Royal Palm - South Beach, Miami - Review

I just posted my review of the Carnival Triumph 4/16/05 Western sailing on the Carnival board and just thought I would post the part about my pre-stay here.....

Travel Day

We flew Jet Blue from JFK to FLL. I booked a very early morning flight (6:30AM) so that we could enjoy the day on the beach. A shuttle picked us up at our home at 3:30AM and got us to the airport. Had a great flight and landed on time (9:30AM). I had scheduled for a private car with Meet and Greet service with Tri-County Limo. I did not mind the shuttle going to the airport but for me…that is probably the only time I don’t mind it! I prefer to have private transportation arranged for most other aspects of travel as I don’t like the added time it often takes to wait and pick up other passengers. I have decided that my time/aggravation is not worth the money that I would save with shared ride or shuttles.

We were at the hotel and checking in by 10:30AM. We stayed at the Royal Palm Crowne Plaza in the South Beach area of Miami. I really wanted to have a nice beach day as well as show my daughter a bit of South Beach. I booked this hotel through hotwire and got a good deal.

Our room was not ready at that early hour (as I expected) but they held our luggage and we had full use of the facilities and amenities they provided. We had bathing suits and cover ups in our carry-on’s so we changed and headed right for the beach. The front desk took down my cell and said that they would call me as soon as our room was ready.

Hotel was lovely. The grounds were beautiful! This is a beachfront hotel so we only needed to walk across the sandy boardwalk to get there. After a bit of water play and sunshine we were ready for lunch. DD and I opted to sit at a table by the pool and eat al fresco. The food here was eh and of course overpriced – but once again I expected that!

When we were done eating at about 1:00PM, we walked over to the front desk and our room was ready for us. We decided to go up and deposit our luggage and freshen up and re-sunscreen. We were in a suite. This was nice because it gave a place to just dump our luggage and not have to step over stuff. I can’t say too much else about the accommodations as we really were not in this room very much. My DD only wanted to go back to the beach! This was fine with me and back we went for a while. We also sat by the pool and enjoyed the floating stuff the hotel provided.

We showered and changed and went down and caught a cab to Bayside Marketplace to meet some of the CC folks who were in town already for a pre-cruise dinner at the Hardrock Café. What a fun time! It was really wonderful to put face and voice to some of the people we had been emailing with! We took along our baseball caps and it was easy to find each other! We had a lot of laughs at dinner and then my DD and Chucks DS went off to do a little shopping while the adults went to an outdoor bar and had a drink. We left shortly after to catch a cab back to the hotel. DD and I were both exhausted having been up since 3:00AM.

Embarkation Day

Saturday morning I woke early. We got our bags together and DD and I had a nice leisurely breakfast in the hotel restaurant. This meal was much better than our lunch the day before. They had a very extensive buffet with an omelet station. The food was good as was the service. We checked out and got a cab over to the pier. Took photos of the ships as we drove over. It was pretty cool for us because the RCCL ship that my other children were on was docked with only one ship between us..........