“Miami is a melting pot of different, beautiful Hispanic cultures. And Miami’s vibe is about what you wear. Have a good cigar in Miami. Have a mojito. Eat an arepa.”
-Jean Armas, general manager of the Hilton Miami Airport Blue Lagoon Hotel
In the river of cars that is Miami Airport’s loop road for departures and arrivals, I climbed aboard and into the front passenger seat of the brand new, free shuttle van picking up people to take them to check-in at the Hilton Miami Airport Blue Lagoon Hotel.
“Hello, sir!” said the driver.
“Hola, amigo,” I impulsively shot back in Spanish. After all, an hour’s flight earlier was in Havana. And I knew, from my previous Hilton Blue Lagoon stays, that the friendly shuttle driver Josue is from Cuba. “Que Bola?!”
Josue does not visit Cuba anymore but shared that he’d taken his family on trips to India and Dubai.
Seeing Josue was often my first “Bienvenido” back to the hotel I had come to call “casa” when traveling through Miami Airport.
The Hilton Miami Airport Blue Lagoon Hotel celebrates the local Cuban culture (Calle Ocho’s “Little Havana” neighborhood is nearby) by staging a weekly “Havana Nights.”
Events include live Cuban music, a banner emblazoned with the kind of classic American car still rolling around Havana, and a drink menu that includes Mojitos, Cuba Libres, Mamacita Mules, Viejo Fashioneds, which guests drink to wash down plantain nachos, Cuban sliders, croquetas, and chicken empanadas.
Buenos Dias, Early Birds Flying from Miami Airport
Josue does not mind waking up early for his work driving the airport shuttle, which starts running every half-hour at 5 a.m., for the airline pilots and passengers who stay at the Hilton Blue Lagoon.
“It is always good to go early. Less stress. If you cut it too close and one thing goes wrong, your whole trip can be disrupted,” he advises.
Especially with so many international flights from MIA. The hotel has land, sea and air covered by also arranging shuttles to the Port of Miami for those going on cruises. A QR code allows guests to track the shuttles on a map in an app.
Josue is at the wheel before sunrise while his colleague, Tressa, is wrapping up her overnight shift at the resort’s reception desk. Each of them, as Tressa puts it, “throw sunshine” at Hilton’s guests.
Josue offered me coffee in the lobby and tried very hard to refuse a tip, but I insisted. Tressa, smiling, insisted that I should “Write good travel stories…and even make parts of them true!”
I laughed and told her I would try.
“Tressa is an amazing employee and we value her a lot. She always has a smile for those checking in early after an overnight flight,” said Hilton Miami Airport Blue Lagoon’s stylish general manger Jean Armas.
“She won ‘Team Member of the Month’ because she is a key example of that. We surprise her sometimes by coming to her with breakfast. In hospitality, team members are one of the keys to success, so it is very important to be hospitable to them. We give them an environment that empowers them and makes them feel recognized.”
Hospitality Means Leading by Living in Your Hotel’s Community
Armas’ office, overlooking the pool and lagoon, is full of management awards and plaques he’s received throughout a hospitality career. His career has taken the Texan, and his wife and two children to Atlanta, Houston, New York, Orlando, Nashville and now, Miami.
“I have great personal memories because my kids have grown up in all those different places. In my opinion, to be successful and understand your team members, you must embrace the culture of the city you are working in. Every state has a different vibe and a different mentality of what hospitality is. You have to live that as a leader or general manager,” Armas advised.
To acclimate to Miami, you must live and breathe it to understand it, insisted Armas. “Miami’s culture is Cuban, but we also have a Venezuelan and Colombian culture. This is a melting pot of different, beautiful Hispanic cultures. And Miami’s vibe is about what you wear. Have a good cigar in Miami. Have a mojito. Eat an arepa,” said Armas.
A New Look Hilton Miami Airport Blue Lagoon Resort
The Hilton Blue Lagoon Miami Airport is evolving to embrace Miami’s multi-cultural vibrancy through its ownership’s reinvestment.
“We are staying open through a major renovation – the guest rooms, the bar, the pool, and more,” Armas said.
For instance, the Hilton’s lobby bar, which looks out to the expansive pool patio, will be a bigger, circular bar which, after construction to remove unnecessary columns blocking it, will be much more visible and welcoming to arriving guests.
The Hilton has 508 guestrooms, including 87 suites, some with expansive balconies that offer views of the lagoon, Miami skyline, the Marlins baseball park, Coral Gables, and the Miami Airport’s busy runways.
Those rooms will all be brightened up by using Miami’s iconic pastel colors and elegant artwork, plus a furniture update to suit the evolving needs of the modern traveler.
“We want our guests to feel they are in Miami with the decorations, music food and drinks. We want them to experience the Miami vibe,” explained Armas, who hinted the hotel may reopen a space now used for storage that was once cherished as one of the area’s hippest nightclubs.
