Day 1 - 2/21/17 (to Florida):
With how busy work tends to keep us, being packed and ready for vacation well ahead of schedule is a very rare thing for us. We somehow managed it today though and made great use of our extra time. We would be traveling with nothing more than "personal items" this time, however, so I had Sean open the birthday present and cards his mom and aunt had sent him before we left the house. (Thank you from both of us since I enjoyed it too!) He'd received two very funny cards and an intentionally hard to open "Man Crate", aka a cool-looking wooden box full of various types of animal jerky which had been glued shut and required prying open to reap the benefits of. Difficult but rewarding and hilarious! Since it seemed appropriate, we set the alligator jerky aside to take with us when we headed out for Florida!
A bit later, Danny gave us a ride to the airport. We were there about 5 hours before our flight but with good reason: We had a pair of United Club Lounge passes (sent to us annually for being Mileage Plus members) to use. And what better time to use them?! After trading our Frontier airlines seats in for side by side ones so we could sit together (not always possible but no additional cost since we waited and checked availability at the desk before departure rather than at booking), we got through security and made our way to the club lounge to enjoy unlimited complimentary hors d'oeuvres and beverages (hot, fizzy, alcoholic, and more) while relaxing til flight time!
A little before 11pm, we headed to our gate and boarded our plane for our Frontier flight to Miami ($332.80 round trip for 2 people - technically more like $327.81 after credit card cash back). Actually, we couldn't have really gotten more lucky with the flight; not only were we 3 rows from the restrooms (just far enough not to smell them while still being able to get to them quickly) but the seat next to us was one of only a couple of empty seats on the whole plane so we ended up with the row to ourselves. Without paying a dime for seat selection, it's hard to do much better than that on a budget airline these days! Still, didn't get much sleep at all due to crazy turbulence throughout the flight. Pilots were flying like maniacs! They got us there like 35 mins early though, at 6:40am, and landed smooth as butter.
Day 2 - 2/22/17 (Cruise!):
It was time to Uber then. I had $25 of Uber credit (for which I'd probably paid like $14 or so for after all discounts) that I'd bought from Raise.com so we used $9 of that to hitch a ride downtown where we were scheduled to pick up a car we'd rented from someone through Turo.com. We'd paid about about $146 for the rental car for the week after all discounts. We had to pick it up from and drop it off to the owner's place but for the price it was worth it. Well, it would've been worth it had the owner of the car not slept in. It was around 9am by the time she made it our meeting point in downtown Miami! Fortunately, we'd allowed plenty of time for mishaps so it wasn't anything more than an annoyance in the end. Also, to make up for the wait she let us use her SunPass toll thing free of charge so we didn't have to pay any tolls while driving around.
Once we had the car - a black 2005 Suzuki Reno - in our possession, we started very slowly up north through the horrendous city traffic towards Riviera Beach (a little north of West Palm Beach). What should've been just over a one hour drive wound up taking us closer to two hours. Still, no big deal. By about 11am, we were at our dance game friend Max McColly's house. Technically, Max was more of a Facebook friend as we hadn't had much in-person interaction, aside from me losing to him in an ITG tourney, but that was enough - especially in such a tight-knit community as the dance game one.
The main reason we were in Florida was so I could take Sean on a cruise for his birthday. Max would be working when we'd need to park our rental and head towards the port we'd be boarding our cruise ship at but he lived a very short walk from from the port and had offered to just let us leave our car at his place. Considering there wasn't any free or inexpensive parking in the area (that we could find through Google or in person), the alternate option was to pay $36 for two days of parking at the port. Screw that! So we took Max up on his generous offer and drove to his place where we met his dad around 11am. We left a couple of dance game accessories I'd brought as a thank you to Max with his dad and then started our short walk to the port.
Port of Palm Beach
1 East 11th St
Riviera Beach, FL 33404
It wasn't hard to spot our big Bahamas Paradise Cruise Line cruise ship, called the Grand Celebration, as we approached the port. It looked practically just like the Carnival cruise ship we'd been on out of Long Beach a few years prior. We spent a little time getting through security and all checked in then, had a very short wait in the lobby there (but they had fruit punch and cookies for us!), then it was noon and we were boarding! Technically we didn't need to be on the ship til as late as 5:30pm, as the ship would be departing at 6pm, but why wait when there's so much complimentary/included buffet and ship to take advantage of?! Might as well get our money's worth! (Despite getting us the best deal I could, the cruise had cost $390.16 (maybe $382.50 after all discounts) for the 2 of us.)
The rooms weren't available yet as they were still being cleaned but we didn't have too much to carry so we toted our things around and explored the ship. Once we'd seen all it had to offer, we headed for one of the few things open at the time - the staple of a cruise ship: the buffet! We filled plates with all they had to offer there and chowed down.
