Day 30 - Pool the other one!

I am never drinking again.  I think I might have said that before, and I probably won't stick to it, but at this precise moment in time I mean it.

We woke up this morning both very worse for wear.  We couldn't lie in today as it's our last day in Miami, and we wanted to make the most of it.  So up we got, spinning heads and all.

We'd heard about an open air swimming pool called the Venetian which was built from a quarry and is supposed to be really beautiful.  It's about a 35 minute drive from our hotel, so we set off with swimming costumes on and towels in hand.

As the gardens of the pool were appearing in sight I was suddenly aware of a noise.  As we pulled into the car park my eyes scanned across it and I noticed a lot of coaches were parked up.  As soon as we got out of the car the high-pitched noise grew louder.  As we took the twenty steps or so across the car park to the pool, the noise became apparent - amongst this beautiful pool and it's exquisite lagoon-like surroundings there were hundreds and hundreds of children.  

These 8-11 year olds were clambering on the rocks, playing games in the water, jumping in like bombs and just generally enjoying themselves, but the noise was almost ear-piercing.  As their shrieks of laughter rang through my ears, me and Oli both looked at each other and we knew that we had to get out of there immediately!  A worker told us that they had over 400 school children there today, and although they were only enjoying themselves, it would have ruined our enjoyment as they literally had taken over the whole place.

It looked like the idea of swimming in a nice pool on Miami was now out of the picture - our hotel, in the same way as most hotels on the beach, doesn't feature a pool as it's so close to the sea.

Half a mile away from the Venetian pool is the famous Miami hotel, the Biltmore Hotel.  The guide books all recommend a visit there even if you're not staying as it's so impressive.  It also boasts the biggest hotel pool in the country  - how busy was this gonna be on a hot summer day?

We parked up and took the side outdoor entrance into the hotel, and while marvelling at the sheer scale of this hotel from the outside, we noticed that we'd stumbled into the pool area.  Looking at the enticing blue water with hardly anyone around I was suddenly inspired and said to Oli: "follow me!"

I saw two pool/towel attendants looking straight at me, and without batting an eyelid and with no idea of what I was doing I walked straight up to them.  They asked if we would like towels, to which we said yes.  My mind was jumping for joy, thinking "yay we can go swimming!" when the attendant's voice burst my thought bubble - "what's your room number please?"  My mind went blank, my eyes darted at Oli whose face had gone blank, I looked back at the attendant straight in the eye and, playing for time, I said "excuse me?", to which he gave a deep sigh and said again "do you have your room key?"

My mind raced, trying to find a response, and my first thought was to say that we'd left our key in the room, but I knew he'd then ask me for the room number.  I then muttered aloud "I left it at reception".  He looked at me quizzically, and luckily inspiration struck and I said "we checked out today and they said it'd be okay to stay around the pool" - I flashed him my most convincing smile - it did the trick, he said "follow me this way ma'am".

Okay so I felt a tiny bit guilty when we were led to two sunbeds and crisp white towels were laid out before us.  I whispered to Oli "tip him!  Tip him good!".  As we put our stuff down and slowly started to settle on the loungers we took in our surroundings.

There were only a handful of people laid out around this massive pool - a guy near us was having business meetings on his mobile phone while he sunbathed.  If he wasn't gonna relax and enjoy the privilege of being here, then we were gonna do it for him, as cheeky as it may be :)

We'd been there about ten minutes and I'd been heavily observing our surroundings while Oli read his book.  I whispered out the side of my mouth to Oli "I'm not sure how we're gonna buy drinks as you have to hand over your room key".  A second later a waiter appeared with complementary drinks on a tray!  Problem solved!  Twenty minutes after that, the same waiter brought around frozen sorbet ice lollies!  The guilt feeling started to drift back into my mind but I guess I got over it!

A couple of hours later we were starting to get hungry and wondered how we could order food without having a room key. I got Oli to make friends with a barman and asked him how we could pay for food without a room key as we'd just checked out.  He said no worries, just pay cash!  A salad for me and a steak sandwich for Oli later, we took a stroll around the hotel and it's grounds.  

It did cross my mind at one point to ask to have a look at one of the penthouse suites just to be nosey but thought this might be pushing our luck and we'd be caught as imposters and thrown out!

We spent another hour or so around/in the pool, then said farewell to the friendly staff.

On the drive back to our hotel I fell asleep for a few minutes. When I awoke we were in an unfamiliar parking lot.  Oli had read about a holocaust memorial statue and so we got out to have a look.

Not sure what I was expecting but definitely not the reaction I got from seeing it, don't want to come over all political and rant, my blogs are light-hearted to say the least - but this statue should be seen by all who visit Miami.  This memorial starts you off with looking at photos from the holocaust - no matter how many times you see these it's still so shocking - then you wind down a light airy tunnel to come out at the bottom of the memorial statue.  It's really shocking to see the detail of it up close especially after seeing the black and white photos beforehand....I felt really emotional.

We were then on our way back to the hotel when we passed Lincoln Street, a busy pedestrianised road with a mall and eateries along it.  We remembered my cousin Jay telling us we should spend some time there as it's great for eating and people watching.  Thanks for the tip Jay boy as we decided to hang around and eat there for dinner.  We were giggling that we were real beach bums (minus the beach bit), we had been swimming all day, had messy hair and then had dinner in our scruffy beach clothes so of course to follow suit we have pizza and ice cream:-)

It's been a really chilled fun day, we won't make a habit of sneaking in to other hotels pools but surely once doesn't hurt?!  Tomorrow sees us leaving fab Miami and making the 4 hour drive to Kissimmee where we shall hand over our rental car "The Beast", we'll stay there one night and then on Sat morning pick up our new home for the next two months (a 27 foot RV motorhome) - this will be at least 4 times bigger....might have to call this vehicle "The Monster"!!

J&O