Having disembarked the ship at Miami by 9am, we had 9 hours to kill before our flight home. We had therefore prebooked a city tour along with all the other Brits in the same situation. The beauty of it was that all our luggage was collected outside the terminal and stored for the day. We then piled onto the Big Red Bus- an open top double decker. The first part of the tour was to Miami Beach. There is an interesting stretch of buildings on the shore line which were built in the 1920s, called the Art Deco district. Most of them are hotels with eateries on the ground floor but the bus was a better way of seeing the architecture than walking. They are all the equivalent of our grade listed buildings and are not allowed to be changed. Further along Ocean Drive the hotels gradually become more modern. There is a large Jewish population in Miami Beach and therefore there is a Holocaust Memorial which was organised by a committee after the war and is still maintained by them. There are lots of stretches of water around the 3 main islands but they are all manmade. Apparently they are the only place where both alligators and crocodiles can be found. The houses on the islands can be reached by yachts and are owned by multi-billionaires. We did disembark the bus in Miami Beach as it was a hop on hop off arrangement and we wanted to go to the Wolfsonian museum. However once we got to it we found it was only open in the afternoons. Thus thwarted of culture we headed for the beach just for a look as we were dressed for heading back to rainy England and not for a hot sunny day. After a beer stop we hopped back on the bus back to the bus station. There are numerous shops and restaurants round the bay and we chose to go to Bubba Gump Shrimp for lunch. The clam chowder was very nice and we were glad we had asked for a cup of it rather than a bowl as the portion was large. I had fish and chips which was very nice but again too much. Stefan had a shrimp linguine which was fine but again too much. What we did eat was washed down with a bottle of wine and we ended up paying $100 dollars for the meal which includes the atrocious 15% service charge and 9% tax. After lunch we did the second part of the tour which was the City tour. There wasn't a huge amount to see but the guide was very amusing. Back at the bus station we still had some time before the airport shuttle which was also included in the deal, so we had yet another glass of wine on the bay. The last shuttle left at 4.45pm and all the Brits from the ship were on it. We were dropped right at the correct bit of the airport for Virgin Atlantic and had very little to wait before the check in desk opened. Cannot say anything good about the lounge which has wine but no food which is bad news when we have 3 hours to kill before the flight!

It has been a great holiday . We will definitely travel with Regent again in the future. It is December 18^th but have yet to get in the Christmas spirit. The hot sunny days seem to negate that. Couldn’t have Christmas in a hot country.