Stomachs full, we got changed into swimwear next and took our big bellies to the rear of the ship to soak in one of the ship's three hot tubs. The sky was grey and it was raining and windy so not only were we the only ones in the tub and not only did we get strange looks but the ship's staff was hesitant to let us get in. To be honest, however, not much else of interest was available for us to do just yet and we had a great view from the tub. The rain and wind DID get absolutely insane to the point nothing could be trusted not to blow away and it was difficult to even keep our eyes open. It was fun and funny though! Well, til we got back to our stuff, which we thought we'd kept well out of harms way, and found much of our stuff to be soaking wet.
Luckily for us, good news came just after that; the rooms were ready! We went to unload and settle in and wound up getting a bit distracted by each others' bodies. Nothing wrong with some adult fun to relieve stress and break the bed in though!
I guess we were still feeling the need to work off the buffet after that because we went to the ship's gym next and had a bit of a workout. Sean's toes were still hurting so we didn't use the treadmill but we found plenty more to do there.
All that exercise actually made us hungry again so we went back to the buffet after the gym and filled ourselves all over again!
And then we went to the gym again! Lol This time, we took Sean's laptop and did some insane abs workout vids he had on it. We were dead and sweating by the end of it and it was time for dinner.
We had a quick shower in our cabin and got dressed.
Aside from a few dishes and wines, nightly dinner at the Stellar Prime restaurant on board was included in the price of the cruise too. Advance reservations were required though so I'd booked us in ahead of time for 8:30pm. When we got there, I was still way too full from all the buffeting but Sean managed to combo another meal and I had a couple of easy desserts.
Cruise ships always offer so much to do it makes it hard to pick and choose and fit in every fun thing so we went to look look around and see which thing looked most fun in person. We started with the funny dance parties and karaoke on board but they were more amusing to watch than partake in at the time, we danced a tiny bit and got a free shot of alcohol for doing in one lounge we found ourselves in, then we ended up in the arcade. They didn't have any arcade music games there but they DID have Just Dance set up on the pc, I believe it was, so we spent a good little while playing and getting sweaty from all of our hilariously bad dancing! So fun!
Embarrassingly, we'd worked up a bit of appetite playing Just Dance so we visited the buffet again afterward. They'd changed the selection there over again and this time they even had baklava! We got several plates of food and even took plenty of extra baklava for later. Then we made our way back to our room to watch TV and finally eat ourselves to sleep at 1am - officially Sean's bday local time!
Day 3 - 2/23/17 (Sean's bday in the Bahamas!):
By 8am, we were reluctantly up again and getting ready to disembark. We'd arrived at Freemont, Grand Bahama and just had to wait for the all-clear to go ashore.
In the meantime, breakfast buffet! As expected, the breakfast wasn't as good as some of the other meals but can't complain about unlimited and all-inclusive! We even took a few small bits to fuel us while we explored Freeport.
There wasn't much to see just after getting off the ship. Apparently town was quite a few miles from there and supposedly it wasn't practical or safe to walk. Everyone else who left the ship seemed to have booked tour buses and other modes of transportation in advance but Sean and I were both too cheap and too stubborn. Lol We ignored every warning we got and started on our way to town on foot.
It was a lonnng, maybe 7 or so, mile walk to downtown and we got sunburnt and a bit hot along the way but it was a NICE day. Really, we couldn't have asked for a better day for a long walk through the Bahamas. It was pretty rural most of the way and most of the buildings we did see were run down. A high percentage were abandoned as well. We didn't run into any trouble though. In fact, the only people who spoke to us were cab and bus drivers trying to convince us to let them drive us to town and a couple of people trying to sell us things. Other than that, it was just us and and the little butterflies fluttering around in the grass the whole way. We did make a few stops on the way, however. We went in an abandoned church for a look around, window shopped in an expensive Salvation Army thrift store, bought a local beer and a couple of other drinks in a shop, and peeked in a little pet store that pretty much had the same kinda of animals we're used to seeing in pet stores. We made a few observations along the way: in the Bahamas, they drive on the left, they seem to speak UK English (though with a Bahamian accent), they seem to be semi-aggressive salespeople, and they have quite a few American food and other business chains such as Subway, Burger King, Wendy's, Domino's, and Harley Davidson.
Finally, after 3 hours of walking, we were supposedly in and probably very near the center of downtown Freeport. We were starting to see more shops and businesses but still nothing too major. We did see a group of run down shuttles buses that said "Public Bus" on the sides though so we paid $1.25 per person (they accept US dollars or Bahamian and the value is 1 for 1) and hopped on one to get a ride to a suburb called Lucaya. On the way, the driver stopped at a house to pick up some guy I think was her brother!
