florida – Page 2 – Wanderlist Vacations

Oasis of the Seas: Day 1 Recap!

Our first cruise on Royal Caribbean in 8 years has us on the Oasis of the Seas for 7 days, and I have just one thing to say:

(Donald Trump voice) This ship is huuuuuuuge.

Having never set foot on any Oasis class ship before (outside of a very short tour Jen got to do of this one last year), we really weren’t sure what to expect as far as boarding goes. Boy were we shocked. We arrived at the port right around 11am, and by 11:25 were onboard the ship. A ship this size obviously requires a set boarding procedure, and Royal delivers in that regard. Here’s pretty much how it went:

Arrive at the terminal
Proceed through security screening
Go through check-in. We had priority check-in, but didn’t need it. No line at all.
Follow the signs and staff directions to Gold seating, at which point they tell you where to sit (no empty seats for bags appear to be allowed, BTW)
Here we waited maybe 10min before they started boarding our section
Walk up the gangway and get on the ship.

Like I said, 25min start to finish. Easily the most efficient boarding procedure we’ve seen on any ship to date, and got us here in record time:

After boarding, we took a walk down the Royal Promenade and stopped to sign up for beverage packages. We got one soda-only, and one Royal Replenish. We’ll see if they end up being worth it, but one of the nice things about this ship is the presence of Coke Freestyle machines, so we can a variety of sodas. So far, the lines at them have been hit or miss. There are a couple on each side of Windjammer, and a couple down by Sorrentos, with those being the busiest so far.

Anyway, after purchasing the drink packages and walking around the boardwalk area, we headed up to Windjammer to get some lunch. Fortunately, we arrived just as it opened, and were the first people in. Shortly after, the place filled up, and they started queuing people outside, forcing them to wait until there were tables available, so take that as a tip, if you’re hungry, head there right away or you could end up waiting a while. The food itself was pretty good for buffet food, too.

After lunch we did some more exploring, heading to the pool and then down to Central Park before the rooms were ready. That was a mistake while carrying a bunch of heavy bags, as Central Park can get really humid due to the design (open-air, no wind at all). Fortunately, 1pm arrived pretty quick, and we headed to our room to drop our bags and relax. For this ship, we chose a boardwalk balcony on deck 12 at the back of the ship (12729), as the ability to watch the shows at the Aqua Theater sounded intriguing. The cabin itself is a bit tight, and I’m not sure how you could fit all of the stuff a full family of 4 might bring, as the 3 of us had a fun time trying to organize our stuff, but we made it work. Our cabin steward had put up the birthday decorations I’d ordered for Jen, too, so that was a nice surprise for her when we got to the cabin. Here are a few pics of it, along with the view you get of the boardwalk and Aqua Theater:

The rest of the afternoon pretty much consisted of more exploring and some unpacking. We had early seating at dinner, so we headed down at 6pm and were promptly seated. So far, MDR service is much better than the MDR on the Divina, a welcome change. The food was just as good as we remembered, with my prime rib being outstanding. Interestingly enough, I was also given a survey to fill out at the table on how my meat was. I’ve never seen that before, but was glad that they spot-check their work!

My only complaint about dinner was that something else I’d ordered, a birthday cake for Jen that was supposed to be delivered at dinner, wasn’t there. I spoke to the waiter about it afterward and he said he’d never gotten any notification about one, but that he’d take care of it and will have it there tonight. I’ve heard about Royal “forgetting” various items people pre-ordered recently, so was disappointed to experience this myself. It’d give me pause about ordering anything from their catalog for clients.

