Matt has been trying to plan this trip for two years for my birthday and its been postponed because of Covid, so when we could finally put it on the books this year; we were so excited!! We went down in Miami with four couples and then also spent the weekend with my brother and his girlfriend that live down there!
We stayed at the SLS hotel on South Beach and ended up having a blast and loving the hotel. We weren’t sure at first if this hotel was going to be a little too “young” for us, but it was really great. The service was wonderful and we had the VIP treatment from Peter at the concierge. Matt used Melanie from, MK Luxury Travel, to help book our rooms for us and I believe that’s how we got the VIP status.
The SLS South beach has two great restaurants in the hotel and then also a nice casual outdoor bar and restaurant that you can enjoy breakfast daily and drinks at night. They have two restaurants that both get great reviews. I ate at The Bazaar a few years ago when I was there and it was great but we couldn’t get a reservation this trip. They also have Katsuya that is supposed to be delicious Japanese food, but we didn’t get to eat there either. The hotel has two pools. One of them was a more quiet, family style pool and then there was another pool a little further back on the property towards the beach that was more the “wild” pool party during the weekends where Hyde Beach is located. The nice part about that pool is that you really wouldn’t even know it was back there unless you go looking for it.
T H U R S D A Y
We arrived on Thursday and dropped our luggage right off at the hotel and then went straight to the 1 Hotel Miami to have lunch at their rooftop bar Watr, which I highly recommend.
The rooftop bar was so pretty and the food was great! We had gorgeous weather and could have sat there all day long! But we wanted to try to make it to some of the boat show that day, so we Uber’ed to the show and walked around a bit. It was fun how we actually ran into people from Pensacola that were there for the boat show too!
That evening, we had a late reservation at one of my favorite spots, Casa Tua. Its an Italian restaurant that is so quaint and cute and we could walk to it from our hotel. So we met for drinks downstairs at the hotel first, and then we all walked to dinner. We sat at a table outside on their patio and it was such a nice night!
Dress is by Rhode but it’s old and I can’t find new style
F R I D A Y
On Friday morning, we woke up, had breakfast at our hotel again and then all got ready to head to the boat show. On this day, we hit up the larger boats and had so much fun getting to tour a few of them. Again, the weather was just gorgeous our entire trip and it made being outside so pleasant.
dress is old by Farm Rio, linked similar styles at bottom of post
Friday evening we had dinner at Jaya at the Setai Hotel. OMG, this place was so FUN! The whole venue is amazing because they have a retractable ceiling in the large courtyard, so you are in open air on a pretty night and then they have dancers and fire throwers and lots of fun entertainment all around this large pool!! It made for such a memorable dinner experience.
After dinner, we walked back to our hotel and stopped at this spot that was actually across the street from the hotel but I don’t know the name of it. We grabbed a little table outside and sat for another drink and to listen to some music.
S A T U R D A Y
On Saturday, everyone had decided we had seen as much of the boat show as we needed; so we decided it would be fun to get on the water for the day, so we rented a boat for half a day. We just went through boatsetter.com and were able to book a boat pretty last minute. It was fun to ride around and see a lot of the homes in the area and then we parked at a sandbar for awhile and they had little floating restaurants that we were able to order food from and hang out!
We really didn’t want to get off the boat, but we had to; so we headed back to our hotel and that’s when we discovered the wild pool party that happens at one of the pools at our hotel. Picture lots of bachelorette/bachelor parties, a very Las Vegas pool vibe, and tons of thongs all around with waitresses coming around with champagne and spraying CO2 around. It truly was wild but it was hilarious to witness. We were just the old onlookers laughing at everything! After we took in as much as we could, we walked over to the calm pool at our hotel for a bit to decompress !!!
For dinner that night, we had reservations at STK Steakhouse which was also at the 1 Hotel South Beach. I would say we all had a very average meal there and they put us upstairs which was not a good ambiance. Downstairs was a lot nicer and more fun vibe! After dinner, we walked to the W Hotel and had drinks at the bar there and then headed home.
S U N D A Y
On Sunday, we packed up from the hotel and took our stuff over to my brother’s condo in Coconut Grove and he and his girlfriend made us the most delicious brunch which was so sweet and then we went and walked around the Coconut Grove Arts Festival before we had to head to our flight home.
We had such a fun weekend and three nights was perfect. There is honestly so much to see and do down there that you could stay a week, but I loved a quick long weekend that keeps me wanting to go back for more 🙂
:: Shop the Post ::
Since we were celebrating my birthday, I thought it would be fun to give everyone some party favors. I made these fun bags and had drink cups made for everyone and a printed itinerary. I made the itinerary and the sticker labels in Canva. We didn’t stick to the itinerary 100% by any means, but it was nice to have a guide for everyone! I usually have Nico & Lala do all our party decorations, but I was too late to the game for this trip.