The bus driver actually dropped us off right at the entrance to a free beach when we got to Lucaya! We walked down, got changed in restrooms there, strolled through the sand, and went for a dip in the pretty, light blue waters of the Caribbean!
Once we'd splashed around enough to satisfy, we got dressed again and wandered over to and around the marina just down the street. We looked at the gift shops there a bit but the sales people were far too aggressive and kinda put us off so we didn't buy anything. We did find and pick one of the many coconuts (at least, I think that's what they were) on the trees there and crack it open for a big, refreshing drink though!
It was a little after 3pm when we started making our way back to the cruise ship. We got another $1.25 per person bus from the spot we'd got off earlier back to downtown where we had to transfer and get a $1.50 per person bus back to the cruise ship. It was 4:29pm when we got to the ship, accidentally cutting it close for a 4:30pm deadline, but the ship wasn't departing til 5pm and there was a line to get through security and reboard so I think they would've let us on had we been just a little later.
Our bus adventures had taken us through residential areas that really gave us a much different view of the Bahamas than you're likely to get from a postcard. I guess that seems to be the case most places. Still, we were fascinated by some of what we saw today. We didn't see a single house that would likely be referred to as "nice" or desirable by American standards. Most houses seemed very run down and ghetto. In fact, I'd be truly surprised if most of them could legally be inhabited in in most parts of the United States. Not knocking it though! Just an observation. Still, most people seemed happy enough. Everyone kinda seemed to know everyone in a small town kind of way. We even ran into some of the same people in very different areas and situations throughout the day. One local we saw as we were walking to town earlier even ended up on one of the buses we took later. Bus drivers toted their family members along with them as they worke, even picked their family members up from home on the way, and sometimes dropped passengers off at their houses. At one point, a bus driver had one of her family members who was riding with us call up what was supposed to be a restaurant and order some food. A short while later, we pulled up to what looked like a tiny, abandoned home ready for demolition in the ghetto and out came a take away box full of fried chicken. Such a different world! :D Anyway, with probably well over 8 miles of walking and plenty of exploration through and around the Freeport vicinity of the Bahamas, we were, at last, ready to get back to relaxing on the ship.
There were a couple of activities we didn't want to miss out on before relaxing though so, as the ship started a towards Florida at 5pm, we made our way to the aft section of deck 11 for the first of these: Zumba! As the instructor prepared, Sean and I tossed a few bean bags there. Then it was time to Zumba so we could embarrass ourselves with yet another fun type of dance fitness.
To cool down after Zumba, we went for a quick dip in one of the ship's two plunge pools. Then we stuffed ourselves once again at the buffet before heading to our room so I could give Sean a birthday bj and relax with him for a short while.
As our second night's dinner reservation time approached, we got washed up and dressed to head back to Stellar Prime. I was still a little full but ordered anyway. Sean and I got an appetizer, meal, and dessert each and shared. By the end, we were completely stuffed. To make matters worse, though in a comical and much appreciated way, the waiter had arranged a birthday surprise for Sean. Towards the end of our meal, several waiters came to our table singing Happy Birthday and bearing a slice of cake on a plate with "Happy Birthday" written on it in icing. They brought a lighter to have Sean make wish and blow it out. Too sweet!!!
At 10pm, we had a very important activity to attend: an adult scavenger quest in one of the ship's lounges in 9 forward. It ended up being a REALLY funny, high energy escapade in which five couples each paired up with an extra female from the audience. We were given challenges that ranged from creatively getting us ladies to take our bras off (without getting topless) to collecting socks from people in the audience to the most important, intricate, memorable, and goofy challenge of all: cross dressing our men as convincingly as possible and having them present themselves to the audience in their new attire with their newly assigned personas. By the end of it, I ended up wearing nothing but a dress (barefoot and with nothing under at all) and Sean wound up in my bikini and shoes as well as our female partner's wig, lipstick, and jewelry. Then he and the other 4 men came out and prance around for us all to enjoy. Once that humiliation was over with, the scores were tallied and the top three teams awarded. I'm sure our team, made up of three very motivated and enthusiastic competitors, had already been in first place but after Sean got the audience practically in tears from laughter at his performance it was a sure bet; we won 1st place! Our reward: Sean got to wear a crown briefly and then we were presented with a very basic little tote bag, a bottle-opening keychain, a pen, and deliciously fruity mixed drinks containing just the right amount of alcohol. The first of these were just worthless little gestures but we weren't complaining. The drinks were great and the fun was more in the challenge than the prizes anyway.
