Joe and Jamie's Blog

Ok here it is, finally posting this.

Miami Beach lived up to its reputation of having a crazy night light and HOT. Every day we were down there the temperature was above 85 degrees, no matter what time of the day. Nothing cools off Miami, not even the rain they get everyday. It was so beautiful down there, clear water and skies to enjoy, perfect beaches, tons of tourists, bars and clubs. One downfall for all this perfection is the prices. Boy was I not prepared at all for crazy markups on everyday items. I would have to say everything was generally 2 or 3 times more expensive then here at home. Not a real biggie, just an eye opener at first.

We spent most of the days on the beach or walking around taking in the sites and art deco style buildings they are also famous for. Scouting places to eat was fun since there are so many choices. There are a few main roads to go down on South Beach where everything is, Ocean Drive with all the clubs, bars, and restaurants, Lincoln Road which is the nice pedestrian mall, Collins Ave which many hotels and shops are, and Washington Ave which is even more shops and businesses. Most of our nights were spent walking up and down Ocean Drive picking out a place to eat/drink. I thought it was really cool how the whole street had tables on the sidewalk so as you walked down the street you were essentially walking through each restaurant and bombarded by hostesses asking you to look at the menus. After awhile it got to be annoying but we were pros at just ignoring them after a few days.

One part that did suck on this trip was the location of our hotel. The Fontainebleau is an awesome hotel, but its 30+ blocks from South Beach so we took a cab each day to get down there. That ate into our fun budget a bit too which ticked me off a bit at first. We never did go north of our hotel, we just kind of ran out of days really. Besides the partial nude beach up there, not sure if there was anything else we missed out on. I guess we’ll just have to go back.

Ok, back to Ocean Drive. The restaurants on there are average. They all sell about the same stuff for about the same price. Nothing really stood out. Eating down there is great because you get to watch all the different kinds of people walking by. Thousands of people walk by at night time, so you can just imagine how amusing it can get. Typically we would walk along the beach after stuffing our faces and then stroll back over and find a place to have some drinks and enjoy the Miami night life. We stopped at places like the Clevelander and Ocean’s 10. We also ate at some spectacular places like Emeril’s (yup, the bam guy), Gotham Steak, and Texas de Brazil (an awesome Brazillian steak house). I don’t think I have ever eaten in such fancy places before. All three had over the top service and the atmosphere was spectacular. If you go to Miami Beach, eat at all three places.

Our first full day there we went on a duck boat tour. I figured it was a good way to figure out where everything was. The best part of the tour was when we went into Biscayne Bay and saw all the islands. On these man made islands are all the famous people’s houses like Hulk Hogan’s house he lost in the divorce (ouch!), Puff Daddy, the Scarface house, the CSI Miami house (from the first season, they don’t even film in Miami anymore!), the Miami Vice house, Steffi Graph’s house, and some really rich guy that built a $50 million dollar mansion with only 3 bedrooms, each about 4,000 square feet, isn’t that nuts?. Back on land we learned where the Miami Ink tattoo shop was, the old boxing club that Muhammad Ali, Sugar Ray Leonard, and George Foreman all trained in (it’s a damn bank now, don’t see how a place with that reputation would go out of business), and the regular old convention center where Muhammad Ali won his first Heavyweight Championship of the World title in 1964 and President Nixon gave his acceptance speech (blame the tour guide if I’m wrong). I’m glad we went on this tour because we would have never traveled to the Bay to see those houses, I didn’t even know they were out there! As you can tell I pretty much just booked a trip to Miami without bothering to do any research because hey, it’s Miami, how can I go wrong?

There is a bunch of pictures to choose from, but I tried to choose the best ones to show all of you. Hope you enjoy them!

Jamie and I chose our vacation location early this year, due to the fact that we are traveling by plane. I don’t know why I started to look here, but it’s a spot you just can’t go wrong with.

We chose to go to Miami Beach this year. Ah yes, I cannot wait to be there. If only July can come sooner. I booked the hotel and the flight together on Hotels.com last night, got a great deal. Just for booking both we got $250 off the whole order, and two of the nights were free at the hotel. Our second choice was Ocean City, Maryland, but that was more expensive than Miami, even with us driving versus flying.

