NORTH AMERICA TRIP FOR DEN & KEITH, ANG & IAN

BRADENTON (May 14th – 15th)

We said goodbye to the ‘boujee’ hotel in Washington and headed to Dulles airport. As we had a lunchtime flight, we decided to save more than a few dollars and take the metro as the hotel offered an excellent shuttle service to the station. The journey took about an hour and was pretty straightforward to be fair as Keith had completed some excellent ‘reconnaissance’ work, complete with detailed maps, photos and schedules the day before, so we knew exactly what platforms, trains and elevators we needed to take.

However, Washington airport was very, very busy. There are plans afoot to modernise and expand the airport and we reckon that can’t come soon enough, though security to be fair is state of the art as you would expect being the nations capital. Ian was unfortunately sat next to ‘Mr Large’ on the plane which it’s got to be said was very funny (well, maybe not for him)!

We landed mid afternoon in Tampa, which is on the West coast of Florida and picked up the hire car. The weather was a sunny 30 degrees, quite humid with lots of palm trees (our favourites). We drove down the coast for about an hour with the blue sea on the right of the road and headed to the small town of Bradenton.

What’s at Bradenton we hear you say. Well, Bradenton is home to Bradenton Beach, which is on Anna Marie island, 20 mins away and this is the place where Ang & Ian got married a few years ago (well nearly 20). So they were excited to be going back there and sharing that with Den & Keith, 1,2,3, awwww!

But before we get to that, we had to check in to the Hampton Hotel Bradenton, sort ourselves out and get ready for dinner.

We had booked the Beach House restaurant which is where Ang & Ian had their wedding reception. The original Beach House was unfortunately blown away in 2024 by back to back Hurricane’s Helena & Milton, but they have rebuilt it and it’s even bigger, better and more ‘boujee’ than before.

We caught an uber and headed over, took a walk on the white sandy beach, had a lovely dinner and watched an amazing sunset. It still looked very similar to before to be fair and it was very busy and obviously a popular place with the locals. After dinner, we caught an uber back and headed off to bed after a pretty long and tiring day.

The next morning after breakfast we headed off to a local outlet mall for a bit of retail therapy, checked into Walmart for a few supplies and then chilled in the afternoon, going for a walk and of course a coffee along with getting some sun by the lovely outdoor pool. We had found a Golden Corral for dinner (remember that ‘all you can eat’ place, where Keith thought he was going to die from overeating) so we were looking forward to that. It did not disappoint, feeling very full we managed a few games of cards back at the hotel. Tomorrow we were checking out and heading off to South Beach, Miami.

MIAMI (May 16th – 18th)

The drive to Miami took about 5 hours. In reality it should have taken around 4, but the traffic got very congested the closer you got to the city. We were heading south down the west coast and then taking a big left turn across country to Miami which is on the South East coast. We stopped for a coffee at the amazing and very ‘boujee’ town of Naples, no relation to its Italian namesake. What a place this is, very upmarket, full of enormous houses, golden beaches, restaurants, cafes and boutique expensive shops. There were plenty of Porches, Mercs and BMWs on show and the locals were all dressed up in ‘boujee’ designer clothes, even at lunchtime! It would be a very nice place to live, if you could afford it!

As we drove across country we nicked the top of the Everglades National Park and saw quite a few ‘beware of alligator’ signs on route and there were also plenty of fences lining the roads. Keith had offered to have a drive, which early on was a fairly straight road, however, once we got caught up in the traffic congestion it meant that he had to drive us into Miami to the hotel. It would be fair to say that wasn’t easy, with everybody zipping around in their fancy sports cars, undercutting & overtaking, without indicating and also tailgating and slamming their brakes on etc etc, so we’ll give him a 10/10 for managing to avoid any collisions. We also counted 5 cruise ships in port so it’s obviously a very busy place.

We eventually landed at the ‘boujee’ President’s Hotel in a perfect location on South Beach. The buildings in the area we were staying were all lovely Art Deco style (Paris early 1900s) with lots of colours, fabulous. After checking in we headed out to a restaurant that Den had found called Little Havana and enjoyed some traditional Cuban food and drink accompanied by a great singer with a very large booty that blocked the sunset.

The next day we had rain storms early on so Ang & Den went off to get their nails painted and Keith had a haircut. For dinner we booked into the ‘boujee’ Villa Casa Casuarina’ which was the former Gianni Versace residence, turned hotel and restaurant. The dining area is laid out by the swimming pool area complete with fountains and lavishly decorated with pebbled mosaic walls and floors. The place was amazing and the food just as good. After dinner we had a stroll along the esplanade complete with an ice cream and then headed back to the hotel for a few games of cards.

