Miami 2021: Diary – Day 8

After breakfast, the boys went to the pool for an hour before the day’s big activity.

Speedboat Tour!

During our trip into Bayside Marketplace over the weekend we had picked up a pamphlet for a speedboat tour of the bay. The boys took about half a millisecond to start begging to go on that. I had purchased tickets the night before and reserved seats on the 12:30 tour.

We grabbed a Lyft early so we could eat lunch at the mall before the boat tour. There wasn’t a lot open and the quality of the food was… disappointing. I guess we shouldn’t have had high expectations for 11:30 on a Thursday morning.

We checked in with the tour desk 15 minutes before the ride as directed. I had to sign several waivers everyone. There was already a line of people waiting to get on the boat but they didn’t started boarding until a few minutes later. There were no assigned seats and each bench could hold 2 or 3 people. The ride began a few minutes later.

The captain was great and the boys loved his narration. Most of the tour was in the bay and the water was mostly calm. The captain did some turns to make things more interesting. While the boat looked like a speedboat, it topped out at about 40mph. For those not used to boats it felt a lot faster than that but it wasn’t a wild thrill ride and we felt safe the entire way.

Much of the tour consisted of driving by some of the mansions along the water which are owned by the rich and famous. Towards the end of the tour they drove out by Miami Beach into more open ocean for a few minutes and did some turns before heading back to the dock right on time. The boys LOVED every minute of it and it was probably their favorite activity of the entire trip.

Re-Voicing Our Complaints

Back at the hotel we still hadn’t heard from the manager. We figured 24 hours was enough time and we should have heard from them. Back at the front desk I found the same lady I had talked to the previous day. She was surprised we hadn’t heard and promised to follow up ASAP. I gave her my phone number since my wife was still busy working.

Back in the room I got a phone call almost immediately and it was a manager. She said she had called the previous day but admitted that she didn’t get through and didn’t leave a voice mail. I went through our complaints again and expressed our continued disappointment with our stay.

We worked out some minor compensation that in hindsight wasn’t nearly enough. We didn’t ask to change rooms because we only had just over one night left in the room anyways since we had a 6am flight on our last day. The hassle just wasn’t worth it and we were resigned to our disappointment.

Separating for Dinner

After relaxing on the balcony for a little bit in the afternoon we decided to split up for dinner. Tomatico and my wife tried a cafe in the mall across the street while my youngest and I went to our standby for another filling meal at Flannigans

Back at the hotel we stayed in and watched some TV and relaxed. The next day would be our last full day before heading home to much colder weather!