We’d set show reservations up well ahead of the cruise, but already had one change that impacted the first evening. We had been booked for Cats at 2:30pm on the first sea day, but that show got cancelled, so they moved us to the 8:45 show on boarding day. After dinner, we headed back to the room to change, and before leaving for Cats, hung out on our balcony a bit to watch the opening show in the Aqua Theater. Really cool stuff, and it’s awesome to be able to hang out in the room and watch stuff like this:

After that ended, we headed to Cats. I’ll preface all of this by saying that I’m not in to musicals. At all. There’s the rare exception every now and then, but this is not one of them. I can see why Royal’s having trouble keeping the theater filled for this, and it’s not because of the performers, they’re obviously talented, it’s 100% the play itself. I really don’t get the love-fest for it, and a lot of other people didn’t seem to either, as there were plenty of open seats at the start of the show, which only got worse over the course of the first act. At intermission, we left, as none of us could really take it anymore. I feel bad for the performers, as I’ve read that this isn’t a popular show on the Oasis. I can see why.

Our half-a-play over, Jen headed to the room while Bayley and I made one last pass of the ship. One thing that really stuck out, the Windjammer buffet closes at 9pm, so after that, your only free options appear to be Sorrentos and the café on 5. There are over 6000 passengers on the ship, but the main source of an evening snack closes at 9? Wow. Oh, and I should also mention that the pizza on Oasis doesn’t even come close to any of the 3 styles available on the MSC Divina. Sorrentos is more like me making pizza at home from scratch, and I think all of the pieces we tried were a bit undercooked. I’m really missing the Divina’s pizza right about now. Small issue though, we’re still on an awesome cruise ship, right?

That about covers day 1. More to come as our journey aboard the Oasis of the Seas continues!

Oh, and If you’re not following us on Instagram, Twitter, or Facebook, you’re missing out on some great shots of the ship!

Is the MSC Divina Right For You?

After cruising with MSC out of Miami twice in a three months, one thing stands out, and that’s the fact some people don’t seem to be doing their research before booking on the Divina, or their travel agents aren’t doing it for them :). Understanding the differences between the various lines is important, regardless of who you end up booking with. Proper expectations play a key role in one’s happiness with something as expensive as a vacation, so why would you book a cruise based simply on the best fare, and not at least partially on others’ experiences? I recognize that you can’t trust all reviews, but if you read enough of them, you can identify positive and negative patterns and learn to filter out the noise.

In MSC’s case, their first couple of seasons in the US really didn’t seem to go well, at least from the perspective of American passengers. I can’t really speak to that, as we didn’t get to experience the Divina before she returned in 2015, but we’ve heard and read that it was still set up in a far more European manner than it sounded like people here wanted or were expecting. I get that a line starting operation in another country should be familiar with their market and adjust accordingly, and by not doing so they turned some people off. Personally, I think it would have been interesting to give that a try. I’ve read a few posts and reviews about those first couple of seasons, but one of the fairest I’ve seen comes from someone I’ve referenced before, Scott Sanfilipo, who sailed before and after their adjustments, and recapped his 2014 experience right before sailing again in 2015 in this blog entry. It’s definitely worth a read before continuing here.

Some of the things he talked about from the 2014 season have changed, and some haven’t. Just know that even now, this is a different product than the contemporary US-based lines. This isn’t Carnival, Norwegian or Royal, it’s MSC and they have their own identity. I can’t emphasize this enough: When booking any cruise, don’t just look at the cost, know what you’re comfortable with, what you want, and what each line offers. When looking at the Divina, I think the main question potential passengers have to answer honestly is:

Are you comfortable in a melting pot?

The ship appeals to Europeans as well as Americans, and in talking to a family from Sweden on our Christmas sailing, it was easy to understand why. For them it came down to an affordable way to get a feel for Caribbean cruising. On some Divina sailings kids sail free, so they didn’t have to pay for either of their boys. I’m sure there are plenty of other reasons too, but along that same “melting pot” theme, there are things you need to be aware of and comfortable with:

You’ll be surrounded by people speaking in other languages, more so than any other U.S.-based cruise we’ve been on. It’s not something that concerns me (and most of the time I don’t even notice), but on both of our sailings we overheard people randomly complaining about it when talking to each other about how their cruise was going.
Ship announcements happen in something like 5 languages. This happens during anything from Bingo to the muster drill. Frankly, this got to be a pet peeve of mine. Not that it happens, but how often I’d hear a fellow American complaining about it as it was happening.

