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Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
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For the last word on travel, Sarah Slattery from thetravelexpert.ie is going to tell us all about Miami in Florida, where she recently was. Sarah, thank you very much for joining us. Now, I suspect there's lots of people listening who have been to Orlando, mainly tourists. because of things like Disney World and Universal Studios, something I've done myself with my own family.
But why did you decide instead to go to Miami?
I was actually over at a travel conference in Fort Lauderdale and I'd never been to Miami.
Chapter 2: What makes Miami a unique travel destination?
And it's literally, it was 20 minutes in a taxi down. So I literally kind of last minute booked a two nights day just to see it. And I really, really liked it. I don't know what I was expecting. Obviously, I knew it was going to be kind of glitz and glamour and expensive and all those kind of cliches or things that you know about Miami. But I actually really liked exploring it.
Very, very easy to get around. And I think it actually would be a great add-on to somebody who is going to Orlando to go for it. You'd actually see so much in a short space of time, like two or three nights. It's also really, really popular with cruisers. Miami is, if not the biggest cruise port in the world, it's certainly one of them.
And for Irish holidaymakers cruising the Caribbean, you can't fly directly in and just go on the ship. You need to overnight anyway, the way the flights operate. So I think sometimes people just tended to overnight for one, you know, stay somewhere at the airport and get on the cruise the next day.
But I definitely would recommend staying an extra night or two and just explore Miami and just soaking up the atmosphere. It's really, really quite a cool place to visit.
You know, do you need a lot of money? Is it not very expensive? I mean, you say about the glitz and the glamour, other people would suggest maybe that's cheap and tacky, but whatever way, does it not require a lot of dollars to spend?
Well, funny, I expected it to be. I had heard eating out and that it was one of the most expensive cities, but I certainly didn't find it as expensive as Vegas. I would even say from a dining point of view, I found some really great value places to eat cheaper than New York. So I didn't actually see that.
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Chapter 3: Why should travelers consider Miami over Orlando?
Although, you know, I know Time magazine and lots of places would say it is the most expensive place. I suppose if you're kind of going to the top clubs and the top, you know, you know, restaurants, maybe, yes, you will pay an awful lot of money.
But there are really, particularly for people on a short break, like a cruise stay for a couple of nights, you can get around with free public transport. Like it's really, really cheap to get around and really, really easy to see everywhere.
Like we booked the hop on, hop off bus tour and there was only nine stops, you know, which kind of threw me a bit, you know, to go through all the different neighbourhoods. Like it's a big city, you know, but it doesn't feel that way. And you can actually see a lot and get around quite cheaply.
And there are, I found, kind of maybe more cheap eats than you'd get in some of the other American cities. That was my experience anyway.
OK, let's go through some of the things that you saw and did. Start with South Beach and Ocean Drive for me, please.
Yeah, that's, I suppose, the iconic place you have to go. In fact, I'd say if you can afford it, it's probably the cool place to stay as well, because I kind of thought it was just the beach area. But it's actually you've got Miami Beach is one big, long nine mile barrier kind of island and you've got South Beach, North Beach and Mid-Beach.
But South Beach is where kind of all the cool restaurants are. You've got Ocean Drive, then the lines, that whole strip of the beach with all the gorgeous Art Deco buildings. And it's just very, very cool place to hang out. Now, interestingly, you said tacky earlier. Like it does have, you know, some of these kind of happy hour bars.
And it reminds me a bit of a holiday resort, like in the Canaries or something, where they'd be asking you to come in and, you know, come into our restaurant, come into our bar, two for one happy hours, which I was a bit taken aback with.
because the Ferraris would be whizzing past like and you're going this is a bit tacky I couldn't really figure it out but it actually works it's still kind of it's in a cool sort of way it's kind of hard to explain but like that there was again prices were really surprised me you know we had lunch gorgeous jerk chicken pasta right on Ocean Drive watching the world go by and it
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Chapter 4: How affordable is Miami for tourists?
Now, we went in the morning time And I'd say it would be really good at night time. There was loads of bars when we were leaving. They were all kind of setting up their tables outside. There was salsa music blaring. And I'd say it would just be a really great atmosphere in the evening time. But, you know, worth going at any time.
Again, very kind of cool, gorgeous murals all over the place and just a real sort of completely different kind of Cuban feel, very different to the likes of South Beach. So definitely worth going and checking that out as well.
Okay, now if there was one thing, if I was ever there, that I would want to do, I think I'd be like, I don't know if you ever remember, MacLeod, I think was the name of the show, but booking an airboat tour in the Everglades.
Yeah, this is actually something you can do from Orlando as well. And it's usually about an hour long, really good for families. And those airboats that you see, that you'll have seen on movies and things like that, you literally go in search of alligators through the swamplands or the Everglades. And it's really, it's a lovely, I did this now myself, it's a really lovely thing to do.
Now, we didn't see any alligators, but we kind of spotted one, a few eyes in the distance. But it It's just a lovely day out anyway. And it's fabulous birds and, you know, hawks and all sorts of exciting wildlife that you do see as well. But it's just a nice experience. And it's a complete, just so different, I suppose, from the city life.
And even if you're in Orlando, I would say it's a nice thing to do. They usually get a kind of activity. They'll have rescued, these places will have rescued alligators as well. And you might get to see a little baby alligator or something like that when you get back after the tour.
So if you have a family going to Florida and you want a break from the theme parks, I'd say that's definitely a lovely thing to do.
If you're going there, how long does it take? Can you go directly, fly? How long does it take to get there?
Yeah, it's about nine, ten hours. I flew into Orlando. Actually, the Aer Lingus do fly three times a week from Dublin direct from the 25th of October to the end of March. So you can just fly directly to Miami or you can fly into Orlando and out of Miami. Orlando is year round. Now, I flew into Orlando and I got the train down, actually, the Brightline train, which was actually pretty cool.
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