Before I begin I'm not a professional dan's fourms member so please excuse my non-official trip review. Please be aware I'm just letting you know what I did and don't copy me unless it works for you, there's alot of options probably even better ones, so do your research...
I'm writing this on the flight home, so I'm going to write whatever comes to my head and I might be missing a bit. Also went I'm not really sure if I write I or we but it means me and my wife all the time. When I went somewhere it's usually Uber.
Flight's
I Was thinking about going away for Chol Hamoed with my wife, since I wasn't able to do a summer trip for various reasons.
When I heard there were seventy dollar flights to florida I grabbed the opportunity, debating between Orlando or Miami I choose Miami since Orlando was expected to be to over crowded with all the Heilige Yiden...
Hotel's
I like to stick to Hyatt with the amazing Chase Sapphire Preferred opportunities, so I booked through Chase at 1.25 and paid 25k a night getting the third night free with a sale from Hyatt, (This way of using points came out cheapest for me).
Transportation
I asked around and heard that Miami parking is quite costly so I choose getting around with mostly Uber's, I even tried the free Miami Beach trolley, at night on my last night there and It was quick and nice, altogether I spent approximately $220 on Uber's and Lyft's through my stay, while my hertz reservation which I didn't use was over $250 just for the car!, I did sign up to a free week trial of UberPass so I got 10% off all rides for a week.
Itinerary
Arrived in Miami Monday Oct 5th 12pm
Departed Thursday Oct 8th 2:30pm
I didn't really have a plan other then just chillin at the beach and eating 😀, I didn't really look to cover everything so I probably missed some must-do things, but oh-well.
Monday Oct 5th
We got early check in so we headed straight to our hotel, The Confidante, a very authentic art & carpet style hotel, with very nice rep's, also it is close to the 41st street Jewish neighborhood.
I checked out the hotel a bit, and then went starving to Sushi 26, ordered the teriyaki roll and the karate roll both were amazing we also got the amazing fries with parmesan cheese and scallions, I really enjoyed that it was really quiet at lunch time.
Karate Roll
We went afterwards across two blocks to Bel Harbor mall which is amazing and a very expensive upscale mall, "it's soooo cool but don't buy anything!".
Walked then to CVS to stock up on necessities for the trip but forgot to buy sun tan lotion; Ouch!.
Afterwards I made some phone calls and found a lady who arranges jetski rentals for $130 an hour, she sent me the florida boat test which I completed without studying with the help of Reb Google...
We met her at the marina and she gave me all the instructions I needed she was also very patient and only started the hour when I left the port (which took a while), it was pretty amazing, and we went on the jetski together but only I managed to take the test so only I was able to drive, e'heeem
. We had a very large area to be in and we had a full hour with the lady trailing behind us, but giving us our privacy. The jetski went up to at least 70mph...
Her number is 305-824-7383
Then we headed to the hotel to get ready for supper.
For dinner I made a week earlier, a reservation to The Harbour Grill, in the sukkah which was pretty nice and got a side corner table.
We ordered the flatbread's with pulled brisket, and the million dollar fries which were amazing.
Then we ordered the king reserve steak medium rear (the way I like my steaks), it was epic!
And a rib eye for the rebbitzen,
we also ordered a fried mushroom situation, which was very tasty,
For dessert I like to go simple and just got to vanilla scoops which was pretty good. Overall The Harbour Grill was probably the best restaurant vibe I had in Miami.
Headed to the hotel for the night.
Tuesday Oct 6th
I Davened shachris all three days at Chabad at The Carriage House near me, very nice welcoming crowd, I called the carriage house front desk and the rep offered to call the rabbi for me to find out what time they daven!!.
For breakfast I went to Zak The Baker, which was definitely worth the drive and my best breakfast experience in Miami, they had a sukkah. I ordered the avocado toast, a fresh-veggie feta-cheese salad, and a veg cream cheese bagel. Everything was out of this world and the bread was just so unique and different then your typical bagel store. P.S. make sure to ask on everything you order to make sure it's Cholov Yisroel, the milk wasn't so I ordered fresh orange juice which was very good.
We walked around the art district which I didn't find so interesting (matter of opinion).
