The moment when not all vacation is good

I’ve just returned home from Miami, Florida. And honestly, I’m so glad I’ve left Miami for good. It is a weird feeling since I came there for a vacation. This opinion is different in that people find holidays to be some of the best moments in their life. But after visiting Miami, I didn’t find it to be the case. Going to Miami is one of the few experiences I find a vacation to be more terrible than back home. But exactly why did I feel that way?

I originally planned to go to Miami because my mom wanted to try that new cruise. I was curious to learn what the experience was like. But time and cost reasons force me to plan things to do in Miami to kill time for the cruise. I didn’t focus much on the experience in Miami. At the time being, I would instead find the best attractions in Miami. I didn’t go for the various neighbourhoods in Miami. I went for single-spot destinations like the Vizcaya Museum and Wynwood Walls. They required reservations for these destinations, and my mom and I agreed to reserve a spot for the Vizcaya Museum. There wasn’t much about my knowledge about Miami other than me preparing for the trip to Miami.

I started to know about Miami when I arrived there on May 31st. I just came from an aeroplane watching Dunkirk (a great movie), and I’m optimistic about seeing Miami. But after walking around the Miami International Airport (not really. My family and I went to get our rented car), I immediately noticed the hot humidity and weather. Its hot humidity and weather are not something I’m a fan of. But because of its hot humidity and weather, some of you may find the hot and humid weather attractive, especially considering that Miami has some lovely beaches in the central city and Miami Beach.

It took a while for my family to successfully get a rented car because none of the workers at the rental car agency at MIA communicated well with the documents from my parents. But it wasn’t a big deal, and we received a different car than expected. It was a Nissan Rouge (or Rivian) car more petite than a black 2009 model. We got in the vehicle immediately after leaving the parking lot, and the traffic situation in Miami was terrible. I’ve been in horrible traffic situations before, especially in California (San Fransisco, San Jose, and Los Angeles are the ones I know that have awful traffic). But for some reason, someone living in a small city in California cannot fathom the traffic in Miami. There were a lot of cars on the freeway, and many times, going from one lane to another was difficult.

The first thing to do is to drive to the hotel, which took about 30 minutes. We received a room offer, stored much of the luggage and returned to the car. The second thing to do is to find something to eat. My family and I overwhelmingly preferred to eat Vietnamese food because it was part of our identity, and we were accustomed to its taste. So, I had to find a Vietnamese restaurant in Miami, which was difficult. The first one I tried was (I forgot), and it didn’t appear in person, even with Apple Maps helping me on them. The second one did work (Pho Tam Tam or something like that), but the food, although presented well, tasted terrible to me. And after I finished eating there, my parents agreed that the food was awful, and we went home. It was day one in Miami.

On the second day, we went to the Vizcaya Museum, a few minutes south of the hotel, and it was lovely. I didn’t find it more likeable and prosperous than Hearst Castle (they’re not comparable). The garden was beautiful, and I took some lovely photos. It was a very organised garden with fountains, many plants, waterways, and some passages. I even found a ship there. Then I went inside with my family, and the humidity was better. The palace was pretty nice and had an exciting history. There were several rooms and a bathroom with surprisingly modern ways of bathing at a bathroom (though some technology wasn’t adopted until the late 20th century).

One misconception I found was that the mansion was a historically Spanish settlement that used to be owned by various Spanish colonists and other people. It turned out to be a recent mansion built around 100 years ago where an executive of a farming company left Illinois for a house to stay in for a time of the year in Miami.

But after exploring the entirety of the museum, we left and went to a store for stuff, which consisted of sunscreen and other kinds of medicine. My family decided to go to Miami Beach, where we ate at W Hotels with some huge but good food. I like that a Spanish waiter was studying in Miami. Next, our family decided to go to a farm which turned out to be a shop. The shop was an hour from Miami, but the food was okay. The food was indigenous Vietnamese fruits and that kind of stuff. Initially, my mother considered Miami, a city with many Vietnamese people. Still, my father and I shot that down, feeling the Latino majority in the city. So, the farm was the only Vietnamese food place I’ve visited, and it wasn’t as good as in California.

But by this point, we didn’t like what we saw in Miami and went home. I didn’t do much other than relax and watch YouTube. The rest of the day went on as usual with the food and just going to bed.

