GLORY Review May 30, 2015 - Fun, Sand, & more Fun

[CheckersMidwest]

The oldest barber shop in Miami....

 

 

We'd planned to tour the Vizcaya Museum, but it was late in the day, so we just looked around a bit...

 

 

 

This is where the bus drops you off.

 

 

 

When asking my friend about the neighborhoods on the stops, she said not to get off in Little Havana. In fact, she was surprised it was a stop at all. It was an interesting area but apparently not safe. It was the only stop on the tour that the bus waited on you. Everywhere else it ran every 30 minutes. The bus stopped here for about 15....told you what time to be back, and recommended a gelato on the corner.

 

 

 

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[CheckersMidwest]

After the tour, we freshened up about 5:30 at the hotel, then walked across the street to the Bayside marketplace. This is part of why I chose the Holiday Inn POM, it was so close to food & entertainment for the evening.

 

 

 

 

We ate dinner at Bubba Gumps Shrimp Factory. At home when we go to a nicer place for dinner between 6:00-8:00 pm, we'd get a pager & have to wait . Not in Miami. Walked right in at 6:00 pm. We all 4 ordered the Stuffed Shrimp and we were starved. After appetizers, the girl came out with our dinner, turned the corner and dropped all of our plates. Broccoli hit the lady behind us. :eek: With just a short wait, our food was finally there and was delicious !

 

[CheckersMidwest]

After dinner, we wandered around, listened to music, shopped, and people watched. We saw "Dr. Foreman" from House. There was music. They did magic tricks outside the magic store. There were specialty shops as well as chain ones like Victoria's Secret.

 

 

 

 

Some of the area is covered and some is open. There are booths to book tours, there's a highly recommended boat tour. There's also a Hard Rock Cafe there.

 

 

 

We ended the evening back at the hotel. We repacked some of the suitcases so the weight was distributed better and all our liquids were in checked bags.

 

The next morning, I called the front desk and had them call us a lager taxi to the airport & we'd be down in about 10 min. It was there waiting for us & we were off. It was $22.

 

This is where it gets interesting. I printed the email from American Airlines with all our flight info on it. It was American Airlines letterhead....American Airlines Flight Number xx, booked on the American Airlines website and paid for with my American Airlines credit card. I had the taxi drop us off at the American Airlines terminal. I went to the kiosk to check in and got a message that I couldn't check in there , that I needed to check in with our airline. What ?! Apparently we were flying on a US Air flight - they merged with American and were run as one. Sort of.

 

Dragging all our luggage to the US air terminal at the other end , still had issues with the kiosk. So did the girl who had the same issue with the first kiosk at American. Her tickets wouldn't come up either. A very rude assistant pointed out the flight was US Air, and you could have that issue with any airline. Ummm.....not Delta.:cool:

[CheckersMidwest]

We finally got our boarding passes & went to drop off our luggage. Guess what ?! We can't carry on those 4 bottles of rum we'd bought in St Thomas. I kind of knew that - since they'd made the changes with small liquids in ziplock bags but my husband insisted we could carry alcohol on. Nope. I was right. At least not ours, since it didn't have the right seal and the lady at check in said we could try it , but if not then it would be too late to put it in a suitcase. So....we opened bags and tucked alcohol. Then one bag was too heavy. Finally get that straight, whip out my American Airlines credit card to pay the $135 fee for our 5 bags to fly and I couldn't use it. You know, because it's only good at American Airlines. :rolleyes:

 

We have an ongoing joke when we fly. We lose at least one suitcase everytime to damages. Broken wheels, missing handle, rips, tears, etc. We figured this would be the last trip for this set of luggage. My daughter had just gotten a new set of luggage and was using the carry on. When we got to the gate, they said the plane was full & we HAD to check our carryons. We argued that they had breakable things like china, pottery, etc that we'd purposely packed in there so it would travel better. Didn't matter. Fine. We asked if they had fragile stickers and they didn't.

 

When we got on the plane, both overhead bins above our seats were empty. We asked if we could get the bags back - we literally had just set them outside the door. No, once they're checked, you can't get them back.

