Florida: The Rest
The Pool! We all really enjoyed the pool, especially Sienna. She was so confident with her floaties, going in the deep end and everything. Whenever the noodles were available, I snatched it to use and Sienna even used it once.
The Eats! The most stressful part of the vacation was figuring out where to eat. There were lots of options and part of the problem was reading all the reviews online. Every place had both bad and good comments so it was still hard to make a choice. The hotel gave coupons for a few restaurants like Beach Bun and Burgers and we actually went twice. The first time was better than the 2nd but the cook was different so I think that made a difference. There was also Blue Fugu Japanese Steakhouse. I thought it would be fun for Sienna to see the chef cook food in front of her. She really wasn’t that amazed. The food was good but like all Japanese Steakhouses, pricey. We probably wouldn’t have gone if we didn’t have a coupon. Plus we met a woman who recommended Buono Pizza for Italian, which we ended up going to when we saw the Thai place we originally planned to go was too expensive. It was really good! We both got sandwiches (not pizza) and they were huge. Of course there was the Waffle House, an Yves favorite. We went there almost every morning for breakfast. The last standout is a Thai restaurant we went to the very last night and if we discovered it sooner, probably would have went back. Nori Thai which also has sushi. The food was very good. The one place we went to that was a real disappointment to me was a seafood restaurant called Friendly Fisherman. I was bugging Yves to go to a seafood restaurant and we didn’t go to the one I really wanted to and went to this one out of convenience, well, we paid for it. The food was tasteless. There was also Bella Habana, a Cuban restaurant that everytime we passed, I told Yves we should go there. Finally got him to go and he LOVED his dish (fried cow) while I thought my ropa viejo was just ok. At least Sienna loved the chorizo.
Most lunches were mainly in our room.
We only ventured away from the pool and beach a couple of times. One time to check out the Pier, which was disappointing because it really wasn’t much and it’s “aquarium.” I use the quotes because I feel aquarium is used loosely. It was basically a big room with tanks in it. Literally took 15 minutes to walk around and only because we slowly looked at things. At least we ran into a pelican. One afternoon we went to a playground across the street. Bad move. That lasted 5 minutes! It was too hot and no shade. We went back to the pool. HA!
The hotel had a parrot named Houdini and Sienna went to say hello to him every chance she got, which was several times a day!
And somehow Sienna managed to get Yves to buy her a Minnie Mouse doll at Wal-mart.