked up, so this tour was really a wonderful chance to see most of Miami.

We stopped at Little Havanna for a while to check out the shops and try some Cuban Coffee when the driver of the tour approached us to ask if we wanted to join them for a boat tour to see the houses of the rich and famous as well. We had been thinking about it beforehand, but not knowing what the weather would be like we had decided not to book it. Now we were able to still do it in the afternoon. We had a break for lunch at Bayside Market Place and we decided to have another Bubba Gump lunch. Tom had another Diet Coke, while I had some more Strawberry Speckled Lemonade. We decided to skip the appetizer and just have a main course.

Tom had Shrimper's Heaven, Coconut Shrimp, Chilly Shrimp, Fried Shrimp, Tempura Shrimp, Fries, and of course Dippin' Sauces and I decided to give Mama Blue's Southern Charmed Fried Shrimp with hot and crispy Fries and Cocktail Sauce for dippin' a try. Both were plenty and absolutely delicious. Once we had finished our meal we went over to the boat dock to board our sightseeing vessel.

They offer a “sundeck” with chairs and an inside bar. When we finally got to board the boat all the chairs on the sundeck were taken and the bar windows were “blind” with condensation. So we stood at the aft of the ship during the tour. It took about two hours and there were lots of villas to see.

Once the tour was over another bus took us back to our hotel. We went up to our room and sat on the balcony for a while until we decided we wanted to try and get a pair of black trousers for Tom. We checked the internet for stores, programmed the addresses into our GPS and went over to the garage and picked up the car.

Finally we could put the top down and enjoy the “heat”.At the pet store at the mall we had gone to we picked up 40$ worth of cat treats, before we went in seach for Tom’s trousers. We finally found some, but when we left the mall it was already dark. On the way back to the garage we spotted a sign – a Krispy Kreme sign that said, “HOT now”. We immediately made a d-tour, picked up a dozen doughnuts, had some right there at the store and then went back to the garage and the hotel.

We spent the rest of the evening watching TV and watching the cruise ships go by. Around 11pm we turned off the lights and went to bed. It had been a long and eventful day, but the next morning we wanted to drive to Key West and we want to get up early again.