The third day in Miami was the first time that we decided to explore Miami. The first thing we did was go to Miami Beach because I wanted to go to a park. At the park, I encountered my first big gripe there. When you park in Miami, you must pay using your phone and the QR code (I hope those Android users are okay with those, and I used an iPhone). After we parked our car, I scanned the QR code. There, I used the link to fill out the information and pay the parking fees, which were dirt cheap. But the park at Miami Beach has a parking spot where I cannot pay the fees. I inputted the information correctly, but the internet speed didn’t get the parking service to process appropriately. It kept sending me errors upon finally purchasing it. I asked my mother for help, but she couldn’t get it to work. I tried calling them, but they had no idea what I was talking about. Their website mentioned nothing about the issue I was facing. It was bad enough that we left the park shortly.

I was unsure why my dad wanted to take a city tour. But my dad said that it is the best use of our time.

The next destination was unusual: we entered a square at Miami Beach, consisting of restaurants, shops, and other businesses without car access. The first thing to find was a place to eat, and we found a steakhouse nearby. The server served the food outside, but the appetisers served tasted good. Meanwhile, a black guy from New Orleans asked my father whether my family was interested in a Miami tour. He was curious, and the black guy ordered a reservation for my family for around $50. I was unsure why my dad wanted to take a city tour. But my dad said that it is the best use of our time.

When I got on the city tour, I sat with my mother to protect her health. The tour bus went into Downtown Miami, and the first place for the discussion was the area with designer brand stores all around it. I’m probably the wrong person, but the designer area wasn’t for me because it’s a drug. I didn’t get off the bus to buy designer things there, and the bus didn’t open the doors and move on. The bus toured the Wynwood walls, which contained some beautiful artwork referencing landmarks surrounding Miami, famous people, and notable people in Miami. The place doesn’t have the same luxurious feeling as that designer area, but I found it excellent. The tour guide said that Miami is undergoing gentrification and it’s about to become a vast and magnificent city, vital to the development of the United States and becoming a prosperous city. After going around the Wynwood walls, the bus went through prominent neighbourhoods like Little Haiti, Little El Salvador, and Little Havana. The bus stopped at Little Havana, and the city rained instantly.

At Little Havana, I immediately noticed the smoky atmosphere and smell. I covered my nose, even with the mask on. The rest of the tourists didn’t seem to care, and the residents didn’t. There were places to sell cigarettes, gamble on cards, and stores for drugs. I wasn’t interested in anything but the terrible rain and the notable thunderstorm. I didn’t see the thunderstorm, but I could hear it. The tour guide moved to the other side, where I saw a shop nearby. I was nervous because the rain there was crazy, with a lot of thin and short water falling down the sky, but I did it anyway with my family. At the shop, there was coffee, but my family didn’t want to drink it. I stayed just outside the place because I couldn’t stand the smell of it. The people spent their time buying some random things there. At that point, the rain stopped, and after a while, the tour guide finished his remarkably long talk (around 15 minutes) with some owner and entered a bar. Immediately after going to a bar, an electric violinist played songs from a live speaker with some video in the background. My sister wanted to drink some juice, even though I wasn’t excited about it (due to the presence of alcohol), and I had to go to the bathroom. After ordering some juice for my sister and me, I found the juice to be sugary and generally okay. The tour guide finished chatting with the bar owner and headed the group to another shop. The tourists went there to buy clothes. Although my sister wanted to buy some clothes for herself, my family and I didn’t like that because our luggage had no space for extra clothes. I finished my juice and threw it away. I didn’t like Little Havanna a lot, but it’s my opinion. Again, I’m the wrong person to give you suggestions if you are interested in Miami.

After visiting Little Havanna, the tour bus arrived and headed the tour group to Bayside Marketplace. The place was similar to Pier 39 in San Fransisco. There, my family wanted to drink water very severely. We didn’t bring water from home because we knew the airport would either take them away or empty them of our water bottles. Before going on the field trip, my family brought two water bottles. But during the trip, my mother needed so much water due to health problems, and the two water bottles emptied quickly. So, when we went to Bayside Marketplace, we saw a smoothie place and went straight there. My mother wanted to buy water but couldn’t do it for some reason. So, she told me to order a water bottle from the smoothie place, but I didn’t know what to say. But eventually, we did buy a water bottle.

There were places to sell cigarettes, gamble on cards, and stores for drugs.

It didn’t matter, as the tour guide took us to a restaurant on the upper floor. We didn’t eat at the restaurant and immediately tried to find a dock for a tour of the seas (not a cruise, as the time was supposed to be 2 hours). Before we found a port, I had to go to the restroom, which took longer to find, and I found the bathroom signs to be misleading. My mother and my sister found a dock, which was reserved at 4:30 pm (it was 3:45 pm when they found it).

