I swear, after flying to Tampa for the weekend with my BFF Lynne, I may forget Miami airport ever existed.
Genuinely, if I have to go to South Beach, Kendall or Coral Gables in the future, I think I’ll just fly direct to Tampa and drive down to Miami.
I know many people are not fans of MIA, but I have such fond memories of it from when we went on family vacations, that I was hanging onto the nostalgia. But since they removed the ESTA machines, border control is like the seventh level of hell (which means Concourse F is the 10th). I have Global Entry (which is amazing – if you can get it, do) but unless everyone with whom I’m travelling has it too, all it means is I spend two hours waiting for them in baggage claim rather than in immigration.
Tampa, though. Wow. There were no lines; the agents were all “welcome” and “how are you today?”; and the luggage carts were free! None of your Smarte Carte stations with trolleys in prison until you bailed them out with your credit card. We almost took four, just because we could.
You could tell who was up for a public holiday weekend, because we all had pre-shopping bags as light as balloons, which we whipped off the carousel with ease.
Although Lynne and I flew into Tampa, we were staying in Clearwater Beach at the Opal Sands Resort. I had already ordered umpteen items from Amazon, and the day before we arrived, my inbox was flooded with emails telling me my items had been delivered. By the time we were checking in at the hotel, my name was already well familiar.
“Ohhhh… Victoria Wheaton,” said the front desk agent. “We have lots of boxes in storage for you!”
Yup. I braced myself for the bill.
“How much per package?” I asked.
She looked at me, confused. “No charge. Would you like them brought up to your room?”
Okay, another big tick in the ‘pros’ column for venturing outside Miami. I mean, some of the hotels on Biscayne Blvd Way are only in profit because I shop online. Why can’t packages be included in the resort fee? After all, I don’t need the bicycles or loungers by the pool. Gimme a perk I can use!
Another great thing about flying into Tampa is the proximity of diverse hotspots such as Orlando, Clearwater (see above) and St. Petersburg. On this trip, we headed to the latter to see an old friend in a stand-up comedy show at the Palladium. Do any of you remember Eddie Brill who used to perform at Coconuts Comedy Club in Cayman in the 1990s? Well, he’s still going strong.
We love St. Pete – it has so much character. Before the show, we stopped in the Pageboy Vintage Market, Apothecary and Hair Studio. It completely summed up the town: Charming and eclectic with two characters running the shop. I couldn’t resist buying a few items before we went to grab a bite at MUST Wine Loft. If you’re in the area you must (ha-ha) seek it out. Two charcuterie boards and a couple of glasses of wine later, we were well ready for a laugh at the show, which did not disappoint.
We might have even been tempted to stay overnight in St. Pete, had it not been for the most important packages of all due to be delivered the next day.
We cannot be the only ones to have heard about the Tom Cruise cake. It’s a white chocolate coconut Bundt cake that the megastar sends out to his friends every Christmas. It’s made by Doan’s Bakery in California, and one celebrity after the next raves about it.
Well, we’d read about it enough – particularly around the festive season – to decide that we were worthy of such delights. A company called Goldbelly would be happy to ship it to us and, luckily, we ordered in December, because everything was sold out for a month.
We ordered two cakes, just in case we inhaled one, so we could share the other with friends. We’re thoughtful like that.
The resort staff, already probably well done with Ms. Wheaton and her slew of shipments, were no doubt delighted to start receiving urgent calls as soon as Goldbelly emailed to say that our Cruise cakes had been dropped off.
“Two boxes, they say ‘Goldbelly’, they’re perishable. There is dry ice in there but it won’t last and they need to be refrigerated… ,” I explained, my voice rising in panic.
Sensing that I wouldn’t let the subject drop until I got satisfaction, they (I’m guessing) got a bellman to drop another guest’s luggage on the floor in favour of my request. Sure enough, five minutes later, we had two large boxes in our room.
Of course, we couldn’t wait for a cake to defrost. We had to know what Tom Hanks, Jimmy Fallon and Miles Teller et al had been keeping from us, lo these many years. The plastic knife from Starbucks did its best but it was like hacking into a block of wood. Nevertheless, we persevered.
Yes, it was delicious. Yes, it was still frozen. The white chocolate chunks were initially like rocks until mouth warmth softened them.
It got even better as it approached room temperature, and just as SlimFast says you can replace a meal with one of its protein shakes, so we started replacing meals with Bundt cake; the very definition of a balanced diet.
Did we feel like celebrities as we ate it? Not necessarily, but when we checked out of the hotel on the Monday to fly back to Cayman, and the front desk staff greeted us by name, there was a sense of being VIPs.
Then again, it was in the context of, “I’m sorry, Ms. Wheaton, but we’ve looked everywhere and we cannot find your package of vitamins. Can you ask Amazon for a refund?”
Yup, they were going to miss me.
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