The night was winding down most places throughout the ship then so, drinks in hand, we meandered to one of the hot tubs for a last muscle soak before swinging by the buffet (one of the only still-busy areas on the ship!) for our last unnecessary meal of the day! The had chicken kebabs amongst other things! We got several plates of food, took them back to our room, watched Mythbusters on Sean's laptop while eating, and finally got showered and ready for bed a little after 1:30am
Day 4 - 2/24/17 (Chinese Lantern Festival):
We were awake again at 8am today, though this time getting off the ship wasn't quite as fun. Docked back in Riviera Beach, FL, it was time to say farewell to the Grand Celebration and all the comforts the cruise had to offer. First, however, we stocked up on tons of breakfast buffet foods to last us long after we'd left the ship. Then we waited in a long line to get back into the USA, did the short walk back to Max's place, ran into Max's dad (who was out for a walk/jog around the block at the time) as we entered their neighborhood, chatted with him a little, picked up our rental car, and were on our way!
The first thing we did was look for casinos in the area. Our search led us to a place called Palm Beach Kennel Club which ended up being mostly dog racing and a sports book. Cool to see but not much for us there.
Maybe 40 miles south of there in Coconut Creek, FL was the Seminole Casino. We drove there then, signed up for their players club, and were rewarded with a random amount of free play each ($10 for Sean and $15 for me). The casino was crazy busy and had a limited number of Game King machines so Sean decided to try and find another slot machine to play. He wound up getting tricked with an unexpected $4 minimum bet requirement, however, and wound up with two losing spins and $2 freeplay left stuck in the machine. To avoid the same fate, I held out for a Game King and in the end managed to get us a profit of $8 in free money. Fyi: many casinos are linked with others and you can usually only get freeplay at the first casino in any chain you sign up with. This casino was linked with Seminole Hard Rock, Seminole Classic, & other Seminole casinos in southern Florida.
Done there, we drove on to a Speedway gas station/convenience store to use our free rewards card and get a couple of $0.69 fountain drinks. (I'd looked up all my rewards cards before leaving Vegas to refresh my memory about which businesses they had here and decide which cards to pack.)
While searching online for what to do next, Sean found a family fun center 11 mins away called the Wow Factory:
The Wow Factory
5891 Lyons Road
Coconut Creek, FL
We drove over for a look and found a Grand Piano Keys machine in their arcade. No other music games though.
22 mins east of there was the ocean so we thought we'd go check out the beach then. Sean was driving so I caught us some Pokémon on the way and had him pull over to Pokémon Go with me here and there. Since we were in a new place and it was our first time playing since second generation Pokémon came out, we were finding TONS of new ones! Parking was too crazy and expensive when we got to the beach so we didn't end up actually getting out but we didn't care. We'd filled in a lot of our Pokedex! Lol
Our next pre-planned activity was one I'd found on Groupon: a Chinese Lantern Festival! I don't remember exactly how much we'd paid for admission but I'll guess maybe $30 for 2 people (maybe more like $20 after all the discounts I got). Location:
20405 Amphitheater Circle
Boca Raton, FL 33498
We were there just a bit early so we looked around the park and lake there til opening time at 5:30pm. Then we were in, walking around and admiring all the impressive, primarily-animal-shaped lanterns as they cooperated with the setting sun to offer incredible photo-taking opportunities before lighting up the night sky! Soooo peaceful, beautiful, and worth the visit. Once the sun was down, we had a closer look at the other offerings of the festival including large model dinosaurs made to be climbed on (which we definitely did!), pricey food and trinkets only worth looking at from afar in my opinion, and a stage with various martial arts performances including an interactive one in which members of the audience were invited in stage for a little Tai Chi instruction! (I think it goes without saying that Sean and I went up to give it a whirl. :p)
Even after we'd seen all the Chinese Lantern Festival had to offer us, we stayed awhile to use free WiFi we found there in the park.
We drove about half an hour north then to get some sleep at a rest area called the West Palm Beach Service Plaza. We watched Mythbusters there but spent most of the night tossing and turning in the car and really couldn't sleep.
Day 5 - 2/25/17 (2 Mile Race, Fishing, Dance Games with Friends):
I was annoyed with having to get up in the morning but it had to be done. We had a 35 min drive over to another Groupon activity I'd found and booked in advance called the Beach Bash Dash & BBQ. It was a 2 mile race/fun run and had originally cost $30 for 2 people through Groupon (but more like just over $20 total for us after all discounts). Location:
Loggerhead Park
Juno Beach, FL
Parking was free and there were plenty of spaces at the park when we arrived at 8am but we knew neither of these would last long, hence our early arrival time; to assure we didn't get stuck in traffic or have trouble with parking fees or finding a space, we'd allotted an extra hour to get to the race before start time. Everything went smoothly so we were there an hour early, picking up our race packet (technically just a bag full of random trinkets and an event t-shirt - no bib or timing chip as this was only a fun run) before the rush. Then we had a look at the beach the park was adjacent to and caught some Pokémon while waiting for the race start.