The other big complaint in this area we heard more than once was that the crew and passengers were noticeably rude. We didn’t get that vibe at all. There are both rude and friendly people in all cultures, and frankly we didn’t see any more line cutting or rude attitudes out of passengers on the Divina than we’ve seen out of our fellow Americans on other sailings.

Some of the other big differences (good and bad) between MSC and the standard U.S. based lines that we noticed on our two sailings:

No sail-away party. Actually, we didn’t notice this because we normally aren’t up on deck for it on any sailing, but we did hear it from a couple of people who were disappointed by it.
No music constantly playing by the pool on the Divina. True, outside of music possibly playing when the entertainment staff is out there putting on events, I don’t recall constant blaring music by the pool all of the time. The one time I really appreciated this was on the last sailing. We were docked next to one of Carnival’s ships in Nassau, which was blasting canned music the entire time they were docked to an empty pool deck, while the Divina’s was quiet and peaceful.
There’s still work to be done in the Divina’s MDR. At Christmas, they really had too many tables crammed too close together and not enough staff to handle the load. Our waiters were all friendly, but really couldn’t keep up with the number of tables they had. Even though we weren’t in the MDR on the last sailing, we heard similar complaints from those who were. 8/2017 Update: As mentioned in a recent post, the MDR experience on our August 2017 sailing was vastly improved, so to us, it looks like MSC has taken customer feedback and made positive change here!
You get a more international selection of food in the MDR and Le Muse than you tend to on U.S.-based lines. Some meals were better than others, but it’s an interesting change of pace. One item I can’t rave about enough is the pizza. From a food aspect, I’d go back for that alone.
The included shows were better than our previous 5 sailings (3x Carnival, 1x Celebrity, 1x NCL). I’m looking forward to comparing it to the entertainment on the Oasis of the Seas later this month, as it’s been far too long since we’ve been on Royal Caribbean for me to objectively compare the two.
I’ve gone on a lot after both sailings about the Divina’s entertainment staff, and for good reason. They’re friendly, fun, and they know how to engage the passengers. We had plenty to do during sea days on both sailings. It was really nice to attend trivia without the same canned questions other lines use over and over, too. They’ve stuck in our memory far more than the entertainment staff on previous ships.

I think that about covers it. Really, it comes down to comfort level with a very diverse mix of passengers. I admit that before we sailed in December we were nervous after reading a lot of the reviews, but after both sailings, we’re quite happy we went. The differences made for some fun times, and we’ve enjoyed mixing things up and getting out of the comfort zone we’d built sailing on the contemporary lines. We look forward to the Seaside’s arrival next year and definitely plan to sail her.

For now, hopefully you’re more educated on what to expect from the Divina if you choose to sail with MSC! If you have any questions, feel free to ask in the comments and I’ll respond as time permits!

MSC Divina – Debark and Final Thoughts on Yacht Club

After some debate on the way home, I’ve decided to split my final MSC-related post of this trip in to two. This one will focus solely on our final thoughts about this sailing, while my next will be more of a comparison of the MSC experience to that of some of the more typical cruise lines that sail from US ports.

Starting with disembarkation, it went pretty smoothly once again. On our Christmas sailing, I was pretty impressed with how easily we got off, but the Yacht Club experience was obviously better yet again. Instead of having to deal with crowds getting to either the buffet or MDR for one last breakfast, we packed up and headed down the hall to Top Sail to grab something off of the buffet in there. Talking to a couple of friends who were also in Yacht Club, The One Pool was open for breakfast as well, with the same hot foods I’d eaten the previous two days. We’d planned on going to Le Muse, but were pretty tired when we got up, and none of us were really hungry enough to justify the walk. I’m sure it was delicious!

After eating a little bit in Top Sail, we went over to the concierge desk to get one last butler escort off the ship. They called Jacques, who came over and escorted 5 of us off the ship:

The escort off was an interesting experience. He led us down the elevator, through Piazza del Doge and the casino, and then into a small passageway that was closed off. As we came out, we were right at the front of one of the debark lines, cutting directly in front of the passengers waiting to get off. That marked the first time I really felt uncomfortable with any of the YC benefits, as I’m not big into cutting in line.

