Back to the future...in Florida

We started off our trip in Ft. Lauderdale. Having only been to Florida once...as a 5-year-old...I was looking forward to getting a taste of Florida even if only briefly. The hotel we stayed in was perfect.

It was a major chain and was selected for its proximity to both the airport and the ship port. When the airport shuttle dropped us off, we walked into...and almost accidentally through...the lobby. The room was living-room sized and had linoleum floors, a funky blue wavy wall, and two stark glass and metal podiums. Behind the podiums stood two hotel employees, all tan and hair-gelled up and somewhat eager to assist us.

When we got off the elevator on our floor, it was suddenly clear that the hotel was decorated in what I can best describe as Hipster '70s Retro. The carpeting was geometric with an emphasis on squares, the decorative vases were tall yet bulbous, the dark wood was faux, and the color scheme was dark brown, turquoise, and sea green. Our room had very clean, straight-lined chrome and brown furniture except for the round green fuzzy chair in the corner with the turquoise pillow, illuminated by a white glass swag lamp. The walls were turquoise, with one darker than the rest. This was undoubtedly to accent the bed's huge dark brown wood-ish headboard.

After taking it all in, we headed to the restaurant downstairs. The food was mediocre at best and we concluded afterwards that we might have done better to choose our one and only other proximate dining option: the Food Mart at the Chevron across the street. Beef jerky, Gatorade, BBQ Lays Potato Chips, and Funyons for everyone! Oh, well. Live and learn.

The restaurant was decorated in a different color scheme of crimson red, dark brown, and gold. The square tables were made from wood chips and saw dust encased in resin, and the overhead lights were clusters of round white vanity bulbs each housed in a clear glass votive. They looked like big clumps of illuminated cotton balls. During dinner I started having flashbacks to grade school, with tube socks and satin jackets and roller skates and embarrassing attempts at feathered hair. Yep, second only to smells, nothing jogs a memory like music. And yep, the hotel was piped throughout with a satellite radio station featuring “All Your Favorite Hits of the '70s!” Although both Rob and I were groovin' and stayin' alive the first time the '70s came around, we were surprised the hotel actually let us in. We are way not hip enough to be even posing as the trendy hipsters the Florida hoteliers were targeting.

I'm not sure why the hotel screamed SOUTH FLORIDA to me, but it did. It was hip, trendy, colorful, young but retro, friendly but a touch arrogant. With only hours to experience south Florida, and most of them asleep, I quite enjoyed my visit to both Ft. Lauderdale and 1978.