Pre-Cruise Day in Beautiful Miami, Florida

It is finally time for our 2024 Family Vacation on Royal Caribbean’s Oasis of the Seas!  

Our Southwest Airlines flight was an early flight out of Chicago Midway at 7:05am, with arrival in Miami shortly after 11:00am. We spent the night in Chicago at the Double Tree by Hilton.  We booked it online through a Park Sleep Fly, which enabled us to stay for one night and park our car for the duration of our vacation.  They also offered a shuttle to and from the airport.  All of this was under $250.  A deal in our eyes, as we’d spend more than that just on parking somewhere. 

We were all checked in for our flight through the Southwest Airlines app and had selected how many checked bags we had.  Southwest had a Curbside Service at Midway, which allowed us to drop our bags right at the curb and obtain our boarding passes.  This whole process was extremely fast and stress free!  Wish more airports offered this! 

We landed in Miami on time, shortly after 11:00am.  Smooth flight with Southwest – they even played “Welcome to Miami ” over the speakers on the plane when we landed; we all got a kick out of it.  Once we got our luggage, we arranged an UberXL to pick us up from the airport and take us to the YVEMiami.  We did hit a bit of traffic on the way to the hotel, but nothing crazy.  Since check-in wasn’t until 4:00pm, we were not able to check in yet.  They did have an area where we could leave our luggage.  They provided us with a claim ticket, which we would need to pick up our luggage once our room was ready. 

We were all ready for some lunch.  Now, we love Gordon Ramsay, and we love delicious food, so we couldn’t pass up visiting Gordon Ramsay Hell’s Kitchen.  We did not have reservations, but got right in.  Steven enjoyed the Lunch Prix Fixe Menu, which consisted of Pumpkin Soup, Petite Beef Wellington, and the Sticky Toffee Pudding.  All were wonderful!  Maddie and Amelia split the Backyard Burger (toasted brioche, cheddar, pickled cucumber, butter lettuce, tomato, fancy sauce) with Fries and Leah and Kenzie split the Hell’s Kitchen Burger (toasted brioche, applewood-smoked bacon, ghost pepper cheese, fresno chili jam, mashed avocado, crispy onions, tomato, spicy aioli) with Fries. We also had to order another Sticky Toffee Pudding to share!  The meal was a bit expensive, but all of the food was delicious.  If we went again, we’d definitely get the Prix Fixe menu with the Hell’s Kitchen Burger.  

After lunch, it wasn’t quite 4:00pm, but we decided to head back to the hotel to see if our room was ready.  We were in luck and our room was ready!  Our room was on the 5th floor, so we jumped on the elevator up to our room.  It was a standard room with 2 double beds, a TV, and a bathroom, which was extremely small, but we made do.  Now one thing that we were missing was a refrigerator.  We had bought some milk for breakfast the next day, but quickly found out that we didn’t have any place to put it.  

We then took a brief nap and decided to head for a walk to Bayside Marketplace.  Looking online, it peaked our interest as it had a ton of shopping and food options.  This place was hopping!  It had several areas playing music and was right on the water.  We decided to take a quick ride on the Ferris Wheel and the views of the city were great!  It was worth the cost in our opinion.  By the time we were done with that we were hungry.  We went to a couple of restaurants, but the wait was too long for us, so we grabbed some empanadas to take back to the hotel room.  Really wish they would have had a few more grab and go options.  It was then time to head to bed!  Boarding the Oasis of the Seas tomorrow! 

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