Tampa 2021: Diary – Day 6

Tomatico and I got up at 7:00 and quietly got dressed before going down to breakfast. We wanted to let the rest of the family sleep in a little and take advantage of our free breakfast before heading out to the airport to get our flight.

Airport Experience

After a quick breakfast in the restaurant and a quiet goodby to Tomatico’s uncle, we gathered our bags and caught a Lyft to the airport. The airport is relatively small and wasn’t very crowded. We checked our bag with United as it was free since I paid the taxes and fees on the award ticket with my United Explorer credit card.

We made our way to our gate which required a tram ride before going through security. The TSA/PreCheck line was short and we were through in no time. There wasn’t much open for breakfast so we were glad we had something substantial at the hotel. We did buy some snacks for the plane, though. The plane left on time and was uneventful except for some turbulence arriving in Newark. It left me a bit green but I was okay.

We arrived at a different terminal than we had departed from (we flew to Tampa on JetBlue and arrived on United) and our car was parked near the terminal with JetBlue. After getting our luggage from baggage claim we used the AirTrain to get to terminal A. We were both hungry and found a small food court outside security for a quick bite. We didn’t know the area around the airport and figured it was easier to get food there instead of trying to find something on the way to our next hotel which was about an hour away.

Hotel and Gym

After finding the car, we made our way to the parking lot exit where I scanned the QR code for the parking I had prepaid for. The gate opened and we were free(!) to deal with navigating New Jersey roads and traffic.

Luckily traffic wasn’t too bad and we managed to make to get to our hotel in about an hour. The hotel was a fairly generic Marriott which was in the middle of an office park. Its isn’t very busy given that it was a Friday night and the offices were working remotely. We checked in quickly and got a room on the top floor. It was a club level room but unfortunately the club was closed and they weren’t offering breakfast.

Once we dropped our luggage off in the room, we changed to go to the gym and headed out. It was a short 15 minute drive away and we were able to check in just like we did at our home gym. We wandered around and found the squash courts and played for about an hour. Tomatico felt confident he had knocked the rust off after not playing for nearly a week.

Back at the hotel we showered and ate at a restaurant in the hotel. After a fulling meal we headed back to our room only to find that the door didn’t open. Not only did the door not open, but the light on the door didn’t even blink when we pressed the key to it like it did on other doors.

At the front desk they promised to send maintenance up to address the problem right away. They said it sounded like a dead battery. After about 5 minutes of waiting outside our room a man showed up with a gadget to get the door open. Luckily it worked and he was able to change the battery. I had nightmares of them having to drill out the lock to get us back in which would have been a frustrating way to spend the night before a tournament!

Once that was sorted out, we got things ready so we could get up and go the next morning. The tournament was in the morning and was about 30 minutes away. We’d make sure we had plenty of time With two alarms set we called it an early night.