9am finally rolled around and Sean and I got lined up with plenty of other runners and walkers at the start line. Then we were off, running a short distance down the road ahead, us turning, running a longer distance in the opposite direction on the same road, u-turning once again, and bringing it on home to the finish! Sean was there waiting as I crossed the line as the 1st female overall. He'd come in 2nd place overall. Though we'd never seen mention of them til receiving them, they handed us each a medal to reward our achievement as we crossed the finish, apparently for coming in top 25 in our respective genders! Not to shabby considering the number of participants. It was a first for each of us, competing in a 2 mile race, but we were satisfied with the result. I'd averaged 7 mins 15 secs per mile - a far cry from impressing anyone but apparently enough to get me 1st place female in some races and by far a much less embarrassing result than I'll ever likely receive in a long distance race.
Once we'd caught our breath, there were still additional post-run festivities to partake in including a couple of rides and a scrumptious bbq meal the organizers had provided for runners. Sean and I tried out the bungee trampoline ride first, left the climbing and slide ride thing to the kiddies, and lined up for the food, playing Pokémon Go all the way. Then we devoured the food before getting changed at the car and going down to the beach to play in the ocean waves!
Beach and running had made us thirstier than the race-provided water bottles could ever make up for so we went to a Speedway for drinks next and got $23.39 worth of gas there as well.
The next thing we had scheduled was approximately 1 hour 10 mins back down south again at:
Sea Legs III
5398 N Ocean Dr
Hollywood, FL 33019
It was 1:30pm when we arrived there for our 4 hour, 1:45-5:45pm fishing excursion. That's right, Sean and I were about to go on our first fishing trip ever! It was deep sea fishing, in fact. Fishing had been a bucket list item for Sean so I'd found and booked the deal on Groupon for $44 for 2 people (maybe between $30 and $40 total for us after all the discounts I got?). Before we knew it, we were there, boarding the fishing boat and heading way out to sea past all the departing cruise ships, docked freighters, and private boats full of fisherman and fun-loving randoms to find our first spot.
The Groupon deal had included everything needed including bait, rod, fishing license for the day, etc. Sean and I didn't know how to fish but the crew and passengers were more than happy to teach us. Each of our rods had two hooks on so we put bait on both before dropping our lines. It wasn't long before I got a bite and pulled in my first TWO fish at once! Yep, I'd caught one fair-sized fish on each hook and reeled them in! I wasn't prepared for what happened next though: the crew helped me take my fish off the hooks before throwing them onto the floor of the boat where I watched them suffocate. The fish caught onboard, sometimes after suffocating and sometimes before, were placed in ice water once caught. If they weren't already dead, they died there in a cold, bloody pool with their dead former friends. That was enough for me. Had I known what fate awaited them, I would've sucked up the ridicule that would've followed and thrown my two fish right back in the ocean while they still stood a chance. It was too late for that, however, so I just took my bucket list check mark and put my rod down. I'd fished and I'd caught. Now it was time to enjoy the scenery.
Not too long after my catch, Sean started pulling in fish too. The captain seemed to know and was taking us to all the good spots and I'm pretty sure just about everyone on board got at least a few good bites. Due to location, I suppose, all the fish caught were at least medium in size, though I guess certain breeds have different size requirements for catching which caused the occasional fish to be thrown back. In the end, I think Sean had caught five or six, maybe even seven, fish despite having some breaks from fishing to enjoy the scenery with me. He'd only had to put one back.
While on this outing, we saw lots of cruise, freight, and other ships, huge and small, many like we'd never seen before. Lots of crazy sights like we'd never imagined! Even without the fishing, the experience would've been completely worth the cost!
We were late getting back to dry land but extra fun is always fine in my books. :) We stayed long enough for the crew to distribute the fish caught onboard, which they'd marked and held for us til the end, and watch them clean some of the fish and throw the scraps to eagerly awaiting birds.
As soon as we were back at the car, we started allll the way back up to Max's house to carpool with him to his friend Marshall's house a little west of there in Loxahatchee. Since we didn't have a use for the fish we'd caught, we'd left some for the other fisherman we'd gone out with and taken the last few up with us as a gift for Marshall who'd said he'd take them.
Before leaving Max's, Sean and I got to see his completely redone ITG machine that looked absolutely amazing.
