A Look At What Is Happening Today:
Celebrated New Years Eve Including New Years Eve Dinner ✔ Took Several Nice Walks ✔ Enjoyed Terrific Weather ✔ Purchased Final Items For The Cruise ✔
We enjoyed hearing from so many of you today with your very nice comments about the Blog and your very thoughtful New Years wishes.
We wish each of you a very safe, healthy and happy holiday.
It is hard to believe that today marks the last day of 2012.
We enjoyed another wonderful day in Miami. We did walk about thirteen miles over the course of the day and night.
Keith was up first and made his way down to the lobby to bring some coffee to bring back to the room.
Before he got the coffee he opened up the back door of the lobby. As is the norm, it was windy off the bay which is typical for the early hour of the morning. The area near the back of the hotel is all lit up with holiday lights. There are two swimming pools; one for those who own Four Season residences and a nice size pool for hotel guests. There are many cabanas and lounge chairs, and an outdoor casual restaurant.
Once again, we enjoyed breakfast in our room.
Afterwards, we walked to a couple of stores to get the final items that we will need for the cruise so we can check this off our things to do list. We swung by our hotel to drop the items off and then went on a seven mile walk.
We walked over to a small island which is home for various high rise condominiums and also the Mandarin Oriental Hotel
We then walked around a portion of the island on a pedestrian path allowing for scenic views of the bay.
We could see three ships in port. Two of the ships (Carnival and NCL) are in this photo.
From this side of the island we could get a view of the other side of the ship that we had seen from the Intercontinental yesterday afternoon.
We then walked up and down several streets and even ran into a familiar character.
As we made our way over to Mary Brickell Village we ran into several of Santa' helpers including Rudolph.
The weather was very nice for our walk. It was breezy for the first hour or so and then as time went along it became less breezy and partly sunny. We spoke with our friend Ricki again and we look forward to seeing Ricki and her husband David on the Crystal Serenity in just four days.
We brought back lunch to the room and then later in the afternoon we went back out for another walk. This time we went in a different direction which can take you to Key Biscayne as well as Coconut Grove.
As we write today's Blog we are reminded that today is the last day of 2012 and tomorrow begins another new year. This year has truly flown by in a blink of an eye.
At this time last year we were on the Crystal Serenity for the Holiday Cruise which included the celebration of Chanukah, Christmas and New Years Eve and Day, all on one voyage.
An hour before Midnight we were enjoying the music of a special band that was brought on board for the cruise including the New Years Eve Celebration.
At midnight we were standing one deck above the Crystal Cove, each with a flute of champagne and with our New Years Eve Party Favors as we celebrated the New Year.
At the stroke of Midnight we toasted in the New Year with the confetti and balloon drop.
Our evening was a little quieter this time around but was very enjoyable.
We enjoyed an early New Year's Eve dinner at Truluck's Restaurant. This is one of eleven Trulucks' restaurants which are primarily located in Texas with a couple of locations in South Florida, and one location in California. They mainly specialize in fresh seafood, but for those desiring beef that is also available.
We first dined at one of the other locations a few years ago and while we were in Miami in November of 2010 during a stop on the Crystal Symphony we spotted this restaurant while on another one of our long walks. We hadn't remembered it from our previous stays in Miami and that is when we learned it had just recently opened. Close to sixty days later we enjoyed a New Years Eve dinner at this location with friends Bob and Glo.
While they have a late dining option which included a New Years Eve party with favors, we preferred to dine early. They offered a special New Years Eve menu as do many restaurants.
We had a very nice table in a quite section of the restaurant.
We were treated to a nice glass of rose champagne.
For our first course we shared an appetizer of Fresh Florida Stone Crab Legs which we enjoyed.
Our next course was a mixed green salad which was accompanied with sliced apple, local goat cheese, kalamata olives, and spicy pecans.
The salad was delicious and those pecans were definitely spicy.
We shared the dessert and we had three choices. Anne Marie selected the dessert and we had the Chocolate Malt Cake With Chocolate Malt Cream Cheese Icing. They also served chocolate sauce on the side which we chose not to have. The photo is only a portion of what was served because by the time we took the photo the waiter had already cut us each a piece of the cake. It was very rich and very tasty. We couldn't finish it all and the waiter offered to box it up for us but we passed on taking it back to the hotel with us.
We had a most memorable evening and it was a wonderful way to celebrate the end of 2012 and the start of 2013.
As we walked back to the hotel there were many trees that were all lit up and this photo shows the tree line outside of our hotel.
There is much happening in Miami this evening. There will be a massive crowd at Bayside and the highlight of the evening will be the fireworks display. At the same time, South Beach will be one major party location both inside and also outside on the streets such as Ocean Drive. For us, watching the festivities on Television is good enough.
Once again, we wish all of you a very safe, healthy and Happy New Year.
We enjoyed hearing from so many of you today with your very nice comments about the Blog and your very thoughtful New Years wishes.
We wish each of you a very safe, healthy and happy holiday.
It is hard to believe that today marks the last day of 2012.
We enjoyed another wonderful day in Miami. We did walk about thirteen miles over the course of the day and night.
