This trip was planned and canceled more times than you can count. My former neighbors and I had been planning some iteration of this mom’s weekend for at least a couple of years. When two of us moved – one to Massachusetts, me to Colorado – while the other two stayed in Arizona, we knew not only picking a weekend would be tough, but so would deciding on a destination.
Kelli, in Massachusetts, wanted something on the East Coast, while Myra, Diana and I were pushing for West Coast. We tentatively agreed on Puerto Rico or the Bahamas until both were hit by Hurricane Maria so we took them off the table. Kelli kept pushing for Florida, and the rest of us kept saying no. We finally agreed on centrally located Nashville, picked a weekend and were set to go, but it didn’t feel right. It wasn’t a beach and we wanted a beach, so our weekend got scraped once again.
We decided we had to pick a destination and stick to it. Kelli’s vote eventually won and Florida became our place. I had one request – not Miami. Been there, done that. One of the husbands recommended West Palm Beach, where I have also been and done, but I’ve always wanted to stay at The Breakers, so West Palm Beach it was.
What We Did
First of all, we flew into the wrong airport. There were four moms – logistical wizards and all international travelers – and not one of us researched which airport was closest to our hotel. We all assumed it was Fort Lauderdale, and went with it. It wasn’t. Florida has a lot of airports and Palm Beach has its own. An International one, too! You’re welcome.
The Arizona crew missed their connecting flight because they were “working on their computers” and not paying attention {aka having drinks and talking.} They almost spent the night in Charlotte, but were able to get stand-by on another flight.
Next, we didn’t plan how we were getting from the airport to the hotel. Maybe if we had researched this part of the trip we would’ve discovered we were using the wrong airport. A volunteer at the airport who didn’t know WTF she was talking about, told us to take the bus to the train, then take an Uber to the hotel. Sounded easy enough to us.
We got on the bus, which took us in the opposite direction to the Miami Airport, where we got the train, to the end of the line, which was in the hood, where we thought we were going to be human trafficked and sold for parts. Thankfully our Uber driver was normal.
By the time we got to the hotel, we were hungry and we all needed three drinks. The next day, we hung out at the beach and at the pool and then we went to dinner, drinks, and dancing.
Saturday was a repeat of Friday – beach and pool – only we got carried away at the pool and drank too much rum punch. We finally made it to dinner, but it was such a shit show, I don’t even want to talk about it. We’re pretending this part of the night never happened…
When we got back to the hotel, Kelli decided we needed to save the night, so we went down to the beach at midnight for an impromptu photo shoot with the amazing moon. We had the best time and thankfully, the night was saved!
Where We Stayed
While we wanted to stay at The Breakers, we didn’t want to give up our kids college educations for a weekend there. Diana found a hotel nearby, the Marriott Ocean Pointe in Palm Beach Shores. We referred to it as “The Breakers on a Budget.”
We had a one-bedroom suite, with a full kitchen which came in handy for ramen noodle making at 1 a.m. When we checked in, it was almost dark and we were really concerned about our water view. Our conversation with the guy at the front desk went something like this {all while we ate all the candy at the front desk because we were starving from our long journey}:
Us: “Does the room have a water view?”
Front Desk Guy: “Ummm, yes there’s water. Guests seem to enjoy the view.”
Us: “We mean ocean water, not a pool.”
Front Desk Guy: “Yes ocean water.”
Us: “Ok, thank you.”
He was right. It totally had a water view, and a cruise ship view, and a view of The Breakers.
It also had a pool view. There are a few different pools at the resort. A couple of main pools, and then our building also had its own pool, so we hung out at each of them. The main pool was busier and had more families, the smaller pool was quieter and had people trying to escape from their families. The rum punch was the same at both pools, however.
When we kept hearing, “It’s okay, security will drive you there” we started figuring out the surrounding area might not be that safe, but we took a walk to the liquor store where we got stuck in a rain storm and the only danger was from falling palm tree debris. We also walked back from dinner the second night and all was good. Besides the frogs in the storm drain which reminded us of IT.
Where We Ate/Drank
We mainly stayed at the hotel, but we did venture out a couple of times:
Seafood Bar at The Breakers – Several people told us we had to eat here. We drank champagne, ate yummy seafood, and made lots of new and interesting friends, because apparently, four women on a mom’s weekend in Florida are the equivalent of a unicorn. Make reservations ahead of time.
SeaSpray Inn – This was down the street from our hotel and we found it on one of our walks. We had brunch at their rooftop restaurant. It was totally stuck in the 80’s, but the pancakes were good and you can’t go wrong with rooftop dining. Unless it’s raining, which it was, so we ate inside and looked out the windows. The waitress was really sweet.
Hullabaloo – We drank Aperol Spritzes here {They look good and they’re all the rage in Europe, but they taste like crap. More like Aperol Shitz.}
Roxy’s Rooftop – We wanted to go dancing, so the bartender at Hullabaloo told us to go here. We didn’t stay long because it was late and we were tired. We went back to our hotel and drank wine and ate Ramen noodles which was way more fun than the club.
We made some glaring mistakes on this trip, but we laughed about it the entire time. We’re currently planning our 2019 mom’s weekend. Florida, we’ll meet again because I’m staying at The Breakers one of these days…
[…] my former neighbors and I went to West Palm Beach last year, we decided to make a girls weekend a yearly tradition. As we discovered with our last […]