Marshall's house was in a quiet, more suburban area. He lived with several other people, including my PIU-playing Facebook friend Nayla, most of whom also played dance games. Inside, they had a room with an ITG dedicab and a PIU machine running Stepmania (or whatever Stepmania equivalent it is that Pump players run on their machines). We were greeted by them and other visitors who came by to play and hang one by one as we spent the night dance gaming and hanging out. Being from the west coast, where dance games are all but dead with the community I used to play with, it felt like old times for me and I actually got into it quite a bit, though Sean and I were both horrendously out of practice. It was fun just seeing new songs and charts that'd come out in the years since we'd stopped playing, getting sweaty, failing miserably, and just spending time with fellow nerds. Marshall himself had made quite a few fun and challenging charts, several of which were to songs I really liked and had never imagined being stepped. I tried some of those as well as other new and a few old things such as Dreamer. I could do Dreamer without much difficulty but really scoring on it would've been a big ask. I could still SDE some 9s. My FA and stamina were far from where they used to be but not totally gone! Sean still kinda had it too. He even did the 17 Drrrrr! He mostly played PIU tonight though, just trying a few ITG songs. I mostly did ITG but explored the song selection on PIU and tried some things too. Even better though, I Got to play with their cute cat there and Nayla made me some delicious coffee to try! Such a good night with new friends and well worth the long drive back up north from Sea Legs! :) So fun, in fact, that it was after 1am by the time we left and made it back to Max's!
After thanking Max for a great night, Sean and I started south again. We got food at a nearby RaceTrac gas station/convenience store (1st time visiting this trip!), got drinks at a nearby Speedway, and went back to the West Palm Beach Service Plaza for sleep again. It was nearly 3:30am when we closed our eyes but this time, we actually had no trouble sleeping at all!
Day 6 - 2/26/17 (Casino Freeplay):
The sun woke us up at about 10am. With the breeze, it wasn't too hot. It actually felt really nice! Just a bright, sunny day too perfect to sleep through. We spent a little time getting cleaned and organized and were ready to start the day.
Trying to be more practical while still having fun, we got back to looking for casinos to get free play from. The next closest new one we found was the Isle Casino Racing Pompano Park in Pompano Beach, FL. They were apparently linked with Blackhawk Casino in Colorado but they still gave us free play when we went to get new players club cards there. Well, they gave us a scratch card each from which we each won $10 free play. After gambling the free play, we were up $15.50 total. It was a sizable casino but no free self service drinks that we could find. Free money though!
Using a gift card we had, we got a small bite to eat at a Taco Bell down the street then.
Next was a casino simply called The Casino at Dania Beach. We each got $15 free play there but that only resulted in $17.50 free money. No free self service drinks there either but still decent for free profit!
The Mardi Gras Casino in Hallandale Beach, FL was next. Same drink situation there but I liked the place much better for two reasons: they were very spirited and they gave us lots of freeplay - $25 each to be exact! From that, we profited $44.75 total! We got several theme-appropriate beaded necklaces in purple, green, and gold as well and got to see jesters walking around on stilts, people in Mardi Gras jester-style costumes (including guys with open shirts/vests and exposed chests!), and cool jester and other statues. I loved it! One more bonus: they had a some new Magic Mike XXL slot machines there. Keeping us ladies happy! Woot!
Also in Hallandale Beach was a BIG casino called Gulfstream Park Racing & Casino. Well, the casino area wasn't all that huge but the racetrack and related areas were both grandiose and unexpectedly VERY busy. There were actually horse races going on at the time we arrived so we got to see some race horses for free! The particularly awe-inspiring thing that made this casino stand out, however, was the absolutely enormous horse and dragon statue at the property entrance from the main road. It's probably one of the largest statues either of us has ever seen and it was so intense and well done. As for the main perks of our visit, we received $15 in freeplay each from scratch cards we were given when signing up for their players club. This got us a total of $33 in free money, thanks once again to Game King.
There was a full rainbow arching across the sky as we left Gulfstream!
Hungry, we stopped at a RaceTrac for four $1 burgers and a Speedway for two fountain drinks. Then we recommenced our casino hopping.
At Calder Casino in Miami Gardens, we got to spin a virtual wheel after joining their players club. We won their minimum $10 free play each and only profited $13.25 total but they had free self serve soft drinks and I thiiink they might've been handing out free hot drinks as well but I'm not sure because we didn't catch up with the drink cart we saw to check.
Hialeah Park in Hialeah was next. $10 each in freeplay here gave us $17.50 profit. No self serve drinks.