After the walk off, we headed to baggage claim, where our bags were already off the belt and waiting. All in all, it might have been 20-30 minutes from the time we left the concierge on 15 until we were at our car in the parking garage. Very, very smooth.

Moving on to final thoughts on the sailing, the short version is that we had an absolute blast this past week. While we had fun in December and enjoyed everything MSC had to offer under the Bella experience, the differences between that and Yacht Club cannot be understated. From the little things, like the sliding door that opens and allows you in to Yacht Club when you slide your ship card:

(be sure to hit the play button)

To the bigger things, like the far more relaxing private pool area:

The differences made the added cost totally worth it to us, and really are too much to list in a single post, so I recommend reading about them on MSC’s site. The service was better, the food was better, and all of the added perks and private areas made it a more relaxing cruise for all three of us. All of that should be expected, considering the gap in cost to move up to Yacht Club, but I felt it important to call it out, as we felt they nailed it. Here’s our full list of positives and negatives from this sailing:

Positives:

The lack of smoking, as called out last time, too. As non-smokers, this is a huge draw for us, especially in the casino.
Our butler Jacques and his assistant were outstanding. They always had smiles on their faces, would stop to chat with us, and were always receptive to anything we needed. Far better cabin experience than last time.
The private Yacht Club areas: I wasn’t sure what to expect here, as I generally don’t like sitting around in more subdued areas and was concerned I’d get bored pretty easily. That wasn’t the case at all, Frankly, I loved having Top Sail and The One Pool available whenever we wanted to use them. They were never crowded when we were in either, and we didn’t have to deal with people yelling or running around. Much more peaceful.
Also a Yacht Club exclusive, not having to pay for drinks: This only applies in Yacht Club areas, but we never felt the need to buy as much as a soda in the main areas because we always had the option of grabbing something (Alcoholic or non) from Top Sail, the One Pool, or even our own mini-bar, since those drinks and snacks are included in the cost, too.
The butler escort on and off the ship when in port was excellent. With the line to get off in St Thomas last time ridiculously long (and we waited at least a half hour *after* it started to go down), having that service this time and being able to get off with no wait was a very nice touch.
Our cabin was nice, and a pretty good size for the three of us. We were in 15028, a shorter YC1 than most, but as mentioned before, what you lose in length, you gain in width. There are only 4 of these on our floor, and 4 on 16, and if we’d been in a normal YC1, it would have been much closer quarters (and we’d have had a much narrower balcony, as shown here). Check the deck plans for deck 15 and deck 16 to see where these wider ones are.
Pizza delivery to the room at no added cost was cool, too. You call the concierge, they call down to La Cantina di Bacco and order what you want, and a little while later, one of the butlers delivers your pie. All pizza we’ve had on this ship is amazing. Best pizza at sea!
All of the children we encountered in Yacht Club were very well behaved. Every age group was represented, and at no time were any of them loud, running around in places they shouldn’t have been (restaurants, Top Sail, etc) or out of control. A very stark difference compared to walking around the main buffet or pool areas.
Le Muse: We’ve never eaten in a main dining room so often on a ship. I think we ate there for lunch almost every day and did so for every dinner, and one breakfast. The food was really good for the most part (best burger on the ship, too), and the service far exceeded that of the regular MDR. I don’t think any meal took longer than 1.5 hours, while the MDR on our last sailing could exceed 2-2.5 hours for the same 3-course meal due to how overworked the servers in Black Crab appeared to be. Service in Le Muse was outstanding, from the maitre d’, to our waiter and assistant waiter. It’s also a much smaller setting, and as such has a far more relaxing feel to it.
The entertainment: Once again, MSC delivers. With the shows being mostly the same as last sailing, we only attended a few, focusing on the ones with acrobatics (The Mask, the Paris show, TI, and the Michael Jackson tribute). All were excellent once again.
The entertainment team: Just as good, if not better than last time. Most of the team from December were still there last week, which we were happy to see, as they all look like they’re truly having fun, and work really well together. There are plenty of activities throughout the day, as well. Things like trivia, Scattergories, Taboo, Jenga, and even a few pool games that you’d see on the more American lines (belly flop contest, Mr sexy legs, etc). The entertainment team is a definite highlight of the Divina experience for us.
On both cruises, one of the cleanest ships we’ve sailed on. They are always working to ensure the public areas remain clean, and it shows.

