My husband and I just returned from a week-long vacation (well, sort of vacation) to Miami Beach. My husband was there to take a class, and I was there to -- well, I was there to relax.

I've written several times about some of the things we've had going on this past year -- 5 major surgeries for the 5 people in our family, husband lost his job in March of this year, 2 kids graduated from college (1 undergrad, 1 master's), oldest daughter got married, all three kids moved out, and we are now empty nesters. Whew -- it makes me tired just typing it all!

Oh, and also, the week before we left for Miami, half of the tree in our front yard fell down, and then a couple of days before we left we were informed by the exterminator that we had MICE in our attic (they had built multiple tunnels in the insulation in our attic); probably all the recent Atlanta rains caused both of these last two things.

So, my husband and I needed a break. And he needed to take this class. And we had a free companion ticket. And I'm almost always able to get us great travel deals. So we decided to go to Miami.

(more to come)

Oh, and also, our 28th anniversary is on the 17th. So this was sort of an anniversary trip, also.

So the first thing I needed to do was find a good deal on a hotel. We ended up going with a Priceline bid for $100 per night, and we stayed at the Renaissance Eden Roc on Miami Beach.

The Eden Roc was VERY nice. There were four pools, many chairs and umbrellas, and great service. We were upgraded to an oceanfront room. We were in an upgraded room. The bed was in the middle of the room, and the attached headboard had a little shelf on it to put anything you would normally put on a nightstand. The whole front of the room (facing the ocean) could open up, and when we sat on the balcony, I felt like I was on a cruise ship, because we were so close to the ocean that we couldn't even see the sand unless we leaned over the balcony.

The shower had a rain showerhead, and also a hand-held shower. The bathroom was very modern, had a jetted tub and double-sized sink. We were very happy with our room.

We flew on Delta (husband got his ticket for total of $143, and then we had companion ticket for me). We used Priceline for the car ($10 plus tax -- almost another $10 -- per day for budget car.

The plane had 3 seats on each side of the aisle. What we like to do in that situation is my husband gets the aisle seat and I get the window, and we hope that nobody ends up in between us. It worked on the trip to Miami, and it also worked on the way back to Atlanta!

I'm still recovering from Achilles' tendon surgery, so we requested a wheelchair at Atlanta airport. It was easy to do. At the Miami airport, they had a wheelchair waiting for me.

We got to Miami around 2:30 on Saturday. Caught shuttle to Alamo lot. There was a very long line at Alamo, but we noticed that there were self-service machines, so we walked right up to one. Not sure why other people weren't doing that! The machine gave us a receipt, and someone told us to walk out to the lot. We did, and we saw the budget section at the back of the lot (of course! ) There were several families waiting for their cars in the lot (maybe they weren't waiting on budget cars?). There was only one budget car there. So we walked to it; it had keys in it, and we weren't sure if we were supposed to just get in or not, but we did. And then we pulled around to the exit booth, she checked our receipt, and off we went!

Note about Miami rental car companies: While being shuttled to the car lots, we went through areas that were definitely NOT nice. It would seem that Miami officials would sort of clean up that area, since it is a person's first impression of Miami.

I agree the trip to the car rental areas is somewhat hellish. That will change in the next year as the Miami Intermodal Rental Car Center opens. All the car rental agencies will be housed in one building on the main road with a people mover to and from the airport terminal. By 2012 the Intermodal Center will be a "Grand Central" for all ground transportation with connections to Metrorail, buses, and trains. That is good news for travelers who find it a pain to get in and out of Miami International.

Oops! Here's a link to the Intermodal: http://www.micdot.com/
Sorry to hijack your thread, but future travelers to our city might be interested.

Car rental centers are great, we just came back from Phoenix, one shuttle bus, one location on 2 levels for offices and car lots.

OK, back to Miami. Waiting for Samsaf, as this is my next trip.

Hello Samsaf..if anyone needed a "take a break vacation" you two sure did! Looking forward to hearing about the rest of your trip. Your hotel sure sounds lovely!

We used our trusty GPS (named Karen -- she has a COOL British accent!) to find the hotel. The hotel has been renovated recently, and the lobby is very nice. After we checked in, we put on our bathing suits and headed to the pool -- ah, relaxation!