Some minutes later, my family and I got on the boat and began the boat tour. The boat tour was nothing special for me. It toured the wealthiest neighbourhood in Miami, containing celebrities (Rihanna has a house there) and notable people contributing a considerable part to the city itself. This neighbourhood was on an island separate from Miami and Miami Beach. Tom Cruise had a massive apartment in another area on another island, the richest in Miami. Throughout these houses, I took pictures of them with my DSLR, which wasn’t the best. I sat so far back that the bars on top were on focus, and there were people on the way. The mansions were so far away that the camera couldn’t focus on them appropriately. But it was too late, and the boat returned to Bayside Marketplace port. After the boat tour, we went to the bus stop, ordered boba tea, and waited around 30 minutes for the tour bus to arrive. And when the tour bus arrived, my mother went to sleep, and the tour bus went to Miami Beach and arrived at the office. But that tour was it for the day. My family and I went to eat and came home.

It was the last of the three days at Miami. Enter the cruise.

This day was the first day of the cruise. Before going out, my family and I had already packed everything and did the forms for the cruise. One issue I found was that I couldn’t finish all the preliminary steps for the cruise. So, I called them, and they said it shouldn’t matter. We headed out to a bus, which was a black Toyota van. I thought the van was supposed to be an Uber, but the driver stepped off the car and called my mother’s name. He opened the vehicle’s rear trunk and provided more space than I’d anticipated. My father told me to put the luggage in vertical order, even though he and I didn’t know that the seats were only for my family. The van took us to Port Miami, an island between Miami and Miami Beach where the cruise ports were, including the one I’m going to.

MANY PEOPLE WERE ON THE LINE when I got to the cruise port. Seeing many people on the line overwhelmed me, and I had no idea what to do. My mother demanded that I hand her a water bottle, and she immediately went to the restroom. And my family got on the line. I even went to the toilet immediately after my mother went. My parents went to ask random people when the port would open due to needing to figure out what to do at the port entrance. After going to the restroom and getting some paper towels, I was on the phone for 30 minutes. Then, the port opened.

When the port opened, many people went there. My family has the boarding pass, so checking in the boat was quick and easy, with minor quirks. But then the ship didn’t open its doors, and it was time for me to be on the phone. Before long, the boat arrived, and I had to be lined up by section. I sat at the top-right corner of the boarding area, so I got to line up later than others. My father was interested in taking a photo shoot, which I didn’t get due to later reasons.

At first, there wasn’t much happening because I was standing on the dock. We didn’t care because we wanted to find our safety point in an emergency. After we did and met the employee, the employee requested us to see what was inside. Inside the cruise was a room that looked like a thriving hotel. But we didn’t care and decided to go onto dock 5 (level 5). Dock 5 was a flourishing marketplace that blew my socks up. It has a hotel-style check-in, a bar, shops, and eating places. Again, my family moved on and went to the other side of the cruise. The first dock was to go to the top end of the dock, which was dock 12.

At dock 12, the first thing I saw was the lounges there with a pool next door. My family decided to rest on them, and I listened to music. Some 10 minutes later, my mother told me I should go to the event at dock 4 to learn more about the ship. And there was a buffet that was about to open at around 12. So, my family went to the other end of the boat, including all the outdoor places to eat. The buffet was at the Windjammer Cafe, included in the cruise trip. I tried like every food, much to the disappointment of my family, and found much of the food okay. After the buffet, we returned to where we once were, at the seats, until 1:30 pm.

At 1:30 pm, some speakers sounded off, and some people said that the rooms were now available. I looked at my phone to find my room number. I realised that we have to go up a dock level. The first thing I had to see was the room, which wasn’t there. My family and I had to go to the other side to find a space. Eventually, I did, and the first thing I saw was just one bed. But my mother has a theory that a couch right next to the bed can be turned into a bed and decided to give it a shot. It took a while for my family to set up a bed on a couch, but we eventually did. Oh yeah, I haven’t told you about that event at dock 4. Well, my mother and I decided to go there.

The event was different from what I expected, in a wrong way. The event has a South African host who advertises the cruise and the company. My mother and I have a paper about Nassau, Bahamas and the stuff to do there. But my mother and I weren’t impressed, because it was an advertisement.

