Day 8: Sunday, May 10. Voyage Debarkation & Miami, Florida.

Our trip on the cruise came to an end today. We packed all our bags and said goodbye to our room; goodbye to our chambermaids that cleaned and made our bed twice a day; goodbye to the frozen yogurt machines; goodbye to a very relaxing vacation.

Before we left on our trip, we booked a hotel in Miami on Sunday night so we could stay there for the day and explore. After we got off the ship, we took a taxi over to our hotel. It wasn’t as close to downtown as I thought it was going to be (meaning it wasn’t even close) and so we decided to rent a car for the day instead of paying for a taxi to go everywhere.

This is our sweet rental...Chrysler Sebring baby.

After we checked in, we headed out to South Beach to walk around and swim in the ocean. It was like a hot tub it was so warm! We walked up and down the boardwalk and just took in all the sights and sounds of South Beach on a Sunday afternoon. We met up with our friends Josh & Jim who moved to Miami from Salt Lake. It was fun to see them and go around with people who knew where we were going. We ate some delicious burgers and fries, then walked around the outdoor mall on South Beach.

We headed back to our rental and Josh & Jim took us on a drive over to a really ritzy part of Miami. The houses were HUGE! I love to gawk at giant houses and wonder what the people inside are like. We also went inside a giant hotel in Coral Gables called the Biltmore Hotel. It has a 12,000 square foot spa - need I say more?

We dropped Josh & Jim off at their place, then headed back to the hotel to pack. We had to fly back to Salt Lake and back to the real world the next morning.

Jim, Josh, Emily, Jared

Here are some more pictures:

South BeachJared taking a picture of a cool car. We started seeing them everywhere so the novelty wore off pretty fast.

This is where Miami Ink was filmed.

This picture makes me laugh every time! It's Jared mid-yawn.