Living in Florida has its perks. For one, when everyone else is wishing and hoping to spend their Spring Break here, we're already here! :) And so, when our very good friends drove all the way from Atlanta to spend their Spring Break here, we were more than ready to party with them.
The Lombres Family arrived on Thursday morning, after spending the night with our other friends in Tampa. Our first destination, Sawgrass Mills Outlet Mall. Our initial plan was for the mommies to go malling, while the kids and the daddies would spend the afternoon at Wannado City, an indoor theme park located inside the Mall (I told you this Outlet was huge). Unfortunately, since we arrived late (almost 4pm) we wouldn't be able to make the most out of the park. So instead, everyone went with the mommies to go shopping. :)
Mama got me a new swimsuit! A new outfit for the beach, yipee! :)
For dinner, we drove to our favorite nightspot, the Hard Rock Hotel and Casino at Hollywood. We had dinner at Johnny Rockets, just so we can sit outside and get a great view of Hard Rock's dancing fountains. :)
Me with Ate Ashley, Ate Naj, Trez, and Tatay, enjoying the fountain show.
We called it a night at around 11pm because we had to get ready for a full-packed day tomorrow. :)
FRIDAY: MIAMI
First order of the day, the Miami MetroZoo. Metrozoo houses more than 900 wild animals in a cageless setting that closely approximates the animals' natural habitats and gives the visitor the feeling of embarking on an international safari.
Welcome! :)
Large, open-air exhibits allow visitors to enjoy beautiful and endangered wildlife at a safe yet remarkably close range. With nearly 300 developed acres on a 740-acre parcel of land, Metrozoo is the only zoo in the continental United States located in a subtropical climate. This enables the Zoo to showcase animals that cannot easily be exhibited in colder climates.
These orange flamingos welcomed us.
Flamingo fans.
We went inside a Reptile building where we saw these.
A huge lizard.
More huge lizards.
And snakes. Lots of different kinds of snakes!
Outside, we were greeted by this cute fellow.
Pong? Is that you? Weeeee!
Since it was midday, most of the animals were taking their naps.
Let sleeping pigs lie.
And the tigers, too. Of course!
For an additional $5, we rode the special tram going around the zoo. At almost 800 acres, there was no way we would be able to finish touring the zoo in a day.
A safari adventure. Almost.
The tram tour was so cool, we got to see a lot of behind the scenes stuff as well as some special animals that the people inside the park wouldn't normally see via just walking. Here are some of the animals we saw.
Birds.
A Rhino. (Good advice there.)
Mommy and baby giraffe.
Elephants, newly bathed in red mud.
Double humped camels in their oasis.
A gibbon (showing off!).
The Zoo also has a monorail system, which would allow you to view the zoo at bird's-eye. We rode that one, too! :)
Oooh, airconditioning!
At the Monorail Station 2, we got off to go to the Children's Zoo. After a brief snack of corndogs and pizza, we continued on to the Meerkat area, and then the Petting Zoo area further back. Too bad, we missed Diego's 1pm show. It would have been great to see our animal rescuer amigo!
At the petting zoo, we fed the sheep.
And petted this nice little piggy. We also ran after the chickens and the turkeys, hehe. That was fun!
Soon enough, it was already time to say goodbye to the animals.
Mama and I saying farewell to our favorite pachiderm.
Next stop, the beach! :) South Beach, in fact.
Here I am with my Papa.
I'm wearing my new swimsuit! Cute no?
Me building sandcastles!
Beach babes Ate Ashley and Ate Najee.
Papa and me with Tito Tata and Ate Naj.
Pretty preggy Tita Nanette relaxing with Trez.
South Beach at night is so active! All the party people plus the lights - this makes Miami the perfect Spring Break destination.
We stayed at the beach for a while, but it was really apparent that the party scene was no place for kids like us.
Looking a little bored by the breakwater.
So it was off to our house for dinner. And to rest. We are getting ready for another action-packed day tomorrow. :)
SATURDAY: KEY WEST
We decided to go on a day trip to Key West. We left early so as to arrive at the Keys before lunch. By the time we arrived, we were soooo hungry. We agreed that a Seafood Buffet was the way to go.
We went to Captain Mario's along Duval Road, which was the only seafood buffet in the area (according to our GPS). We decided to try it, adventurous (and hungry) as we were.
The guy who welcomed us told us to just proceed upstairs where tables were still available. We chose to sit out on the balcony, so we could have a view of everything that's happening along Duval.
This was our view.
Celebrity sighting: the dude from American Chopper.
I sat beside my friend, Weya, and her Mommy and Daddy. Trez joined us for this pic.
My food.
My ice cream!
After lunch, we went the touristy route and brought our friends to the Southernmost Point. Since we already had our picture taken here before, Mama and I just stayed in the car because it was sooo hot outside (94 degrees!). Everybody else got their pics taken, of course.
Our next stop, the US-1 Mile Marker Zero. Since we missed this landmark when we first came to Key West, so now we just had our pics taken here! :)
US1 begins.
Then right across the street...
US-1 ends. Hehe!
Because it was really so hot, it was unanimous that we would all go get ice cream! :) Our favorite ice cream in all of Key West? Mathessen's.
Mama always get the Rocky Road flavor, and it's strawberry for me. And then we switch, hehe. Yummy!
We had 6pm tickets to ride the Glass Bottom Boat Sunset Cruise, to be able to see the only living coral reef in North America. Hands down, this was, by far, the highlight of our trip.
Here I am with Ate Najee and Ate Ashley waiting for the boat to reach the coral reef.
Are we there yet?
Oooh, there they are!
Hundreds of yellow-tail snappers under our boat.
And a barracuda too!
We didn't really get to see the colorful corals but it's ok. Just getting the opportunity to experience this was good enough for us.
Tomorrow, our friends will be driving back to Atlanta and I will miss them very much. I'm glad that we got to end our spring break reunion on this very romantic cruise amidst the very famous and, rightly so, beautiful Key West sunset.
Best view in the house.
Goodbye sun. Farewell friends. Until we meet again.