After leaving the event, I decided to try out the stuff at dock 13, which included the barely functioning arcade. So, I decided to go to my room.

The rest of the day, I didn’t do much. I went to the dining hall and ate some slightly above-average food. The cruise plan included the dining hall, and the theme changed daily. So for today, I get to eat steak and Southern American food (no, not from Brazil or Argentina). After that, I decided to stay in my room until I saw something called teens meet up.

I went to the teens meet up late at night in a room I didn’t remember. There, I found a group of boys playing Madden on the PS4. And a person was playing Need For Speed on another PS4. Then, a Switch played some game, which turned into Mario Kart. So, I decided to go to the Switch one, took the Joycons out of them, and played a practice round of Mario Circuit. Since I don’t play a lot of Mario Kart, I forgot many of the controls. Around this time, a boy came and watched me play. He asked me if he could play, and I immediately said yes.

He was Xander (or what I can recall) and was about to start high school. He didn’t play Mario Kart often. So, we forgot a lot of the controls. One technique I forgot was to place an item behind the kart so I could shield red shells. Although Xander has a Switch, he doesn’t play it that often. I said I would play Zelda all day if I had a Switch. I then asked him about his progress in high school, to which he responded that he took the most challenging courses available at a high school in Kentucky. Xander planned on taking whatever job accessible to him. Since I’m going to college soon, I can only give him general advice.

One problem I had when connecting to one of the Joycons was linking to them. Since I don’t have a Switch, I have to figure out how to connect one Joycon as a separate controller and disconnect from the two as one controller the Switch has been used to. It was one of the weird reasons why from the five rounds of Mario Kart, I was consistently in 1st place. I have to use one of the spare off JoyCons inside a box for Xander, and it didn’t take long for that JoyCon to be in low battery. Even charging the JoyCons can be a pain. Fortunately, I got one of the JoyCons connected. Xander and I played one more round of Mario Kart before the coordinator requested us to go up for a dodgeball game.

Xander and I went up for the dodgeball game and formed a team on one side. My team had more people than the others, even though the players were more diverse. By this point, the game started. I didn’t remember much, but I guess that I picked one ball along with another teammate. The other team got two balls. At first, the other group was super successful due to having better players. The other team kicked out a bunch of my teammates, including Xander and me. But eventually, it got to the point of my team having one player. I don’t know who was that one player, but that one player held their own against a group of student-athletes. Ultimately, my team lost this round, and the coordinator decided to make a second game. However, the coordinator wanted more players on the other team, which doesn’t make sense performance-wise, and my teammates knew that.

The next game went on as usual, but my team won this time. The fact that my team won gave us the confidence to win the dodgeball event. The final game happened, and my team proved the other team wrong with our massive team base and better shots. And that was the end of my first day on the cruise.

And that was the end of day 1 at the cruise

When I woke around 7, my family and I went downstairs to eat in the dining hall. There, the dining hall served us traditional breakfast food, which I went on a diet until my mother could not finish eating her ordered food. After breakfast, the cruise arrived at its first destination, a private island.

I went on a Royal Caribbean Cruise. On that cruise, there was a private island that the company owned. It was called CocoCay, and it was a glorified water theme park. There was a beach you could swim to, another pool just next to the beach with various shops. Those things were on the west side of the map. On the other side, there were the attractions. There were water slides, balloon flights, and that kind of stuff. I’ve never gone to these attractions because you must reserve them, and these reservations were stupidly expensive. But, I mean, you’re on a cruise. So, there’s nothing you can do. I even reserved my jet skiing spot, which cost me around $350.

I picked myself last

The jet ski was my first time riding on a jet ski. When I went there, I went to a room full of adults watching a tutorial on how to participate in the event. After the tutorial, the coordinator allowed us to get on any jet ski available on the dock with our assigned numbers. I picked the one on the far left, which was hot. Because I am a newbie on the jet ski, it took me a while to put my belongings on the storages in the jet ski.

Regarding the assigned numbers, I picked myself last because I just had to follow the water path and not worry about the other riders. So I have to wait for everyone to go and then I go. The jet ski was fantastic, and I have no issues riding the vehicle. It took some time for me to get used to because I sped it up to 40 miles per hour, and it felt fast. Sometimes, turning was quite tricky due to being on the water. But I had a great time after using the jet ski for an hour.

And my family decided to return to the cruise and repeated the day like yesterday. The water park was pretty good, and I had a fun time there. For the rest of the day, I don’t remember much other than watching television with my sister and then going to bed.

