Do the "Splish Slash with Cookie" excursion in Miami

[mom-of-three]

Just back from the Dawn.

 

In Miami we went to the Fontainbleau hotel on our excursion. We had a poolside cabana with 3 chairs, a bench and a lounger. You could fold back the doors and watch the toddler pool in the shade. The cabana has no A/C but it does have a strong overhead fan.

My family had a very good time. I have a 6 yr old son, an 12 yr old son, and a 16yr old daughter. It is hard to please all of them. At the hotel you have access to everything. They have a fitness room, a toddler pool with a giant spraying octopus above, a big pool with a waterfall, a lazy river, the ocean, and a big slide. (Despite all the warning signs, the slide is not a fast slide and it was more fun for my 6yr old than my 12yr old.)

You travel by bus for about 20min, and then you have to all line up to check in which took about another 20-30min (surely they could improve this). I don't know why you have to check in again when they could have all the info from the ship and just preregister you and hand you a cabana key. We opted not to give a credit card, and just paid cash for lunch.

We ended up having to get two cabanas through the ship (1 for 2 people, and 1 for 3 people). That was expensive (about $300). If you are a family of 4 you can do it for $200. I checked before and we could have rented a room for $100 and gotten our own transportation, but the taxi ride would have been expensive. Also I didn't want to have to change arrangements myself on the ship if we were detoured due to weather.

Get the key lime pie - it is a house specialty and it was very good (b.t.w. I am very picky about desserts, and though I ate the desserts on the dawn, none of them were very good). If you get pizza for the kids order one (one would have been enough for 2 or more kids).

 

We got to enjoy the pool area from about 10 am to 2:45 pm, which was a nice amount of time.

 

Questions? Want pictures?