Negatives:

The only Yacht Club area we were iffy on was the concierge desk. Most of the time they were helpful, but on occasion, appeared to be throwing attitude. As an example, on one of our pizza orders, she asked why we were ordering again so soon, having just ordered a pizza an hour earlier. Yea, that wasn’t us. Someone two doors down had ordered one, and for some reason she thought it was us and gave Bayley some attitude in the process.
It would have been nice to have reserved seating in the shows for Yacht Club like some other lines do for suite guests. With the quality of the shows on the ship, getting good seats means getting there pretty early without any reserved seating.
The soft-serve ice cream dispensers were an issue yet again. Only open from 2pm-5pm daily (but closed at least 30min early on two days), I’d hope they’d be well maintained. On both sailings, this wasn’t the case. Most times we stopped, it was all too soft to be edible, only two of four machines on each side were open, and they were totally messy. This is one area where there more contemporary lines do a much better job.
Better internet speeds: On both sailings, speeds were better than what we saw on the Norwegian Escape last November, but uploading anything other than simple pictures or text was painfully slow. Because I’m constantly posting pictures and the occasional blog post (and sharing time with Bayley and Jen), I tend to buy as much time as we can, but I heard a guy at lunch complaining how slow it was for even basic email, to the point he was on his second $50 package. Do not underestimate how much time you need, because the packages appear to be more expensive on-board than they are if you buy them in advance or on the first day. On day 5, the login page showed the 24-hour package at $199, whereas I paid $120 for it by buying in advance. You can see Scott Sanfilippo’s screenshots from the same page on day 1 of his sailing here and here, showing the same prices I saw (and paid) online prior to sailing. Compare that to what the login page looked like on day 5, and ouch. No way.

Well, I think that about covers it for this trip. We really enjoyed our time in Yacht Club, and look forward to sailing in this level again when the MSC Seaside arrives in late 2017! Hope you’ve enjoyed reading these posts and found them helpful! If you missed any from this sailing, you can find them all here:

http://blog.wanderlistvaca.com/tag/mscdivinasb16/

Or if you want to see how things compared to our Bella experience on the Divina, those are available here:

http://blog.wanderlistvaca.com/tag/mscdivina1215/

MSC Divina – Day 1 in Yacht Club!

Here we are again aboard the MSC Divina, this time for spring break! It’s a first for us in a couple of ways; it’s the first time we’ve sailed on a ship we’ve already been on, and it’s also the first time we’ve sailed in a suite. When the deal showed up a couple of months ago, we decided to give it a shot and sail in one of the Yacht Club YC1 suites, even though we did this exact itinerary over Christmas. The big question, how is it so far?

Awesome 🙂

If you’ve been following our posts on Instagram, you’ve seen the pictures, but overall embarkation was a breeze. We arrived at the port and took our luggage over to the small grey Yacht Club tent near the entrance to the terminal:

On arrival, the dedicated porter had us remove our original luggage tags (would have been nice to know we didn’t need to print those) and he replaced them with grey almost airline looking tags that had our cabin number on them. A couple of minutes later, a shore-side butler arrived to escort us to the ship. With none of the normal waiting in line, he walked us through security (yes, you still get scanned and go through metal detectors, you just don’t have to wait), and into a separate Yacht Club check-in area. On arrival in here, he offered us water, champagne or wine while we checked in. We spent no more than 5 or so minutes in here getting our key cards before he escorted us to the gangway. All a very nice touch. We did stop for the obligatory boarding pic, which was optional, and then when we approached the actual boarding gangway he handed us off to one of the on-board butlers who then escorted us up to the Yacht Club concierge.

