Read my wife Heidi's fabulouos account of Miami before we lived here: http://www.guardian.co.uk/travel/2010/jan/12/my-crap-holiday-miami

Read my wife Heidi's fabulouos account of Miami before we lived here: http://www.guardian.co.uk/travel/2010/jan/12/my-crap-holiday-miami

My crap holiday
Murder, mayhem and mutiny in Miami


A dozen years ago, my husband and I were winter-weary Ohioans on a trip to sunny Miami. It all began to go horribly wrong just before our plane arrived in the Magic City. The flight attendant asked me if I could walk down a flight of steps. As a wheelchair user with a severe – and very obvious – disability, this was not an option. Upon landing, the other passengers got off while we waited 45 minutes for the airline to bring a rickety lift. On the tarmac, we waited another 45 minutes for a wheelchair-accessible van to take us to the terminal. Repeated pleas to airline employees to have someone secure our bags until we arrived to collect them were met with disinterested stares. We finally got to baggage claim and our bags were nowhere to be found.
Our week's itinerary included a job interview for my husband and our wardrobe now consisted of the clothes on our backs and undergarments in a small carry-on. After two nights, we changed hotels, wanting to experience different parts of the area. This new hotel was a lovely South Beach Art Deco property. But we hadn't anticipated the all-night dance party just outside our window. My husband managed just a couple of hours' sleep before his interview.
Each day I called the airline about our bags and was told they'd not yet been found. I gave up by the fourth day when a creepy airline rep began telling me about his young daughter's murder.
The last two nights we had booked another South Beach hotel, this one quieter but much more careworn. Our final night, we were woken at 1am by the fire alarm. The two employees on duty insisted it was a false alarm. After the alarm went off two more times, we and our fellow guests were near mutiny. The final straw was when the fire department arrived, and hotel staff tried to keep them from entering the building. We packed our things and high-tailed it to the airport, sleeping overnight in the terminal.
After we arrived home (our luggage was finally returned to us after a month), we reported the hotel for code violations. A few days later, the hotel manager left a message on our home answering machine, advising us to "watch our ******* backs".
Heidi Johnson-Wright, Miami