South Beach & Miami Vacation Planning

Posted on May 15, 2018

Each year, it gets harder and harder to get our group of friends together. Life just gets in the way…work, significant others, babies, family obligations. Luckily, we have such a large group of friends that we have had at least a handful of weddings each year for the past five or six years! Weddings are fun, but even more fun are the bachelorette parties! This year, we headed to Miami with 14 of our closest friends for 5 days in the sun! I wanted to share our South Beach & Miami Vacation Planning in case you are headed to Florida anytime soon!

Hotel

Our group decided that instead of staying at a hotel, we were going to rent an Air BnB. It’s not easy to find a place that has room for so many besties, but we found an amazing two-story penthouse with a roof deck to rent for the long weekend. The penthouse had 4 bedrooms, 3 bathrooms, a huge kitchen, living room, bar area, too many balconies to count and a huge roof deck with an oversized hot tub. The views were absolutely spectacular and overlooked the ocean and Ocean Drive. We all really loved being in a huge apartment together rather than separate hotel rooms, so I would highly recommend looking into something like this when you go away with friends or family! If you like the Air BnB we stayed in (linked above), make a reservation now and ask for Bryan! He is the absolute best!

Bars/Restaurants

The outdoor restaurants on Ocean Drive are a must if you are visiting South Beach! They are a mixture of seafood, tacos, burgers and lots and lots of fun drinks! We took a look at the menu’s as we walked up and down the street and picked the one that looked like the most fun!

We also picked a night to go to Katsuya, which is a sushi restaurant in the SLS Hotel. If you are a sushi lover, you absolutely have to stop here during your trip. This might be my all-time favorite sushi restaurant…ever! Sadly, there is no Katsuya in NYC, but there are sister restaurants in a few other major cities. I would highly recommend the Rock Shrimp, the Spicy Edamame and the Crispy Rice with Spicy Tuna. Honestly though, you can’t go wrong with whatever you choose!

We also went to brunch on Saturday. We picked what we thought was a beautiful and trendy restaurant on the water called Seaspice, however I wouldn’t recommend that you try it. The views were great and the food was okay, but it was very overpriced and the staff there was very rude. There are a million great restaurants in Miami, so I will save you from the frustration you will experience at this one!

We actually had a personal chef and bartender come in on our first night in Miami to cook and make drinks for us in our Penthouse! We figured that since everyone was flying in at different times, it was easiest to just stay at the apartment while everyone arrived and enjoy an amazing meal there instead of going out and trying to meet up with people later. This was, hands down, my favorite night in Miami! It was so amazing getting to see all of our friends, sit at a table where we could hear everyone, get served the most amazing food and drinks and not even have to leave the house! I would highly recommend Chef David and Eddie for your next Miami event!

We didn’t really hit the Miami club scene as much as we would have had this been 2010, but we did make a few guest appearances! We heard about a few places that had great party scenes! The Clevelander has a great day party scene and is easy to walk in and out of, which is great! Obviously LIV, in the Fontainebleau Hotel, is always a great time, but most of us have been there before, so we decided to skip it this time. We did, however, spend a fun night dancing to 90’s hip hop at Bodega Taqueria and Tequila! If you remember Busta Rhymes, Ashanti and Nelly, then this is definitely the place for you! Set behind a literal bodega that sells tacos and burritos is this fun “speakeasy”. I put speakeasy in quotes because it’s less of a lounge and more of a bumping club, but you do have to walk through a secret passage to get inside!

Activities

The bride wanted to keep this bachelorette semi-low key. She wanted this to really be a vacation for everyone rather than a trip that you need a vacation after! We spent a lot of time on our roof deck and at the beach, but we did plan one day out on the water! We decided that we would charter a yacht to sail around the Miami harbor for the day. The yacht left from the Mondrian Hotel, which has a fun day party in its own right. Our yacht captain, Anthony and First Mate, Tatiyana, were absolutely amazing! We brought our own wine and sandwiches to enjoy while we layed in the sun, listened to tunes, tied up with other boats and enjoyed the water! It was definitely one of the highlights of our trip and I would love to do something like this again, even near home, like in the Hamptons!

Overall, this trip was so much fun and I hope the reviews above will help you plan your next Miami vacation!