At a medium/medium-small casino in Miami called Casino Miami, we each got $35 in free play for signing up to their players club! Video poker had free play disabled so we had to play some random, regular slot machines. I played some wolf-themed one which was very much like the Buffalo one Sean and I have played a few times. Sean played the buffalo one again. The wolf one paid better this time and we ended up with $66.45 total in free money! No drinks in sight here and the touch screens on practically every single machine were so broken they had gamblers cussing and punching machines and even caused Sean's account to lock because we couldn't seem put his pin number in no matter what we did or which machine we used. Lots of free money though so can't complain!
We played a little Pokémon Go on the way out of Casino Miami and wound up adding a couple new Pokémon to our Pokedex.
Magic City Casino in Miami was the first of the day not to have any freeplay and they didn't have self serve drinks either but they DID give us cool keychain flashlights and we found $0.53 on the way out. Lol
Miccosuke Resort & Gaming in Miami seemed to be the last of the southern Florida casinos. It was west of the city, bordering the Everglades. We each got $30 freeplay for signing up but there was no video poker again so we only profited $26.35 total. No free drinks either and it was horribly smokey through most of the casino too (apparently a common complaint, according to online reviews!). They did have an arcade though! The arcade hours were outdated on the casino's website and it appeared to have actually just closed for the night when we arrived but peering through the glass door we could see pads from a Pump It Up machine standing on their side! We couldn't see the entire arcade from the door so we didn't see the PIU machine itself but it clearly wasn't currently meant to be played. Still, there's hope for it since they HAVE a machine (or at least pads) or maybe someone in the community can just take it off their hands!
As we left this last casino, we spotted a racoon running across the parking lot!
Though this last one one didn't, lots of casinos in southern Florida had racetracks for dog or horse racing.
We'd found a rest area 21 minutes from Miccosuke using Google maps and were just starting on our way there to call it a night when we found a Pilot just down the street from the casino. Staying there instead would definitely save us time so we pulled in to catch some Z's. A couple of Mythbusters episodes later, around 1:45am, we were fast asleep.
Day 7 - 2/27/17 (The Everglades & Keys):
Awake again at 8:30am, we went into Pilot to use the restrooms. Inside, they had lots of nifty souvenirs and tasty looking chips, though most things were terribly overpriced. Outside was a coffee shack. Sean got a tea for $1.50 and I got the smallest, yet still very nice, espresso I'd ever seen for $0.75 there.
We were already right by the Everglades and we had our America the Beautiful national park annual pass with us so we decided to go have a look.
On the way, we spotted an animal pen with a zebra, a dromedary, an ostrich, a pig, and maybe a couple of donkeys all living together in one pen. We pulled over for a look. They all seemed so docile and were cohabitating just fine. So cute!
There were lots of people picking vegetables in fields just off the road.
Without having to do the long drive of frequently changing elevation and winding roads we're so used to when visiting national parks, we were soon at the entrance to the Everglades National Park! We used our annual pass to skip the $25 entry fee and we were in! A few miles later, we were parking for TripAdvisor's #1 thing to do in the Everglades: the Anhinga Trail. The trail head was right by the parking lot. The visitor's center there provided tarps and bungee cords free to use while visiting to prevent damage to cars caused by crows. That was a new one for us! The trail itself was a 0.8 mile boardwalk loop. There was a tour going on on it when we arrived so we overheard and learned a bit about what we were seeing. We were hoping we'd spot at least one alligator so we were stoked when we actually came across maybe a couple dozen of them, some scattered over various points along our walk (just off the boardwalk we were on) but most in one big cluster hanging out together. We also came across a good number of other animal types including various fish, turtles, and birds (including the anhinga, of course) and even a lizard! Even without all that, however, the landscape was an attraction all on its own. It was like nowhere I recall ever visiting before and is definitely one of my top picks for places to see when visiting Florida. Despite only being on the edge of the park then, we felt we'd done it justice and had a pretty good grasp of what it was all about so we started back out of the park towards our next big thing but not before catching a few Pokémon. :p
We hopped on the US-1 a short while later and continued down south, onward down the Florida keys towards the southernmost tip of continental US in Key West, FL!
When we reached Key Largo, FL, we found a Dollar Tree adjacent to a little farmer's/flea market. We got lots of snacks inside Dollar Tree including some surprisingly really good chips called Cheez doodles and a can of boiled peanuts that were interesting to try but hopefully much more enjoyable fresh than out of a can.
We got drinks at a Speedway across the street from Dollar Tree.
Then we spotted and stopped for pics of a giant model of a rock lobster, I think it was, in front of a place called The Rain Barrel. There were a few similar statues of various sea creatures on the way too.
There were roosters, chickens, and little chicks running around outside a gas station we stopped at. Strange!
One thing that surprised me a lot about the Florida Keys was that the drive down wasn't really too busy throughout, at least til we reached Key West at the end. There was some traffic but no real congestion or busy towns, at least not extending to the highway, the whole way. No areas seemed severely overpopulated. There weren't really any arcades or casinos - at least none that stood out enough to notice - along the way either.