On the Divina, the concierge is located in the YC area on deck 15 forward, right near the dedicated Top Sail lounge. Arriving here, you check in with the concierge, who explains a few things about what Yacht Club offers, then hands you off to the Maitre D, who sets you up with a time in the Yacht Club’s dedicated restaurant, Le Muse. Somewhere in here, you’ve also been introduced to your actual butler, and for us, he was waiting to introduce himself and escort us to our cabin as soon as we finished.

I’ll take a second to add that it’s an odd experience being led through the terminal and ship by a butler as the passengers look on. You get a lot of curious looks, and in one case as he cut through one line in the terminal, a “seriously?” from some teenager we walked past. It wasn’t something I really felt a pressing need to experience up to now, but I’m certainly going to enjoy it for this week :).

Okay, so after we got settled we decided to grab some lunch. There are a couple of options for Yacht Club guests. You can always eat at the regular buffet, but where’s the fun in that? Figuring we might as well enjoy our ammenities, we decided to check out the Yacht Club’s restaurant, Le Muse. This is at the opposite end of the ship on deck 15, and after finally figuring out where the entrance was, we were seated. It’s a much smaller restaurant than the traditional MDR, and maybe seats 100 people. For lunch they offer the full muti-course meal, and the food quality in here at both lunch and dinner was definitely better than we remember the Divina’s regular MDR being over Christmas. The highlight of lunch for me was the dessert, a Nutella/chocolate pastry dish that was awesome. One of the people seated at the table next to us had the burger, which looked far better than the buffet burger, and he said it was really good.

After lunch, we spent out time relaxing. This is the first time we’ve repeated a ship, and it felt somewhat odd. Normally we’re up and wandering all over the ship locating everything and taking pictures, but knowing how the Divina is laid out, only wandered looking to see if we spotted any of the entertainment staff from the last sailing (more on that later). After a short walk across decks 6 and 7, we headed back up and relaxed in the Top Sail lounge, which is in the Yacht Club area, and offers a 180 degree view out the front of the ship. When you’re in the YC area, you get free drinks (including some spirits, with a few top-shelf offerings costing a littl more), so I had a Coke while Bayley had a Pina Colada, sans alcohol. In Top Sail, there’s also a small buffet that offers some finger food and small desserts in case you’re looking for a snack.

After relaxing in the lounge, we headed back to the room to rest for a bit. Dinner was still a couple of hours away, but the muster drill wasn’t, so we just hung out in the room until that happened. The room itself is a category YC1, but it’s one of the wider ones on 15. It does trade a little depth for the width, but overall we really like it, and that extra width definitely makes it feel more roomy. Another nice feature of Yacht Club is that everything in your mini-bar is included in the cost (all drinks and snack), as is the bottle of champagne they give you on day 1 to welcome you aboard. As you take from your mini-bar, it’s refilled by your butler. I did enjoy a little champagne :). A quick shot of our cabin, 15028:

Dinner wasn’t too far behind the muster drill, but by that time, Jen’s suitcase still hand’t arrived, so she went to dinner wearing what she boarded with, which was no biggie. Dinner was excellent, with a completely different menu from the MDR from what we saw. I had a nice little chorrizo-based appetizer, a vegetarian lasagna, and this awesome little hot and cold chocolate coconut dessert that was very delicious:

After dinner, we went back to the cabin, expecting to find Jen’s suitcase there. No such luck, so she headed back to the concierge to find out what was up. After a bit of a hunt, they found it in the Yacht Club office on our deck. Apparently it’d been tagged by security, but we never found out why. Must have been the cans of sunscreen, as there was nothing electric in it. That issue aside, we relaxed and unpacked, then hung out in Top Sail for a bit drinking a few Bayleys Alexanders before heading to the Black and Blue lounge for Majority Rules with the entertainment staff at 10:45. We were very happy to see that most of them were still here, as we still feel this is the best entertainment staff we’ve ever had on a cruise, and several of them recognized us and stopped to chat! The game itself was a blast, as usual.

