south beach trip report
 

My wife and I and our two boys, 12 and 14, took jet blue from Dulles to Ft Lauderdale on the 21st and stayed for four nights at the National Hotel in Miami. Great weather. Missed a snowstorm at home. Rented a car. Parked the whole time at the hotel at $19/day. Shoulda used a public parking lot at 13th and Collins, as advised here, but inertia took over. Dinner at Viajante Segundo across the street. One boy's meal arrived about 25 minutes after everybody elses. Manager made no amends. We don't like Viajante Segundo. Maybe Viajante Primero is ok. We all stayed in one room. This is not working as well as it used to. Teenagers have strong preferences. We had two double beds and an airmattress. That seems a bit strange but it worked fairly well. Yes, I slept on the air mattress one night. We watched lots of spring catalog photo shoots which was fun and went to the Front Porch Cafe for breakfast (per guidance here) and the Delano for a mojito (not cheap, per guidance here) nad Puerto Sagua for lunch (per guidance). We had pizza at a place on Lincoln Road, bought a CD from Peruvian flute players, had dinner at Grillfish (per advice). Monday we went to the Everglades National Park (Shark Cove?) where we saw lots of Alligators. Nice bike trail, with tramride for lazy people. Fan boat ride nearby (Tigertail) was lots of fun ($15 pp not too much). One or two more Mojitos and then we went home. The National is very nice. Very authentic Art Deco. Very nice pool, hammocks, beach chairs and umbrellas.

Due to popular demand, I'm going to amend and extend my trip report. We took the car to the Everglades so it didn't really spend the whole time in hotel parking. We also went to Vizcaya, the mansion on the bay in Miami built by John Deering, founder of International Harvester. Beautiful house and gardens. The gardens were a good place to play hide and seek with the kids. I think hide and seek is what being a teenager is all about. Anyway, Vizcaya is like Hearst Castle, but less controlled. I also like getting my haircut on trips and this time I saw a barber shop sign on Washington near 6th. It was called the Faded Lounge. Their business card says "finally, the concept everyone has been waiting for, an upscale barbershop with a bar". I got a good haircut for $15. I didn't stay for drinks. I thought it was cool and very south beachy.

We just got back from South Beach also and stayed at the South Seas (a few doors down). We loved our hotel, but spent a few evenings at the National for drinks in the Deco Lounge. We thought that the National Hotel had the best looking pool and landscaping in the area. We also had a nice meal at Grillfish on our first night there. Walking around Lincoln Road was fun and also Ocean Drive. How was the service you received at the restaurants? Our meals would start out great, but then our server would bail out and we'd be stuck with a gratuity already added to the bill. This happened to us at the Van Dyke and Talula. We had great service at Grillfish and Aura.

The gratuity is automatically added to the bill as a convenience to the vast numbers of foreign visitors who may not be used to the tipping system here in the US. Having said that, service at South Beach eateries can vary incredibly. I love the Front Porch Café, and the servers are at least cordial, but the service is usually quite slow. Cardozo Café, the service is a bit slow, but the waitstaff are very friendly. I haven't been to El Viajante Segundo since I discovered Puerto Sagua, where the service is fast and always with broad smiles. Grillfish and Wish would be my two award-winners for superb service.

We also really liked the service at the Front Porch. Our waitress encouraged us to split an order of pancakes for our two kids rather than get a full order for each kid. Good idea. Puerto Sagua was friendly and good. The Segunda Viajante was the worst, but maybe we just picked the wrong night to eat there. Maybe not. Maybe the trick is to avoid restaurants that are open 24 hours/day. We liked the National. It was comfortable. Cool pools, nice hammocks. A couple nights we walked next door with the kids to the Delano to have a mojito, play pool, and watch the buzz. South Beach had some fun things for all of us to do. But the kids probably still liked last year's trip to the Hard Rock Hotel in Orlando more...

We are going to Miami for Spring break with our two kids too. If you had it to do all over again, would you still stay in South Beach? We are thinking either Miami Beach (further north) or even Fort Lauderdale. I didn't check out the National though.

Thanks for posting! We leave for southbeach this friday. will be having dinner at Wish.

What were Front Porch Cafe and Puerto Segua like??

We've been to South Beach several times, once before kids, once when first kid was a baby (we stayed I think in an apartment at the old Edison when the noise from across the street was so loud we had to stuff pillows in the windows to get some sleep), once for one night at the Delano before we drove down to the keys, and then this last trip to the National. So we like South Beach. It's exciting and warm. I can't really advise on Fort Lauderdale or further north in Miami. I'll have to explore more on future trips. We had a great breakfast at the Front Porch and a good time watching people walk by. We've been to Puerto Sagua on each of our trips. It's a very simple Cuban diner with good food, interesting people, and a cool mural of a street scene in Hanana. You should go to South Beach if you like to people watch. There are old people, beautiful people, street people, young people, models, hookers, tourists, locals, Haitians and Cubans, Japanese tour groups, hot rodders and motor-cyclists. You can see them all if you get a window seat at the Burget King at Collins and 16th for breakfast on Sunday morning. Mamakaril and Stormygirl, you may want to see postings by rjw_lgb_ca for restaurants, etc. Have a good trip!

Front Porch Café is indeed on a front porch-- of the tiny Penguin Hotel, right on Ocean Drive. It's in a kinda quiet part of Ocean, so the passers-by will be joggers, people going to the beach, and people who live in the area. It's basic comfort food, tasty and cheap. Best basic breakfasts in South Beach. The clientèle tend to be locals and tourists in the know (hotel guests). Mixed gay-straight crowd.

santamonica - great trip report - I really appreciate your tone (meant in a good way) and sense of humor. I am glad you had a good time!

Ditto for me santamonica, its been fun reading everything. Ok, we will think about South Beach. We can rent a 2br condo in the Roney Plaza, which we may do, except i am a little worried about construction and with the hotel closing, i don't know how fun it will be. But its affordable at $1800 for the week. What do you all think? Should we go for a hotel instead?
Thanks everyone!!

Mamakaril, it's nice with kids to have an apartment. Four nights with two kids in a hotel room made our house seem really large when we got home. You could stay at the apt and drive to 5th and Washington, rent bikes at the bike shop there (615 5th I think), bike up the beach boardwalk, watch volleyballers, have lunch at the Front Porch, explore Lincoln Road, ride back and return the bikes, walk around SoBe, have dinner and then drive back to the apt. Or you could just take the cab to the Delano one night, have a drink, and walk to dinner. The apartment would be a good base for exploring the rest of the area. Good luck!

We just returned from South Beach. We walked the boardwalk every morning and noticed the construction at Roney Plaza. I wouldn't want to stay there right now as it seemed very noisy. If you do decide to stay there you should get a BIG discount for putting up with it.

Yes, I was thinking the same thing...I heard about the constuction but didn't know how bad it was. Thanks so much for letting me know! We also may be able to rent in the Alexander Hotel by an owner. It is not as close to South Beach, but it may work. The reviews seem ok, so I may focus on there instead.