This feels a bit strange because since I’ve reached SNE I haven’t played a single hand of poker while last year I already grinded out 50.000 VPPs around this time. I’ve only logged on to PokerStars to check my new PokerStars Team: Online status and avatar and then I left for the airport. This is not a complaint, I do however look forward to get back to the grind but not before I’ve relaxed a couple of more days in this beautifull resort at the Bahamas.
On the 2nd of January I left for Orlando. Since the 1st of January there isn’t any direct connection anymore from Amsterdam so we had a stop-over at Newark. For the first time ever there wasn’t a long line at customs so we got into the USA pretty smooth. We arrived pretty late in Orlando but this was pretty convenient as we went to bed right away and when we woke up the next morning I didn’t feel jetlagged at all. Orlando is all about the amusement parks and we had selected Seaworld as our first pick. With the perfect weather and the relaxed atmosphere my holiday couldn’t start any better. We all really liked the park and I would recommended everybody to go there.
Our second pick was Universal Studios because I also really liked Universal Studios in Los Angeles. We bought a combo-ticket so we could also visit Adventure Island which is next to Universal Studios. Our first ride was a motion simulator with “The Simpsons” as theme, it was really awesome and I actually liked it more then being on a rollercoaster. After this great start all other attractions were pretty boring. We didn’t go into the extreme rollercoaster ride (as most people in our party are not big rollercoaster fans) but besides the “okay” mummy rollercoaster most attractions where pretty dull. We then visited the Adventure Island park which looked great but we weren’t really in the rollercoaster mood. We walked over to the just opened Harry Potter part of the park which was unbelievable crowded. There was a 2,5 hour queue to go into the castle and I’ve never seen so much people walking with merchandise. There was literally a 30min queue to get into the merchandise shops! The castle did look amazing and I think this park is more value for your money then Universal Studios is (not talking about the LA one). 
Our next visit was Miami South Beach. We stayed in the Albion hotel which is at the corner of Lincoln road. This is the shopping/dining area in south beach so we had a perfect spot. At check-in my room wasn’t ready yet so we went out for a walk at the beach to see what Miami is all about. I would love to stay a little longer next time as I really liked the beach and surrounding area. At the end of the afternoon we came back and got news that we got a small room upgrade. We actually got the biggest penthouse suite of the hotel, which was in the corner of the building as well so we had a two-way view from our separate living room, next to our balcony. The next day we drove to Sawgrass recreation park to spot some alligators with an airboat. Some people warned me that this would be pretty boring but I actually liked it very much. It was a 30min airboat trip which was enough to spot a couple of alligators and not long enough to get bored.
Since the weather got really bad for a couple of hours we went over to Ft Lauderdale to do some outlet shopping. It wasn’t that bad and I actually bought some clothes myself.
After a good night sleep we got on a plane to the Bahamas. Our plane had a small delay and some suitcases had to be unloaded because some passengers didn’t show up. I only saw 2 empty seats in the small plane but a lot more suitcases got unloaded. I actually saw that one of our suitcases got unloaded but just hoped I was wrong. Arriving at the Bahamas I found out I wasn’t and we had to report two missing suitcases. The lady told us that the plane was to heavy and that they then just unload some random suitcases and don’t want to tell that to the people as most people would freak out. Since our suitcases arrived later in the evening it was all okay afterall but I wouldn’t know what to do if it really got missing since I don’t really want to go shopping over here 🙂
Atlantis is just like you’ve probably seen on the pictures, wow! The “normal” rooms are actually pretty basic (kinda old) but “the Cove” is the nuts. The picture below is not only the view from our balcony but also from our bed! The bathroom is huge and it’s really nice to be awarded with something like this after a year of hard work to become SNE.
I’m of course not only here to relax but also to play some poker. I only play the main event but there is a schedule of 48 tournaments in just 10 days! I only play the main event myself and I moved my start day from 1A to 1B so I could relax a little bit today. We tried out the water park and after lying in the water for over two hours we’ve not even done half the water slides. It isn’t very cheap over here but the food is great so far and the place is just beautiful. The pokerroom looks good and I’m really excited to play tomorrow. I’m not a tournament expert at all and looking at my WSOP 2009 performance I shouldn’t get my hopes up but I’m really eager to do well. In case that doesn’t work out I can enjoy the other half of the water slides so it could be worse but I would love to get my first Hendon Mob flag!
You should be able to follow me via the pokernews (NL) live reporting at www.pokernews.com or www.pokernews.nl . You could also view the PokerStars Blog at www.pokerstarsblog.com/nl or follow my updates on twitter via www.twitter.com/Tzen1 I’ll do my best and as soon as I’m busted I’ll relax a couple of more days before I’ll start my grind again at the Limit tables at PokerStars.