All in all a fun embarkation day, with Yacht Club making it feel like an entirely different cruise. Yes, we’re sailing the same itinerary, but this is a totally different experience, and we’re really enjoying it so far. Can’t wait to see what’s on tap for the first sea day!

Be sure to follow us on Instagram, Twitter or Facebook as we’ll be posting a bunch of pictures along the way!

A Weekend at the 2016 Grand Prix of St Pete

Last week I took a few days off and headed down to Florida to hang out with the kid. This wasn’t just any random trip, however, it’s one we’ve been planning for a few months now. Her school is about 10 minutes from the location of the IndyCar season opener, the Grand Prix of St Petersburg, and being big IndyCar fans, seemed like the perfect location to blow my annual racing budget. There’s nothing better than a street race, and mid-March in St Pete seemed about perfect.

Since she already had a place to stay, I just needed somewhere for me to sleep. Looking at the hotel situation back in early January, I could see I was going to have to get creative. Many of the downtown hotels were near capacity, and the cheapest rates I was finding started at ~$200/night for what are normally low budget hotels, climbing to over $400/night for the 3 and 4 star stuff. That just wasn’t going to work. After a quick search on Airbnb, I found a perfect little studio-ish apartment for 1 that was easily within walking distance from the track. Great, quiet little place with parking that wasn’t more than a 10min walk to the track’s gates, all for a total cost of what the average one night hotel stay in downtown would be.

I drove down Wednesday, with an overnight stop in Ocala so I could arrive in downtown St Pete on Thursday morning. My timing was intentional, as (with a huge amount of help from someone at IndyCar) I’d managed to secure an early birthday present for Bayley, a ride around the track in one of the two-seaters on Thursday at noon. I got in around 10am Thursday just to scout things out, and quickly realized that St Pete doesn’t do things like Baltimore did. At those races, the track and paddock areas weren’t closed in on Thursday, you could walk around pretty freely and check out the activity as the IndyCar and support series teams were unloading the transporters. At St Pete, the track is totally enclosed by Thursday morning, and unless you’ve got a reason to be in there, it’s not happening. A shame if you ask me, as we saw a lot of locals in Baltimore walking around and checking things out. It’s the kind of thing that could possibly draw interest from people who hadn’t planned on buying tickets, if you ask me.

Bayley got in to downtown about 11am and met up with me at a parking garage near the track. After a short walk back to the entrance gate, we presented her IndyCar Experience ticket and walked back to the area near pit exit where the IndyCar Experience haulers were located. Check-in was pretty quick, and gave us a few minutes to relax while we waited for the event to start. While walking around right there, we saw both Mario Andretti and Davey Hamilton come over, both of whom were drivers for the experience. A few shots from prior to her ride:

After everyone was ready, they walked them across pit exit to where the 3 two-seaters were set up between turns 1 and 2. Everyone already had their fire suits on, but were given headsocks and helmets. Bayley went out in the first group of three, with Davey Hamilton driving her car. Being in that first group proved to be a lucky thing, as for whatever reason, they did two laps, not the usual one lap the groups behind them got. After getting back and hopping out of the car, I could see by the look on her face she had an absolute blast. Again, I can’t thank IndyCar enough for setting this up for us at the last minute. Without giving anything away, I’d like to send a huge thank you to a few key people over there (you know who you are :)). A really special gesture that neither of us will soon forget.

Friday morning started with me walking the track alone as soon as the gates opened. A good friend of Bayley’s had been in town all week, heading back to her school early afternoon that day, so it gave me a chance to check things out, having never been to this race. For this one, I’d bought grandstand seats near the top of GS 23, which is in turn 10 (here’s the track map for reference), and had also purchased both pit and paddock passes for us. To me, paddock passes are a must for any race, as it gives you closer access to the teams and drivers. We’ve had it for every race (both IndyCar and IMSA) we’ve been to, but this was the first time she was old enough for actual pit passes (generally have to be 18), so I spent the extra money on those, too. Well worth the added cost in my opinion, but more on that later.