Headed to the hotel with a stop at Walgreens a block away and got some nice casual Florida caps 2 for $10!
Went to the beach for a couple of hours - with no sun tan lotion
.
Headed over to South Beach area first took an Uber to the sound park with cool bird sounds and nice trees, then we walked to Lincoln Road and walked down the mall strip & checked out a few stores with a very interesting expensive art shop at the end from a famous artist (forgot his name).
Then we walked up to Seventeen Cafe, but they didn't have any cocktails 😁, so we went to the fresh market across the street for water, and it was a really healthy store. Then it started pouring (for 20 minutes) so we went to Michael's around the corner to waste time and get soaked otw there.
For supper I was looking for something quick, so we started off at Carlos and Gabby's, but there was only one waiter and one cook so it didn't work out... After waiting over an hour for my steak, we decided it was taking to long and we got up and paid for our Buffalo chicken with fries appetizer (not buffalo besides the 1/2 oz sauce on the side)...
We went to pita hut afterwards nearby, wasn't so impressed with my over-done rib steak..., Heard afterwards that pita loca around the corner is very good..., Overall didn't have a good fast cheap food experience.
Headed to the hotel for the night.
Wednesday Oct 7th
Shachris at Chabad...
Breakfast we went to cafe vert but some nice guy (didn't get his name) told me that the wait was very long. So we headed over on the block to Rustiko which had place in their sukkah, but we unfortunately got seated at the side where there was a guy replacing a huge ac unit right outside the cloth sukkah, but other then that the food was pretty good, we got grilled cheese and a mushroom scrambled eggs with baguettes and some good mango smoothie and a banana smoothie. They only had a honey blueberry muffin left in the bakery menu so we got that which tasted pretty good, but I didn't go for the combo of blueberry and honey...
Then we went to Rita's across the street but didn't order anything.
Then I made some phone calls and found this segway place on Washington Ave in south beach area, he has alot of different tours and decently priced, he squeezed us in between for a 1/2 hour tour, he started explaining us the different buildings but he realized we weren't so interested, so he stopped and we got to just enjoy the segway's... He was really nice and charged us $39 per person, we came back after 20 minutes cuz the area was empty due to covid, so he gave us more time to drive around.
His number is
When we were done we walked to The Frieze ice cream store, oh boy we were ready for ice cream after that walk in the heat. We ordered the peanut butter bosh which was pretty awesome and a chocolate mint ice cream, we ate it at the corner on Lincoln Rd (got a little melted).
Headed to the hotel for some beach time (no-sun-tan-lotion...)
For dinner we were heading up to Fuego by Mana, (booked a week in advance for the sukkah), so we decided to Uber first to The Aventura Mall which is huge and nice, the slide's outside were closed due to covid...
Headed to Fuego, took some time to be seated.
We ordered the DD's recommendation of pulled brisket flatbread's which were amazing but they were a little cheap on the amount of brisket,
And the pastrami eggroll which was very good,
we got a mango cocktail
and the fig & walnut cocktail both were good but not out of this world. For main's I ordered the cowboy steak which was very good
and the bbq pulled beef burger (very BBQ'y),
one of my sides didn't show up, so I tried getting a compensation desert which the waiter said okay, so I got the smores desert which was delicious but I felt like it was too crumby on the bottom, however it seems likethere was a misunderstanding and I ended up have to pay for the dessert...
Then we walked to Collins Ave and tried out the trolley, we wanted to try the old style one but it seems like that route has the new ones, it was not bad with and good ac.
Then we went to the hotel for the night.
Thursday Oct 8th
Shachris at Chabad
For breakfast we went to tasty but the wait for the sukkah was half hour so we walked to bagel time and had a delicious veggie omelette
and Greek salad,
and an amazing chocolate coffee milkshake and an ice frappuccino.
Then we headed to the hotel and packed up, checked out. Since we had some extra time they offered to take our suitcases and store them, while we went to catch last licks of the beach for an hour (no-sun-tan-lotion).
And off we went back home (with a very rude stewardess harassing the oilam about our masks)...
Overall it was an amazing first-time-Miami-trip, and we had a blast, I just went through the ups and downs so you get the complete pic.
P.S. I'm Having a problem uploading the pictures to the article with my filter