 

It's ok....we get on the plane, almost ready to taxi away from the gate when the older rude stewardess tells the family behind us "It's time to get off the social media and turn those phones off". Ummm.....it shouldn't have mattered what they were doing, she could have been more polite...."Time to turn off electronic devices" or something. Turns out they were just texting family that they were on the plane now.

 

We get to Charlotte, taking the moving sidewalk to the next terminal when the other stewardess from the flight comes by...."Walk on the LEFT....stand on the RIGHT......blowing past people. Until she hit the traffic jam up in front of us. Loudly, she sighed and said "PEOPLE just don't GET this!". Wow. What a great example the American employees set for their company.

 

We hadn't had time for breakfast with the check in fiasco, so grabbed some lunch in Charlotte. We went to Burger King thinking that would be quick. I waited 20 minutes on 2 whoppers and a chicken fry. I had to go up & ask after some other people did. Not sure what happened to our order, but they remade it. In the meantime, other people brought back their orders because they didn't get the right stuff. That was probably my whopper.....

 

Back on the next plane & headed for KC. Great staff. Good cranberry juice. Smooth flight.

 

After we land, my husband goes to get the car out of economy parking while we gather the bags. We wait. We wait. And then the baggage carousel turns on. Then it turns off. The conveyor belt is broken and all 3 flights that just came in would be using the same carousel. So we wait more. The bags start coming and then boom - stops. Followed by an announcement that there is a baggage jam at the bottom and will take a few minutes to clear it. D*mn. I bet there's rum everywhere.

 

In the meantime, I text my husband to fill him in. Since we flew Delta - that's terminal B. American is terminal C. Both have their own parking lots. He took the bus to the economy parking, but it doesn't go over to B. It dropped him off on the street out front and said to wait for a "B" bus to come by. When they came by, they were full. He ended up walking about 2 miles to get the car.

 

Hooray - we have the bags. No sign of rum and he has the car. We're good to go.

 

It's all laughable now. Sounds like some sitcom. However , I won't fly American again. Airfare is expensive, especially when you're flying a family. We can choose any airline (except JetBlue.....they don't fly in the Midwest, bummer) and we'll just use someone else next time. I've received 2 emails with service surveys from Delta since I got home. Nothing from American. I think they already know how their results would be and just don't send out those surveys. :)

 

All in all, it was a great vacation. To reiterate, we've been on the Paradise, the Freedom, the Magic, and the Glory. The Glory would be at the bottom of our list. Still great, just not our favorite.

 

With a teenager, the Paradise, Freedom, & Glory were small enough we would run into her multiple times during the day without trying. Easy to check in. The Magic was a great ship, had an entirely different vibe sailing out of Texas, but was too big to casually run into her. We'd look once in awhile and eventually find her, but had to really look.

 

The casinos were better for us on all of the other ships and our son also preferred the Freedom & the Magic.

 

Just let me know if you have questions or want to see a picture of something. I have so many more photos !

[smurfm69]

No pics of the flying broccoli? LOL We flew Southwest both ways and had no issues at all and they were very friendly. Loved seeing all your pics of Miami. We had never been there before and want to fly in a day or two ahead of time the next time we sail out of that port. Again it was really nice meeting you guys.

[CheckersMidwest]

Thanks ! It was great meeting you both too ! No pics of the broccoli. I think I was too shocked to grab the camera ! We really liked Miami, it was our first visit. The South Beach area had such a lively vibe.

 

We'd like to visit New Orleans sometime and sail from there. When that happens, I'll have you tell me things not to miss, etc.

[smurfm69]

We'd like to visit New Orleans sometime and sail from there. When that happens, I'll have you tell me things not to miss, etc.

 

Definitely let me know when y'all do that and we can get together and go grab dinner somewhere. Lots to see and do down here.

[Biff Cruizer]

Great review! We did this itinerary several years ago on the Liberty.

 

We too were in cabana 4 at HMC. We also got cabana 4 again when we were on the Pride. Maybe we will get it again when return on the Victory this November.

 

Grand Turk is one of our favorite ports. I really like Margaritaville. We have rented a cabana there too and enjoyed it.