On the home straight - Miami to Orlando to Gatwick

Paranoid about missing the train I woke super early on Saturday, too early for breakfast or coffee at the hotel, and headed to the Amtrak station by taxi.

Slightly intimidating station in the middle of an industrial park with no breakfast or coffee facilities. Now in desperate need of caffeine!

Train left on time at 08.20 - same funny system of allocating seats at the door, but this time I bagged a window. The cafe didn't open till 09.30 - so really desperate by then! My healthy eating plans were cast aside as I devoured a sausage, egg and cheese muffin, a coffee and an apple juice.

My seat buddy was not so chatty so I powered through a book on the kindle. Arrival into Orlando was a bit late and it took ages to unload the luggage so I headed straight to the airport to check in with six hours of lay-over stretching ahead of me.

Orlando airport has more shops than most American airports, but that isn't saying much - T5 it ain't! It does have two Disney shops, two NASA shops, two Universal Studios shops, one Sea World shop and a couple of unidentifiable themed shops, a Brookstone, several newsagents and a food court - oh and a Starbucks. So that was the first half hour filled...

Amazingly the flight left on time and after watching the first film (Crazy, Stupid Love with Steve Carroll, Julianne Moore and Ryan Gosling) I felt my eyes closing. This never happens on flights, I must have driven myself to tiredness through sheer boredom. The next thing I recall is being woken for the breakfast service one hour before landing an hour early. Fast through Border Control and home by 09.00 - end of a great holiday!

South Beach 2 - the Dorchester

A disappointing last breakfast at the News Cafe before checking out of the Pelican. I should have read the menu more carefully - replacing the hollandaise with cream cheese on eggs florentine was not one of the chef's better ideas...

The art deco walking tour was also not the best, I think our guide 'Kent' needs to lose the script and freshen up the jokes.

A short taxi ride later and we are in the Dorchester on Collins north of Lincoln Road, a bigger hotel with a pool and beach access via its sister hotel the Marseilles. We resist the $1 specials at the bar and head up Lincoln Road for stroll before our planned trip to Little Havana.

The bus interchange downtown is confusing so we opt for a cab. Not a whole lot to see in Little Havana - some old Cuban guys playing dominoes, art galleries and Cuban diners and bars - a quick tortilla Espanol and then we jump on a bus downtown, just as a text arrives from my mother warning against the murder dangers if downtown Miami! We change buses, avoiding various fellow travellers with mental health problems and return to the safety of South Beach.

For the evening's activities a bar crawl of the high end hotels is planned, starting with the Ritz Carlton de Lido bar (closed), the Sagamore (deserted), the Delano Rose Bar (livelier), the Delano Florida Room - designed by Lennie Kravitz - (closed for refurbishment), the National (empty), the Raleigh (empty). Not exactly wall to wall Beyonce and JLo! We draw the line at the Catalina - (KFed sightings) and head up Lincoln Road, dropping into Five Napkin Burger, home of the legendary 10oz burger - opting for the fish tacos before heading home to bed.

Thursday up bright and not so early for a morning by the pool. The heat got the better of me after a couple hours and I headed for shops.

The evening's highlight was dinner at Sushi Samba - the Japanese Peruvian Brazilian fusion restaurant featured in Sex & The City. Amazing food and great cocktails, we then headed down to The Palace on Ocean Drive for a sidewalk drag act - lots of big hair and lip syncing whilst a family tucked into cheeseburger and fries seemingly oblivious!

Friday was cloudy and pretty uneventful, early night required prior to the super early start on Saturday to catch the 08.00 train to Orlando.

South Beach 1 - the Pelican

Miami at dusk looked spectacular from the tiny American Eagle plane as it came into land - the western horizon blood red with the sunset and the moon enormous and deep crimson to the east.

The arrivals hall cafe used Spanish as its first language and offered the choice of Cuban or American coffee - Cuban being the default option.

More choices - $2 bus ride or $32 taxi...? The taxi won of course!

Room 250 'With Drill' at the Pelican - heavy industrial chic - almost like they knew me? A simple roast beef salad at the Sandwicherie and an early night.