Keith was up first and made his way down to the lobby to bring some coffee to bring back to the room.
Before he got the coffee he opened up the back door of the lobby. As is the norm, it was windy off the bay which is typical for the early hour of the morning. The area near the back of the hotel is all lit up with holiday lights. There are two swimming pools; one for those who own Four Season residences and a nice size pool for hotel guests. There are many cabanas and lounge chairs, and an outdoor casual restaurant.
Once again, we enjoyed breakfast in our room.
Afterwards, we walked to a couple of stores to get the final items that we will need for the cruise so we can check this off our things to do list. We swung by our hotel to drop the items off and then went on a seven mile walk.
We walked over to a small island which is home for various high rise condominiums and also the Mandarin Oriental Hotel
We then walked around a portion of the island on a pedestrian path allowing for scenic views of the bay.
We could see three ships in port. Two of the ships (Carnival and NCL) are in this photo.
From this side of the island we could get a view of the other side of the ship that we had seen from the Intercontinental yesterday afternoon.
We then walked up and down several streets and even ran into a familiar character.
As we made our way over to Mary Brickell Village we ran into several of Santa' helpers including Rudolph.
The weather was very nice for our walk. It was breezy for the first hour or so and then as time went along it became less breezy and partly sunny. We spoke with our friend Ricki again and we look forward to seeing Ricki and her husband David on the Crystal Serenity in just four days.
We brought back lunch to the room and then later in the afternoon we went back out for another walk. This time we went in a different direction which can take you to Key Biscayne as well as Coconut Grove.
As we write today's Blog we are reminded that today is the last day of 2012 and tomorrow begins another new year. This year has truly flown by in a blink of an eye.
At this time last year we were on the Crystal Serenity for the Holiday Cruise which included the celebration of Chanukah, Christmas and New Years Eve and Day, all on one voyage.
An hour before Midnight we were enjoying the music of a special band that was brought on board for the cruise including the New Years Eve Celebration.
At midnight we were standing one deck above the Crystal Cove, each with a flute of champagne and with our New Years Eve Party Favors as we celebrated the New Year.
At the stroke of Midnight we toasted in the New Year with the confetti and balloon drop.
Our evening was a little quieter this time around but was very enjoyable.
We enjoyed an early New Year's Eve dinner at Truluck's Restaurant. This is one of eleven Trulucks' restaurants which are primarily located in Texas with a couple of locations in South Florida, and one location in California. They mainly specialize in fresh seafood, but for those desiring beef that is also available.
We first dined at one of the other locations a few years ago and while we were in Miami in November of 2010 during a stop on the Crystal Symphony we spotted this restaurant while on another one of our long walks. We hadn't remembered it from our previous stays in Miami and that is when we learned it had just recently opened. Close to sixty days later we enjoyed a New Years Eve dinner at this location with friends Bob and Glo.
While they have a late dining option which included a New Years Eve party with favors, we preferred to dine early. They offered a special New Years Eve menu as do many restaurants.
We had a very nice table in a quite section of the restaurant.
We were treated to a nice glass of rose champagne.
For our first course we shared an appetizer of Fresh Florida Stone Crab Legs which we enjoyed.
Our next course was a mixed green salad which was accompanied with sliced apple, local goat cheese, kalamata olives, and spicy pecans.
The salad was delicious and those pecans were definitely spicy.
We had several entrees to choose from and our waiter highly recommend three of them and we went with one of his recommendations. We each had one South African Cold Water Lobster Tails accompanied by Asparagus.
They were enormous and were very tasty and were prepared perfectly.
Keith helped Anne Marie finish her entree.
We shared the dessert and we had three choices. Anne Marie selected the dessert and we had the Chocolate Malt Cake With Chocolate Malt Cream Cheese Icing. They also served chocolate sauce on the side which we chose not to have. The photo is only a portion of what was served because by the time we took the photo the waiter had already cut us each a piece of the cake. It was very rich and very tasty. We couldn't finish it all and the waiter offered to box it up for us but we passed on taking it back to the hotel with us.
We had a most memorable evening and it was a wonderful way to celebrate the end of 2012 and the start of 2013.
As we walked back to the hotel there were many trees that were all lit up and this photo shows the tree line outside of our hotel.
There is much happening in Miami this evening. There will be a massive crowd at Bayside and the highlight of the evening will be the fireworks display. At the same time, South Beach will be one major party location both inside and also outside on the streets such as Ocean Drive. For us, watching the festivities on Television is good enough.
Once again, we wish all of you a very safe, healthy and Happy New Year.
TODAY'S THOUGHT FOR THE
DAY............
“Make the most of yourself….for that is all there is of
you.” - Ralph Waldo Emerson
Keith and Anne Marie
Happy New Year to both of you. And you are right: those lobster tails are enormous.
ReplyDeleteHappy New Year to you both. I'm so glad hat you are enjoying our beautiful city. The Trulucks stone crab claws look as yummy as always.
ReplyDeleteYour dinner looks delicious, especially the chocolate cake. You definitely should have taken the leftovers back to our room.,;)
ReplyDelete