We split up the next day and went for a bit of exploring up to the north and southern ends of the beach and then met up for dinner at an Irish sports bar that was close to the hotel. We had definitely slowed down and chilled a bit in Miami which was great, tomorrow we were checking out and heading off to the Florida Keys.

FLORIDA KEYS (May 19th – 20th)

Den & Keith had been to the Keys previously so they were really looking forward to getting back there, seeing some of the places they remember and showing Ang & Ian around. It was only a few hours drive south of Miami and we ran into a bit of rain coming up from the south but by the time we got there it had dried up and we had lovely sunshine. We stopped at Key Largo and then drove onto the ‘boujee’ Fairfield Inn & Suites in Marathon which is almost smack bang in the centre of the Keys. The drive was amazing, with many sections of the of the road basically surrounded by the blue ocean on both sides. It was a nice surprise to see two nice restaurants, one attached to the hotel and the other across the road so that was dinner sorted for both nights.

We had dinner at the hotel restaurant overlooking the water as the sun was setting and then we found a new game to play in the pool area, originally called ‘corn toss’. Basically you try to throw bean bags into a hole on a small ramp from several yards. It was a lot of fun which turned into a competitive girls v boys as usual.

After a nice breakfast the next day we were heading off for about an hours drive to Key West which is the southern most tip of the Keys and only around 100 miles from Cuba.The drive took us over the Seven Mile Bridge, an iconic engineering marvel that connects Marathon (where we are staying) to Little Duck Key. It was completed in 1982 and has incredible views of the Atlantic and the Gulf of Mexico either side. There are very strict speed limits (40- 55mph) with no stopping allowed to maintain the flow of traffic.

After a very enjoyable drive we arrived at Key West, parked up and headed out for a walk down to the ocean front. On route we passed the Harry S. Truman Little White House. It was  Built in 1890 as a naval command headquarters, it served as President Harry S. Truman’s winter White House from 1946 to 1952. Prior to and after Truman’s presidency, the home hosted distinguished U.S. Presidents Taft, Eisenhower, JFK, Carter, and Clinton.

The thing that really grabs your attention as you are walking round the town are the Key West Roosters. These very colourful birds just seem to be everywhere giving lots of ‘cockle doodle doos’ which must be a nightmare in the mornings, especially if you are looking forward to a nice little lie in! They were descended from 1800s Cuban and Caribbean imports and were mainly kept for food and cockfighting. Once that sport was banned, they were all set free and are now protected local mascots, famous for strutting through outdoor cafes and loudly greeting tourists.

While looking for a coffee, we saw the author Ernest Hemming way’s house. He was a very famous figure in 20th century literature, but most of his stuff was written before we were even born, so we don’t know too much about his work. To be fair, he did have a nice house though (ha, ha). We found a very nice little backstreet cafe for the coffee and some nachos before walking and shopping for a few souvenirs in the busy shopping area of Key West.

We finished up and headed back to the hotel, going back along Seven Mile Bridge and the amazing views. Ang & Den did a last little bit of washing in preparation for Mexico, in between sitting by the pool in the sunshine. For dinner we walked over the road to the restaurant that overlooked a marina and tried some different types of fish while watching the sunset. Of course, we finished the day with a few more competitive games of throwing bean bags by the pool.

MIAMI AIRPORT (May 21st)

After breakfast we checked out of the hotel and set off for Miami, stopping at Key Largo for a coffee at a very ‘boujee’ Starbucks, sitting outside in the lovely weather. We were heading to the Sheraton Miami airport hotel in preparation for our flight to Mexico the next morning. We arrived mid afternoon and Ang & Den went to drop the car off just around the corner. The hotel had a nice big pool area, complete with alligator sign, that overlooked the new Inter Miami football stadium (the club David Beckham owns and who Lionel Messi plays for). Ang & Den coloured their hair and we had booked Club Rooms so we had access to the lounge area that served free drinks and nibbles and it had quite a bit of variety for dinner.

Our original flight time had been a nice late morning departure, so we could have a lazy morning, a nice big breakfast and arrive chilled and relaxed at the airport in plenty of time, lovely. However, we had discovered that things had been moved forward to an 8am departure and we now had to connect through Atlanta airport. Oh no, we hear you say. But fear not, we had booked the airport hotel to avoid any traffic congestion on route to the airport, so apart from being a bit tired it was certainly welcome at 6-15am in the morning as we caught the free 10 minute hotel shuttle to the terminal, nice one.

We checked in, were smack bang on the maximum weight allowance, and headed to the gate in anticipation of a very relaxing nine days in Cancun Mexico.