Good Sports in a Good Spot
While Armas’ wife loves the NBA’s Miami Heat, theirs is a soccer family. Therefore, Inter Miami, the team owned by David Beckham and anchored by Lionel Messi – soccer’s biggest star – playing games 10 minutes away in a stadium visible from the Hilton, is a blessing.
MLB’s Marlins Stadium, Coconut Grove, and Coral Gables are a couple of miles away – and an Uber to South Beach is sometimes less than $30.
The timing of Armas’ arrival in the Magic City two years ago was perfect. “Miami is an amazing place to be right now.” Sports, hotels and real estate are very good. Miami has become one of those places people want to travel to more than ever; not only from South America, but Europe and all over the world.”
You would not expect a hotel like the Hilton Blue Lagoon, a waterfront property with ambiance and resort amenities such as live music, swimming, tennis, fitness center, conference space and nature trails, to be so conveniently close to an airport.
A paved walking trail and boardwalk lead out to a pergola in the lagoon. At the top of the trail, a sign advised what unique wildlife, flora and fauna guests might see along the trail. This includes box turtles, black bullhead catfish, egrets, herons, peacock bass, manatees, iguanas, sea grapes, colorful bougainvillea and coconut or gumbo limbo trees.
Kempinski’s Gran Manzana Hotel in Havana – Near Miami and Yet a World Away
Armas’s industry counterpart in Havana, Jaume Ferrer, is the general manager of Kempinski’s Hotel Gran Manzana – the newest and finest in Havana.
His office window from the renovated, historic building doesn’t overlook the pool like Armas’s, because Gran Manzana’s swimming pool is on the roof. But Ferrer can see an Old Havana view of classic American cars and a horse and buggy parked in a plaza outside the front of the hotel.
Ferrer’s favorite view from the hotel, though, is from the balcony of its second-story, luxury cigar lounge.
“From this balcony, you overlook the towering Capitolio: Cuba’s capital dome, an impressive building next to Central Park,” said Ferrer. (The majestic building resembles the U.S. Capitol building in Washington D.C. Its steel frame was, ironically, built in the United States.)
“The colorful, classic cars are maybe the most iconic thing in Havana: red, pink, purple, and blue Chevrolet, Cadillacs and Buicks. You can use them to take a tour around the city and visit the most beautiful spots in the area.”
I considered, to myself, the further geopolitical irony that Kempinski’s beautiful and stylish hotel sitting on “Central Park” is called the Gran Manzana, which is Spanish for “Big Apple.”
“This might make Americans feel right at home,” Ferrer, who is Spanish, said with a smile.
(For the Union Jack-loving crowd, across the park is Hotel Inglaterra, which translates to “Hotel England.”)
If you do venture into Central Park, which is really only one or two square blocks, go with the knowledge you will be approached to buy a ride in a classic car or purchase a Havana tour or maybe even buy black market cigars.
The Cubans are charismatic, but not usually overly pushy. Therefore, be sure to take, but secure in your pocket, lots of American one, five, and ten-dollar bills. Be generous with them.
After all, when you booked your Delta flight and were asked to state your reason for visiting Cuba, you most likely, and simply, clicked the box “Support for the Cuban people.” So do that, respectfully, politely and subtly.
A Day in the Life of the Kempinski Gran Manzana Hotel
At the Kempinski Gran Manzana’s aforementioned rooftop swimming pool, you’re likely to run into Chinese diplomats or a hotel investor who divides his time between Istanbul and Toronto. Or maybe a crew of Air France pilots or a lively couple from Palm Beach.
All guests have the option to luxuriate in the top-floor spa while glancing off the roof at the fanciful, empty high-rise building labeled Bacardi Edificio. This 1930s art deco design – Latin America’s finest – was once Bacardi Rum’s headquarters.
You will hear live music at the Gran Manzana’s pool as the sun sets over the waterfront Malecon, but you can also hear the tunes coming from the famed Floridita Bar below, where Ernest Hemingway drank his daiquiris. Papa is memorialized with a life-size statue of the literary giant himself, sitting at the bar and grinning.
Visiting Cuba
If you are wondering why you should visit Havana, Cuba, I would ask you, in return, if you have ever wondered what it is like to go back in time or to be in a movie? Perhaps any number of 007 flicks or “Godfather 2?”
Can you imagine having festive, soulful, live music around every corner all day and at every meal – and then wonder how that level of creative joy can be expressed amidst the crumbling, architectural buildings and similarly dilapidated economy?
What about enjoying the balmy, warm, seaside breezes on days so humid the cobblestones are slippery as you walk past a row of tailfins of vintage, candy-colored cars with big, rounded hoods, which make the little Russian box cars you’d never see in the USA appear so drab?
Read more of Michael Patrick’s work at The Travel Tattler and contact him at [email protected] Order his book Travel Tattler – Less Than Torrid Tales at https://amzn.to/3Qm9FjN
