Miami

We arrived at our hotel (Doubletree South Beach) directly from the ship on Friday morning along with another 20 + passengers. Getting through customs was a bit of a mess just because the ship dumped 3000 passengers all at once at the port. Customs coped, however, trying to identify your cases and get out of the terminal was a joke. We were told to make our way outside and meet our private coach/minibus to pick us up at 9 am. By the time we had cleared the terminal it was 09:45 and the coach was leaving as I searched for it. Luckily one of our fellow passengers spotted me and asked the driver to stop and she would run back and get us. We were lucky unlike two others who missed the connection and would have to book a taxi for the 45 minute run into Miami. We are here for 3 days so we decided to go to Orlando and visit Universal Studios which required us to rent a car and drive 250 miles there and back. The roads were fine and we made sure we had SatNav which made the journey much easier. Avis gave us a brand new VW Jetta with only 3000 miles on the clock, nice car to drive. Once on the freeway we could get the car up to 73 (limit is 70) and turn cruise contol on and we were on our way. On our return to Miami we left Orlando at 7pm, this meant we would be driving back in the dark for about 3 hours as sundown was around 7:30 pm. We had travelled about 175 miles when I noticed a police car chasing me from one of the exits that we passed, yes I was being pulled by a State Trooper. Carol and I sat in the car for ages as the back of our car was lit up with search lights. I did not want to get out in case he thought I had a gun, and I guess he did not want to approach our car. Eventually he did, lighting up Carol's side window with his torch. In my best Scottish accent i asked what is the problem officer to hear him say that i had no lights on the back of the car. The running lights do not illuminate the rear, only the front headlights, so we had no way of knowing. In our car back home, the rear and front always work but not in the Jetta. Luckily for us he was a good guy helped us to turn the lights on and went on our way safely arriving at our hotel around 11pm. This morning we returned the car to Avis and are now about to go for a walk along Miami Beach to try and shed some pounds. There is some bodies out side posing along the boardwalk, Carol and I are going to get our in-line skates and join the fitness trail for about 10 miles by then we should be able to get into our clothes for the QM2.