We are staying at the Fontainebleau Resort. From what I have been hearing it’s a pretty snazzy place. When it comes to hotels I go for location, not really amenities. I could care less if was a shack with a leaky roof, as long as it was right there on the beautiful beach. Who actually spends enough time in the hotel to care anyway right? Hey it’s not Poughkeepsie, its warm and on the beach, the rest is just extra really. When choosing this hotel, I did notice it was rated four and a half stars, so I think we are in for a big treat. There are four actual hotels that make up the place, including a bunch of restaurants, a spa, pools, and of course the beach for the backyard. Here is a blurb on what they offer right from their website:

Following a $1 billion renovation and expansion, Fontainebleau is a spectacular blend of Miami’s glamorous golden era and stylish modern luxury – 1,504 rooms and suites, 22 oceanfront acres, 11 restaurants and nightclubs including three signature name chef restaurants, 40,000-square-foot spa, and a sophisticated poolscape with private cabanas.

I was able to snag some birdseye photos of the hotel, courtesy of Microsoft Virtual Earth. Now one of the hotels isn’t shown yet on the map, it was still under construction the last time the satellite took a picture. It is completed now, you can see it if you watch their video on their website. Check it out.

Today was a pretty good day. We woke up early and rode the ferry to Block Island. Unfortunately there is only one ferry from Newport to Block Island and it arrives there at 11:15 and departs at 4:45, so we didn’t have much time to really enjoy everything there. The ferry ride there was very nauseating. I don’t really have sea legs and this ferry was incredibly small, so you really, really felt each wave. That plus the heat I felt sick, but as soon as I moved to the shade I felt much better. The water was very calm on the way home so I was fine. I felt bad for the people that actually got sick on the ride there in the choppy water. We also had a nice experience with a seagull on the boat. In the beginning of the ride, about twenty minutes out in the ocean, a seagull came out of no where and hovered over the top deck where we were. Well this fool across from us decided to hold up some of his bagel and let the gull eat it out of his hand. Very bad move because now it didn’t leave. He kept feeding it, and when he didn’t, it pecked him in the head. Stupid man. Eventually he got very risky and held the bagel in his mouth and let the seagull take it. I just really hope that guy knows what diseases those things carry.

When we landed Jamie and I decided to walk around a bit and find something quick to eat since we wanted to digest the food before going back on the ferry, for caution sake I guess. After sandwiches at a bagel shop, we walked down to Mansion Beach and enjoyed the very cool water. The water wasn’t actually as salty out there and was very clean. That is one thing I like about going to places like this, everyone does their part to keep things neat and clean, not like public beaches back home where everyone litters. Anyway, after the beach we walked back to town and rented bikes to ride around and see what else was left on the small island. We ran a bit short of time but were able to see most of the houses. Our first stop was North Light, the farthest point from the ferry landing. Here is a very old lighthouse that is now a museum, but it was under construction so we couldn’t go in.

After roasting in the sun all day and on the ferry, my arms are on fire and are still burning as I type this post. I have the worst burn I have experienced so far and it’s not fun, but I won’t let it ruin the day. We ate dinner back in Newport after relaxing from the bike ride. We were a little stiff from the ride so we went two buildings over to Tickets Restaurant. Their food selection was pretty good and we ordered just some basic stuff like chicken parmigiana, nothing special about the place.

For the night entertainment, we went to Newport Grand Slots to play some slots. This was fun since we both have never been to a casino or played slots before. We played $30 on the slots and actually walked away winning $25 back, which is great since we really need the money for tomorrow’s food.

Tomorrow is checkout day. We have a full day of events planned but need to take care of any water activities before we give up the hotel room. The beach across the street has been closed for the past three days and we don’t know why. It says “Water Testing” but we aren’t sure if there is really testing going on or just that the water has been very “testy” and rough lately; too rough to go in at all.

Arriving at Block Island.

Mansions Beach.

We climbed the rock wall that defined the harbor.

Leaving Block Island now.

Ain’t I sooo red?

Lighthouse near Fort Adams in Newport. Almost home!

I just liked this picture. Shows how large those oil tankers are when they are empty.

We woke up a bit too late today, so we made it a beach day. The sun was out and it was very hot, so perfect weather for the beach, not a cloud in the sky. We took the long trek across the street to the beach after spending the morning deciding what to do for the week.