Walking around, I found the atmosphere to be pretty much what I expected, sort of a street carnival setup on the inside of the track, with a lot of food, drink, and other vendors all over the track. Plenty of race viewing areas for general admission ticket holders, too. I walked up to our grandstands to see how good the seats were, and was pleasantly surprised at the view, as GS23 provides a great look at the straight coming in to turn 10 and on to Dan Wheldon Way:

After watching some of the USF200 and Pro Mazda practice, I headed across the pedestrian bridge to the paddock area for the Pirelli World Challenge and Indy Lights teams. Both had track time coming up, and as I got over there, the Lights teams were already heading to pit lane for morning practice. All of the Pirelli teams were hard at work, however, as they had GT, GTA, and GT Cup qualifying after Lights was done with practice.

After a short walk through the pits during Pirelli qualifying, I headed out to meet Bayley and her friend for a late breakfast. They were headed to the airport after that, so I ended up getting a little more track time by myself before Bayley made it over a little after noon. We spent the day enjoying the pits, walking the various paddock areas, and even taking in something we’d never seen live before, the practice session for the Stadium Super Truck series. Wow. Those things are so cool to watch in person. We hung out near our grandstands for them, as they had a ramp set up just outside of turn 10, in full view of our seats. They raced both Saturday and Sunday, and we made sure to catch both races, those things are cool, just hit play on the video below to check em out:

The weekend was pretty much the same activity on our part both Saturday and Sunday, meaning we spent a lot of time walking the paddock, pits and enjoying some activity from our seats, but the highlights pretty much revolved around those pit passes. They weren’t cheap (especially since they required purchasing grandstand seats), but they were worth every penny in our opinion. They give you access to the pits pretty much any time other than the actual IndyCar race on Sunday. We watched practice and portions of races for the various support series from pit lane, as well as all IndyCar practices and qualifying. It’s so much fun to be standing right there watching the teams work. The walkway between the team equipment areas and front-straight grandstands is pretty narrow, too, so you really have to be cognizant of what’s going on around you, too. Teams have a job to do, and need to be able to get up and down that lane on their carts to shuttle parts and equipment between the pits and transporters.

One cool thing were the pit lane monitors they put up every few pit stalls. During practice and qualifying, it allowed us an easy way to keep current on how things were going on track. We were also constantly running in to drivers and owners walking around down there. The highlight of our time in the pits had to be during the IndyCar pre-race, however. For those with pit access, you can go out on to pit road for the grid walk, checking out all the last minute activity going on, this time from the other side of pit wall. It was pretty cool, and we even ended up on camera during pre-race. We’re standing on the left hand side over Allen Bestwick’s shoulder. Next to that screenshot is a pic I took of them a second before:

Here are a few grid -walk pictures, as well:

After all of the drivers have arrived following introductions, they start to move out anyone who doesn’t have a team related hard card or a “race mode” tag on their pit pass. Even though we had neither, we did manage to hang out on pit lane for the start of the race and the first few laps before they finally noticed and sent us on our way. Here are a few shots I got prior to getting kicked out of the pits, including one of an early stop by Hinchcliffe after he suffered a cut tire:

We did head to our grandstand after that, watching the rest of the race from our seats. We had a great view from GS23, but next time we have to figure out how to get hot-passes, as I think we’d have both preferred the excitement of watching all the activity from pit lane!

This is the 3rd different street course we’ve been to together for an IndyCar race (having done Long Beach and Baltimore as well) and it certainly didn’t disappoint. The city and race organizers definitely know how to put on a good show, and should we get the chance next year, we’ll definitely be back. I’d hoped to make the inaugural Boston Grand Prix in September, but I’m pretty sure I’ve blown my racing budget for the year. It was all money well spent though, a truly amazing weekend hanging out with Bayley watching something we both love 🙂

Here are a few shots of Bayley with some of our favorite drivers. For more, including a few video clips, check out my personal Instagram feed and all of the pictures I’ve posted on our SmugMug site, they’re both full of stuff from the weekend.

Oh, and congrats to JPM, heck of a drive to win that race!

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