back to florida

florida shop!

send questions
or comments to
MartyTours

Christmas 2001: Two Weeks!

Following the success of last year, we again head south for the holidays, to florida (including key west this year), and for the first time ever, to the bahamas.

official schedule of events

week 1: sat | sun | mon | tues | wed | thurs | fri

week 2: sat | sun | mon | tues | wed | thurs | fri

sat. december 15
We drove to florida this year (ugh!). On this first day, we got as far as charleston, and had an excellent dinner at bocci's.

sun. december 16
We continued our drive south, stopping for lunch at a krystal hamburger restaurant. (I've wanted to try these since I first heard of them about 5 years ago. They'e small, square, and delicious!) We arrived in fort lauderdale and headed to the mai kai, a polynesian style restaurant, for dinner (including a flaming dessert!) and took in the "islanders revue" show. Afterwards, we reached miami beach and the dezerland beach resort. It's a nice, reasonably priced hotel on the northern end of miami beach. It also has a great collection of retro cars and other things scattered throughout the hotel. (Check out my dezerland pics.)

mon. december 17
We started the day with a great breakfast at wolfies. (Note: Unfortunately, wolfie's has since closed. Read the miami herald article.) For most of the rest of the day, we lounged around the pool and beach, and of course had dinner at joe's stone crab, which is a must stop.

tues. december 18
It's time to finally get in an airplane! Our short flight from miami to the bahamas is not without incident, as my mom had her sewing scissors confiscated at the airport! We took a taxi from the airport to our hotel, which was a lot of fun driving on the "wrong" side of the road. Our hotel, the atlantis on paradise island, is just an incredible looking place! (See my atlantis tower pics.)

back to top

wed. december 19
The weather was great, and we spent all day at the many pool areas at the hotel (see my atlantis pool pics). At night we hit the casino. No luck there!

thurs. december 20
I was curious to check out downtown nassau, but I didn't exactly get there. We did make it to the crystal palace casino at the nassau marriott on cable beach just west of nassau (it's now a wyndham property), and then stopped at seafood haven, a local joint, for a drink afterwards. Then it was back to atlantis.

fri. december 21
Before we left atlantis, I checked out their aquariums of various fish and sea life (see my sealife pics). Then we flew to miami and drove down the florida keys to key west. Our hotel was the historic wyndham casa marina and we had dinner at flagler's, which was superb! (The restaurant is named after railroad baron henry flagler who, in 1912, completed a railroad that connected the keys to the mainland. He was also an original partner in standard oil with john d. rockefeller.)

back to top

sat. december 22
We took a tour bus around key west, which gave us a good overview of the town. It made stops at various points of interest, including the southernmost point (click on the pic above to see a larger picture) and the downtown area (see my around town pics). Later we stopped in at the hemingway home, where ernest lived between trips to the bull fights in spain or fishing down in cuba (see my landmarks pics). In the afternoon we checked out the beach, but it was unseasonably cool in the keys. For dinner, I had a great red snapper at alonzo's oyster bar.

sun. december 23
Another travel day had arrived, and we drove north to orlando. This year we stayed at disney's coronado springs. For dinner we again headed to old reliable wolfgang puck cafe. I had pumpkin ravioli with browned butter sauce, and a snappy martini. This place is just awesome.

back to top

mon. december 24
Well, it's off to disneyworld! We did the usual stuff over at the magic kingdom. A new ride that I had high hopes for was the magic carpets of aladdin. I was hoping for a thrill ride, but it's basically a kid's ride with cars that go around in a circle on the spokes of the ride, very similar to tomorrowland's astro orbiter. One twist is that there's a camel that "spits" water at you as you pass it. (See my disney pics.) We also tried the new buzz lightyear's space ranger spin, a slow ride in the dark but with a laser gun in your car that you shoot and score points.

It was hard to find a place for Christmas eve dinner. Our plan was downtown orlando station, which we've always heard a lot about, but the whole complex had been recently closed. We finally settled on ronnie's steak house on international drive. This is one of those places where they bring the uncooked meats out to your table to show you what you'll get. Excellent steak and the waiter was very funny.

back to top

tues. december 25
It's christmas, and we're spending another day with the mouse. A fairly new ride over at disney's mgm studios that we missed last year is the rock n roller coaster, featuring the music of aerosmith. The car you get in looks like a limo, and you're supposedly the band on the way to a concert. It's an indoors roller coaster similar to space mountain, but this ride goes upside down. Not always my favorite experience.

back to top

wed. december 26
We headed north and got as far as savannah, one of my favorite towns. This time we tried belford's seafood and steak restaurant. It's hard to make a wrong pick in savannah!

thurs. december 27
We headed farther north, making a pit stop at south of the border. I have always liked the kitschy, over the top aspect of this place since I was a kid. We continued on and had lunch at sonic drive in, a great drive in burger chain. The waiters come to your car on roller skates. They have shakes such as the "chocolate covered cherry", which includes cherry syrup and a maraschino cherry on top! (See the entire menu in PDF format.) We made it to arlington, northern virginia, before calling it quits for the night. We had dinner at my old stomping grounds in DC on M street: clyde's of georgetown.

fri. december 28
The weather was crisp, but we stopped on the DC national mall to visit some of the famous memorials: lincoln, vietnam veterans, and the fairly new korean war veterans (which was dedicated in 1995). We also walked over to see the national christmas tree and the 50 smaller trees for each of the 50 states. After lunch in NW DC at cheesecake factory, another great casual restaurant chain that I'd been to in miami. We went to the movies across the street to see the royal tenenbaums, and then headed north and home.

back to top