Miami 2021: Diary – Day 6

We woke up at a normal time though it has been a night of restless sleep. We had heard a lot of noise that we initially thought was either construction, people moving furniture, or thunder. We never fully figured out what it was, but I don’t think it was any of those since there wasn’t any weather and there wouldn’t have been construction at 2am.

My wife took the boys down for breakfast while I went for a run. My wife’s status only gave us breakfast for 2 rather than the whole family so I decided to do my own thing. Even the kid’s breakfasts were almost $20 for a buffet that was average at best and that quickly ate through our credit they reluctantly provided the previous day at checkin.

My run was at an exploratory pace as I ran south on the path in front of the hotel between the hotel and the ocean. It was hot and humid but overcast. I didn’t run very far because the path turned into soft sand after a mile and was very hard to run in. By the time I got back to the hotel it had started to rain so it was good I didn’t run much further.

Rainy Day in Miami

Looking at the forecast it was going to be quite a bit of rain and thunderstorms mixed with periods where it would be clear. Most of the morning it was raining and we stayed in the room.

Towards noon when the weather cleared, the boys and I went across the street to the Shops at Bal Harbour, a very high end mall. There was a bookstore and we hoped we could find a book for Tomatico since he had forgotten his Kindle at home. We found the store and luckily he found some books he wanted.

We then walked down the street to a Publix supermarket to pick up some quick food for lunch. They had quite a few hot options at the food bar and we got various forms of chicken and some drinks on the cheap.

Back at the hotel our youngest wanted to go to the pool even though it was starting to rain again. My wife joined us as she needed to get some food for herself from lunch and she’s get it at the pool bar.

By the time we got to the pool it was pouring, but our youngest was committed to going into the pool no matter what. My wife and I waited under the roof of the pool bar while her food was prepared. Once the thunder and lightning started we quickly got him out of the pool.

Back in the room the doorbell rang and it was housekeeping. My wife was between calls so we were able to vacate the room for her to clean.

The previous night we had noticed the shower was leaking all over the floor in the bathroom. We had to use most of our towels to stop the flow when we were in the shower. She was nice enough to file a case with the maintenence people for us who would hopefully be able to fix it later in the afternoon.

During our stay we had several interactions the the housekeeper and she was definitely the most consistently helpful person we interacted with on the property.

There was a break in the storms and the boys and I used it as an opportunity to go down to the beach to test the water and toss a Frisbee. The storms had kept most people off the beach so we had it mostly to ourselves. The wind wasn’t too strong and we got in more than 30 minutes of passing before it started to rain again. We got inside just before it started to pour.

Separate Dinners

As dinner approached we decided to split up. My youngest and I wanted to try out Flannigan’s Seafood again with me. I tried a steak this time and it was quite good. It was actually cooked the way I ordered it (medium) which is something that even high end steakhouses seem to be unable to do consistently.

Tomatico and my wife ended up getting DoorDash from a Cuban restaurant in the area. It took a long time to arrive due to slow traffic and the food was lukewarm. They ate it on the patio off the lobby, but needed cutlery. They difficult time getting the attention of the staff to get some. Another example of hit-or-miss service (mostly miss) from the staff.

On our way back to the hotel, my youngest and I stopped at the front desk to request a rollaway bed so the boys didn’t have to sleep in the same bed but were told that it was not possible in the room type we had.

Since we had been out on the balcony several times during the day, we noticed that the sliding door was increasingly hard to open and close. It was so hard to open that my youngest (a relatively strong 10 year old) was unable to do it by himself and he had gotten trapped out there more than once during the day. Even Tomatico could barely do it. The front desk said they would send someone up and, to their credit, someone was at our door less than 10 minutes after we were back in our room.

He looked at the door and found that it was a problem that didn’t have an easy fix. The guide the door slid on was defective and the whole frame of the door really needed to be replaced, which of course he wouldn’t be able to do. He put some WD40 on it but it didn’t really help. He said he’d file a report but I’d have to deal with the front desk.

While he was looking at the door I also noticed that there was a constant hissing in the toilet. While it wasn’t loud and you couldn’t hear it from the main part of the room, it was an issue they probably wanted to fix so as not to waste water. I mentioned it to him and he tried a quick fix, but it didn’t seem to work.

We were completing day two of our disappointment with the property. Things weren’t trending in the right direction and as we found out that night, maintenance had come that afternoon to fix the shower, they only succeeded at making the problem less severe. We still needed a towel outside the shower door to prevent water from going all over the bathroom floor. This wasn’t the experience you’d expect from a 5 star hotel…

We tried to find the positive in things but it was getting tougher. We went to bed and hoped we’d have a better day the next day.