Key West was another story. When we reached Key West and drove around it to see the end of the US-1 and the southernmost point of continental USA, it was extremely congested and hard to park just about anywhere without coughing up an arm and a leg to do so. We did manage to get good pics of both noteworthy spots, however, and were even lucky enough to find a sesmingly rare free parking spot one block away from the marker for the southernmost point. Walking to said marker, we encountered more loose chickens and roosters running around and even fed them some...CHICKEN! =O We'd been hungry in the car so we' brought a bag of spicy chicken fingers with us as we walked over. The chickens looked hungry so we shared and they enthusiastically chowed down. The cannibals!
Once we'd done the landmarks, we walked another couple of blocks from the southernmost point to a spot called South Beach to go for a dip in the water. So much water dipping this trip - we felt spoiled! We walked the beach, watched the birds, and took in the views before finally using the beach shower that appeared to be provided by a hotel there to get all spiffy clean again.
There was one last necessary thing to do before leaving the Florida keys and perhaps it was the most obvious: try some key lime pie! We did a quick bit of research and soon found ourselves at a place called Kermit's Key West Key Lime Shoppe. There, we paid nearly $5 for a slice of key like pie to share but it was worth it as it was the freshest, tastiest, most authentic key like pie either of us had ever tried and, additionally, the shop was rich in free samples of various key-lime-flavored and other goods (lemonade, jelly beans, tea, cookies, hard candies, various sauces) for us to try. Needless to say, we did just that! Mmm...
We had some time-sensitive work we absolutely had to do then so we headed for a Starbucks to use some wifi.
Down the road from Starbucks was a McDonald's with the nicest employees ever! That was our next stop. There, they offered shamrock shake samples to a couple of customers who hadn't tried one before, gave me a huge latte when they accidentally made it larger than I'd ordered, and even offered us status updates when our food was a little slow to come out. They were patient and light-hearted with customers. What kind of McDonald's WAS this? :o Using coupons here, we got a shamrock shake, a big latte, 2 chicken wraps, and 1 chicken McGriddle for $4.50 plus tax.
We drove all the way back up the keys then, past all of the closed-for-the-night businesses, til we finally reached the place we'd be spending the night: a rest area less than half an hour from downtown Miami called Snapper Creek Service Plaza. One last time this trip, we put on Mythbusters before drifting off to sleep around 2am.
Day 8 - 2/28/17 (Miami to Vegas):
We were up again at 9:51am. It was our last day in Florida so spent a long while packing things up in the car and getting ourselves organized. When that was done, we set off to enjoy our last hours of Florida.
When we'd signed up for players clubs at the casinos the other day, a couple of them had offered us additional freeplay for providing our email addresses. The extra freeplay wasn't immediate, however, but we were lucky enough to have it come through via email before our flight home. The casino that offered us the most this way was Calder Casino. We'd each received an additional $15 freeplay for providing emails so we drove back up there next to use it. After quenching our thirst with their free drinks, we Game King'd our collective $30 freeplay and turned it into a total of $59.50 free money!
At a McDonald's down the street, we bought 2 grilled chicken snack wraps for $3 and used a coupon each to get a couple of free hamburgers.
Hialeah Casino was the other one that had extra freeplay for us. They'd given us another $5 freeplay each - not exactly worth the drive over but we didn't have much else to do at the time. We went and gambled our freeplay, taking away another $5.97 in free money.
It was just about time to wrap this trip up but we had time for one last look around Miami, this time on foot. We drove to the parking garage we'd picked the car up from originally and parked inside. Then we went wandering, walking nearby blocks and exploring downtown to where city met water while catching Pokémon all the way.
At 4:30pm, the owner of our rental car met us at the parking garage so we could hand over the keys and $5 for gas since we hadn't quite filled the tank up before bringing it back.
To get your to airport then, we used $5 credit Sean had for signing up and $11.xx out of pocket to book a ride with Lyft. We caught a few last Florida Pokémon on the way and then we were back at the airport, switching seats on our somewhat empty Frontier flight for ones where we could sit together, getting through security, and arriving at our gate 2 hours early. Before 8pm, we were in the area and headed back to Vegas.
We landed in Vegas at 9:56pm local time, a good 28 minutes before our 10:24pm scheduled arrival, but soon found that our gate was being blocked by another plane that had been delayed. We had to wait onboard our plane until they left and didn't end up getting off til nearly 11:20pm.
We still had Lyft credit (as well as Uber) so we booked a cheap Lyft ride home from the airport. Then we unpacked, ate pretty much everything, and the rest is history! :p