And that was the end of day 2 at the cruise.

The last day of the cruise was in Nassau, Bahamas. My family woke up at around 7, ate breakfast at the buffet, and headed to the Bahamas with the sunscreen on.

The first thing we noticed was a market filled with some brightly coloured buildings. However, my family and I didn’t care about the stuff sold there because we lacked space in our small carry-on luggage. The first thing my family decided to go to was a bus tour, which didn’t make sense to me. My father wanted to do a bus tour so to finish exploring the Bahamas. Some employees appeared and asked my family if we could take a bus tour. The employee advertised the cab as suitable for a family of four and had all the necessary medical supplies. My father didn’t want that and deceived them into demanding a bus tour. Unfortunately, the employee didn’t like that approach and left. I asked my father why he intentionally misled them, and he wanted the security of a bus.

We were disappointed and left the colourful marketplace. The rest of Nassau didn’t impress me, and it felt like a third-world country, a poor one at that. My mother said that the stores reminded exactly of Vietnamese shops. Some stuff intrigued my sister, even though we didn’t care about anything there. I took some pictures along the way but didn’t like many of them. We didn’t go through many buildings, so by this point, we decided to return on the cruise.

The Bahamas gave me an awful impression, much like Miami. It felt poorer, which wasn’t for me, and everything about it wasn’t for me. I would be uninterested in this country if it weren’t for the scandalous Sam Bankman-Fried. In fact, how can Sam Bankman-Fried would like to live there? I’m overthinking myself. I didn’t like how I could see a clear separation from the rich, colourful marketplace everywhere. The streets were filthy, I hated the smell, and the majority of the buildings looked poor.

I spent the rest of the day in some events around the cruise. At this point, I could list the events I participated in on the cruise, but I can only explain them at a surface level. Your mileage may vary. But before long, I went to bed with the rest of the family and could not wait for the cruise to return home.

And that was the end of day 3 at the cruise.

Back in Miami, our family stayed in a different room at the same hotel and rested for the time being. After taking a brief rest, my family wanted to go to eat. My mother wanted to eat at the same Pho restaurant, apparently at a different location. And when my family went to that location, we didn’t find the restaurant. My mother asked me whether I could make a reservation. However, the reservation was futile. So, my family went to Little Haiti by accident and went to Subway to eat, which was pretty good by my standards. After that, we headed back home. Our family had to pack everything for the flight and lead us home.

Going back home is my favourite part because at least I’m done staying in Miami. Being in Miami was not great, at least for me. I found that Miami has everything I dislike about vacation. It has terrible traffic (even though I’ve seen Los Angeles and San Francisco having worse traffic), required pay parking, humid climate, unpredictable weather, rotten food, and exorbitant costs. I haven’t mentioned the charges yet.

After eating at the restaurant, my family must pay employee benefits which can cost us up to $10. Our family didn’t see the need to pay restaurant workers all that money when they had already spent a tip for the food. The food was costly and tasted horrible for the benefit of overpaying the employees. It didn’t make much sense because I’ve seen more expensive foods in California and even higher living costs, especially in San Francisco.

The cruise wasn’t even better. It was worse. Every non-free venture and activity was costly. I wonder if an average middle-class American earns about the GDP per capita. Wifi didn’t make sense regarding the price, and our family must sacrifice it to save money. Drinks didn’t even make up for it, and we had to pay a plan for it, saving us a lot of money. During the evening of the cruise, my mother and I went to get a cup and make water with lemonade for medicine.

The forced-pay parking didn’t make sense to me. Since I left Miami a little over two weeks ago, I was worried about returning to California. I thought that California might go towards forced-pay parking. Even though the price was low, I must scan most parking spots. Not only was checking with my iPhone annoying, but there was also a real possibility that the parking service would not recognise or process the payment correctly. I had it once at Miami Beach, forcing us to cancel the trip.

The last thing I want to write about is that this vacation didn’t bring me much joy and peace after graduating high school. So, I didn’t get what I was looking for in Miami, including my family. Going to Miami made me more cautious about choosing a location for vacation. I’ve also learned what I like and dislike about holidays and what I want regarding a break. Lastly, I experience Miami and the cruise and don’t need to go there again.

It was my experience in Miami. Don’t get mad at me if you guys visited Miami or the Royal Caribbean Cruise and have a different opinion about the two. You can share your experiences in the comments below. I’ll see you later.