We ate dinner at the pool area restaurant, and it was expensive -- $39 for chicken quesadillas, cheeseburger, diet Coke and bottle of water.

The next day was Sunday, and we basically just relaxed around the pool all day. I was technically ( ) not supposed to walk on the sand or go in the ocean because of my foot surgery, but we did walk out on the sand a little bit. The ocean was very calm. Lunch was a pizza we ordered from a local pizzeria, and dinner was a Bubba Gumps down near South Beach ($22 for dinner -- much cheaper!).

Monday through Friday was the same thing every day. My husband would go downstairs and get me an orange juice from Starbuck's in the lobby, and then he would leave by 7:30 a.m. to go to his class. Then I would get ready and go down to the pool to relax.

Guess what? Every day I took a nap!! I think it's a wonderful feeling to be lying on a lounge chair under an umbrella's shade, hearing all the noises around you gradually get dimmer and dimmer as you fall asleep. Every day I slept about 1-2 hours in the afternoon. What a life!

Dinners through the rest of the week were at:
Cheesecake Factory - we shared an appetizer and an entree, and husband got a piece of cheesecake for dessert.

Outback - got the usual: steak.

The poolside restaurant (expensive but, oh, so convenient!)

Gia (the restaurant at the resort) -- we both had the short ribs pasta dish, and it was delicious! We think it was the best meal of the week.

There was a heat wave in Florida while we were there, and all the local weather stations were discussing it. Highs were around 93 on several of the days -- perfect sitting-around-the-pool weather.

I did get in the ocean twice because it was so calm. My husband helped me walk in the sand, and when we got in the ocean it was easy to walk. The last day we were there, it was much windier than the other days and the ocean was a little rougher.

Our flights were at 8 p.m. on Friday night, and checkout time at the Eden Roc is at 11 a.m., so we were trying to figure out how we were going to store the luggage and get showered before the airport; we figured we'd have to leave for airport around 5 p.m. On Thursday I went to front desk and asked for a late checkout -- they gave us a 5 p.m. checkout! So that was like having a whole other day. We thought that was extremely nice of them!

One of the workers told me that the occupation rate was about 70% during the week and then going up to 86% on the weekend. The resort never felt crowded except for the Sunday we were there. We were at the adult pool, and it was much more of a party atmosphere there. I did think the music was a little loud (maybe that's because I'm 48 instead of 28? )

As you can see, we're definitely not "party people." We were always back in our room by 8 or so at night. We'd be coming back to the hotel and would pass couples who were dressed up to go out for the night! But we were also getting up early in the mornings. We enjoyed sitting out on the balcony in the evenings and watching the moon rise over the ocean.

Also, since we had an oceanfront room, we'd leave the curtains open at night, and we could lie in bed and watch the sunrise. Beautiful!

Flight home was fine; we got to Atlanta airport around 10 p.m.

And now we're back to the mouse-house!!! We have all the dishes we're using and all the food in big plastic bins -- it's a lot of trouble to cook a meal! We think the mice are gone now, but I want to make doubly sure before I unpack all the dishes.

So that is a report of our trip. It probably sounds extremely boring, but it was very much a needed getaway for the two of us. Hopefully, the certification he received will help with either more contract work or a job offer somewhere.

My husband and I love traveling together. I'm glad we've always gone on "dates" and trips, even when the kids were little. I feel so very fortunate that we're still best friends and we'll be celebrating our 28th wedding anniversary this coming Saturday. He is still, and will always be, my hero.

Glad to hear you had a much needed vacation. It sounds very relaxing.

How did you priceline that hotel? It sounds like a nice place to stay. We're going in late Nov but haven't booked anything yet. Thanks!

What a great deal and what a great time for R&R.
The trip doesn't sound boring at all. I'm in your camp re coming back to the room instead of going out at night.
Happy 28th!

Thanks!

JC, I did some research on betterbidding.com and noticed that lots of people were getting the Eden Roc on Priceline. So we started bidding, I think at around $80. When we go to $100 we were able to get the Eden Roc. It was well worth the money we spent, and now looking back, I'm so glad we had that time together.

sorry. it was biddingfortravel.com where I was doing research.

Just read this - thank you for sharing it Samsaf. So glad you all had a nice time.

I'm glad you had a good time here.

You really needed and deserved it.