We decided to eat at the Red Parrot Restaurant tonight. They had a very good selection of local seafood and Caribbean dishes. Jamie and I both chose the surf and turf.

Jamie and I posing at Brown Howard Warf.

Look at the size of some of these yachts. Everyone around here is loaded. That big one to the right is well over a million dollars.

Hustle and bussle down Bannister’s Warf.

Sites from the main road, America’s Cup Ave.

This is Trinity Church which I thought was pretty cool because of the huge clock on the side of it.

We completed our night with a stoll on Easton’s Beach taking in the nice sunset…

but not before ice cream at Roba Dolce.

Yesterday Jamie and I made the trip out to Newport, Rhode Island. It isn’t a bad ride at all, about 3 1/2 hours from Poughkeepsie. We hit no traffic and it was a beautiful day. We arrived at the Newport Beach Hotel and Suites around check in time. We walked around to see what was near by while we waited for the room to be ready.

The beach is litteraly right across the street which is just awesome. Unfortunately our room doesn’t have a view of the beach, but that is only because their new hotel the built next to ours blocked our view; one year ago we would have had a view. :/

So far we like Newport. We walked all last night down by the warfs and had some food at one of the restaurants on Bowen’s Warf called the Landing Restaurant and Tavern. We tried some of the native quahog clams. We actually have never heard of them before but they were delicious. Apparently clams are the big fare around here. Jamie enjoyed her salmon dish and I tried some of their fried clams, along with clams casino for an appetizer.

We ended the night by picking out spots where to eat tonight and at the arcade. I kicked butt on one game and won over 1,000 tickets!

Shot of the hotel from the beach.

Views of the beach and surrounding area.

This little gull was determined to keep that clam. It was funny watching him trying to keep it in his mouth and play keep away from the other gulls. It’s a full clam, so I’de like to know how they were going to get it open.

This is where we had dinner.

Picture of Bowen’s warf, one of several warfs in Newport.

Here’s the arcade where I won all of those tickets. Jamie beat me in the other games. :)

My goal is to post pictures from each day, so check back each day to see what we did!

We’re going to Newport, Rhode Island.

We decided on this because it’s a lot closer for us to get to since we didn’t want to blow most of the vacation money on gas. I booked our 8 day stay at the Newport Beach Hotel & Suites just 2 miles from downtown Newport. It looks lovely and has received great reviews. It’s a historic old hotel, which I will have to do some more research on; I typically just wing hotels and see how it turns out. The hotel just finished renovations in May for many upgrades to all the rooms, which should be nice. The hotel’s front yard is a park with a beach in front of that. I can’t wait to wake up with an ocean view.

Here’s some pictures I took off their website.

All photos show above are copyright Newport Beach Hotel & Suites, the Newport Hotel Group, and the photographer.

This next photo I took off Microsoft’s Virtual Earth, Google Earth’s competitor. I love Google Earth and all Google’s products, but Microsoft Virtual Earth has the Birdseye View feature which renders the photo so much clearer and lifelike, and also it gives it the feel of flying around the place in a helicopter, not the straight down look of a satellite. Google does have street view though, which is just amazing.

I didn’t zoom in all the way because I wanted you to see the surroundings. Go to MSN.com and on the top search bar click on Maps and then do your search and play around with the Birdseye View.

Back to the topic now.

I will take thousands of pictures like I do every vacation. I promise I won’t post them all, but a bunch of really good ones scattered throughout many posts.

Jamie and I are having a tough time deciding where to go for our summer vacation. We want to go someplace new this year. We narrowed it down to Rhode Island or Virginia. Last year we took a trip to Boston after making a stop in Cambridge, Mass. The Delaware shores and Baltimore where among the list this year, but we for some reason are settling more towards the shores of Rhode Island or Virginia Beach, the more touristy areas since they tend to have more to do.

My friend Jay just recently posted some pictures of his Memorial Day tip to Point Judith, RI. He has been to Block Island before and recommends it. You can see some pictures he took and if you take a gander at the comments he has more from older posts.

Basically we need your help. I want to book the hotel this weekend before prices go way up and nothing is available. Right now Hotels.com is running a special on a free $50 gas card if you book more than three nights between now and Labor Day. We’re planning to go July 17th though the 28th if that helps with the decision making.