Tuesday started with breakfast at the News Cafe, followed by coffee at the Pelican then a few hours on the beach. Free giant towels from the hotel, free loungers on the beach and the perfect temperature in the high 20s - time to hit the kindle hard. The sea was not so pleasant - I usually associate the water off Florida with the temperature of a warm bath, evidently this isn't the case in January - it was freezing.

Lunch at the Pelican was amazing - red snapper ceviche and the best focaccia ever, served in a paper bag.

A bit of shopping in the afternoon followed by cocktails and dinner at Joe's Crab Shack - which required a 1.5hour wait before our names were called to join the second queue - this time to enter the gargantuan dining room. The baked Atlantic cod was amazing, but in hindsight the deep fried side orders were unnecessary so we mostly resisted them! I could say that we then hit the bars, but in reality bed was calling!

Silver Meteor from Orlando FL to Charleston SC

1.35pm - train departs on time

The seat assigned to me at the door does not have a window or plug socket and my seat buddy has already closed the curtains and hunkered down to sleep - so no sparkling conversation or view of the Florida countryside for me!

The pleasant warmth is actually sickly heat so I head off for the lounge car. I've seen Sex & The City, so I am not expecting North by Northwest. It's basic but clean and I have a great view of the waterways leading to Florida's east coast; I also get to listen in on the conductors' gossiping as this seems to be their favoured hangout.

For the final three hours (make that four) I head back to my seat, the train empties at Savannah GA and I get a double seat to myself. We then grind to a halt a few miles outside Charleston and sit there for the best part of an hour, finally pulling into Charleston at 10.35pm, one hour and ten minutes late - nine hours after leaving Orlando.

Orlando

With howling winds giving a foretaste of the plummeting temperatures to be experienced the following day I arrived in downtown Orlando. The hotel had a simple self check-in system for out of hours - basically a key in a box with a pin number - despite the clear instructions, I was flummoxed until rescued by some other guests.

It was 9pm or 2am UK time, so just time to check out the neighbourhood bars before bed. Dexter's seemed a safe bet - the combination of a crispy Rolling Rock and a Colby burger sealing the deal for me. Not sure what the burger had to do with the Colby's- and weren't they Californian anyway?

Back at the hotel I surfed the tv channels and was horrified to see that not only had the UK fallen for the dubious charms of Jerry Springer and repackaged it in the nastier form of Jeremy Kyle - but we had then sold it back to our poor unsuspecting American cousins. The shame.

Then the lights went out.

Literally - power cut that wiped out the neighbourhood. Not the end of world in the middle of the night but a little disconcerting when no emergency lights come on and no friendly hotel staff come round to tell you it's ok. Does the fire alarm work without power for instance? The next five hours were spent in fitful sleep listening to people open and close doors and frantically try light switches, until it finally came back on at 5am.

A few more hours dozing - trying to pretend I wasn't jet-lagged and actually wide awake - I finally gave in and headed out for breakfast at 7.30am.

My god was it cold outside - last nights crisp autumnal evening replaced by a bitterly cold but beautifully sunny winter morning. The plan - have breakfast at Panera - the recommended bakery next door then head out on a self guided walking your of historic downtown.

Panera - amazing selection of baked goods, each with its own frightening calorie count proudly displayed. I settled for a skinny latte and a plain bagel with a scraping of butter - eschewing the four pats helpfully provided by the server.

8.30 - time to hit downtown.

Walking tour was interesting - especially the part that strayed into the ghetto without notice... Generally it was a mix of churches, court houses and old bank buildings from the early 20th century much like many other mid size American cities - the lakeside setting adding extra sparkle.

Back to hotel to check-out and collect bags, receptionist had no clue that power had been down most of the night.

Taxi to Amtrak station, bag checked, during which all the attendants papers blew away in the wind, he made a half hearted attempt to gather the closer ones up - hope I see my bag again....

An hour and a half to kill so checked out The Jazzy Dog Cafe - an all American diner bizarrely decked out with lots of Union Jack flags! They apparently sell Orlando's best hot dogs, chicken sandwich for me though.

Train boarded on time - slightly stressful process whereby, you are sent to section 12 on the platform where you have to queue (though they don't tell you this), the queue is along the cold shaded side of the platform rather than the sunny warm side. Then people leisurely get off - some just to smoke- then you are sent to a different section, then finally allocated a seat by the attendant at the door. Thankfully the train is warm!