Weekend Getaway: South Beach

If your Bestie texts you “Want to go to Miami?,” just say YES!

Day 1: 

I alway prefer an early morning flight. Typically it is never delayed and you have the whole day ahead of you. That does not mean it doesn’t suck waking up in the middle of the night to head to the airport. I have been testing out a few neck pillows lately and I am pleased to say the Ostrich Pillow is pretty awesome! Chris actually spotted the Ostrich Pillow on Huckberry and bought it all on his own.

Chris does not exactly trust me with his things, so the fact that he asked me if I wanted to take it with me was HUGE!

IMG_5179

While the ostrich pillow was great, I definetly  had a lot of weird looks. When the TSA agent asked me to “take off my hat,” I kindly clarified that it was an ostrich pillow and he must had seen them before. He chuckled and said “NO.” When I got to Miami, I passed by a large group of high school kids and heard multiple people say “What is that for?” It is always sold out online so I know they are out there!

Arriving at The Confidante, I had high hopes! We were right on the beach and the bell hop was right out of a movie, hitting on us while complimenting himself “Everything looks good on good looking people!” Our room was not ready so we walked next door to “the fancy liquor store.” It was fancy because a bottle of Moet Rose was $100. I am pretty sure its $40 at Costco… but whatever we are on vacation and cheaper than anywhere else on the beach.

IMG_5086

As soon as our room was ready, we popped open the Moet and headed to the beach.  The Confidante sends servers out to the beach to walk around and take our drink and food orders.  Our beach server, Danny, hated us at first, but he eventually learned to love us. We ordered a couple The Confidante Lemonades, burgers, and who knows what else.  By the end of the day we were trashing Dannys ex girlfriend and I was asking him to be my 43rd instagram follower. The sun was going down and the wind was picking up, so we headed to the pool. There are two pools on the property, one for families and one for adults only. Even though it was heated, it was still freezing so we didn’t last long!

IMG_5104

For dinner we had an early reservation at Bagatelle. Chris luckily found a GILT coupon which really took a chunk out the bill. I was hoping to run into a couple of Real Housewives, instead we spotted a Russian Beauty queen.

The food was actually really really good. I just remember wanting to eat everything. I was so full half way through the meal, I felt like I was going to vomit. Nevertheless, I persisted. When we were kindly kicked from our table around 10, Amanda and I headed to the bar for another delicious $17 spicy Margarita. Once Bagatelle flipped into club mode with servers dancing on tables and chairs, fire extinguishers going off every couple minutes and sparklers on champagne bottles, I was obsessed. Maybe it was the lack of oxygen from the fire extinguishers, but I was having the best time.

IMG_5141

Around midnight we headed to SLS South Beach. There is a “club” in the back of the hotel by the pool where we danced the night away. We ubered back around 3:00 am, ate a few Doritos and passed out as soon as our heads hit the pillow. It was a long first day.

Day 2:

8:30 am and the ladies were up. KILL. ME. I barely am alive at 8:30 on a work day. I contemplated my outfit for a little longer than was probably necessary and headed down to the hotel restaurant Bird & Bone for breakfast.

IMG_5151

Unfortunately the sunny Friday weather was replace with clouds and wind… like menus flying off the table wind. We had to switch tables because obvi 4 hungover ladies did not have time for that. We ordered a Chef Hales’ Hot Chicken and Waffle for the table, a few mimosas, bloody marys and an apple cider sangria and our day was off to a great start.

After breakfast we went back up to the room, did another quick wardrobe change, popped a bottle of champagne and headed out for the day. We walked the Miami beach boardwalk down to Nikki Beach.

IMG_5185

The locals kind of turned their nose on Nikki Beach, as it appears they are trying to revitalize the spot. There were white beds throughout with Veuve Clicquot towels and ice buckets, so right up my alley.

 

Our server was nice enough, but service was a little slow. We ordered mojitos, margaritas,  a coconut drink and sangria. Everything was great except for the sangria.

We eneded up spending most of the afternoon there, did some people watching. While we were multiple birthday parties, including a 50th birthday party with about 50 women all wearing different tutus. I feel like Nikki Beach is still working on finding their target audience.

When our server returned she tried to tell us we did not meet our “minimum”… which obvi we were not having because we were not told of a minium. So be prepared for tricks if you show up there.

IMG_5186

We had a late reservation at Wynwood Kitchen and Bar, and keeping with the theme of the trip, I ordered a Wynwood Inferno. The highlight of the restaurant was the bathroom mirror. They had the magical light ring that all celebs use when filming and omg, we each came out feeling like a Kardashian.

Wynwood is full of beautiful murals, bright colors, and the streets were packed. It is a unique neighborhood that we loved. When  we finally left dinner the walk was closing. Nonetheless I️ convinced a secutiry guard into letting me stay to take a pic but had to have him in the picture with me. One day when I learn photoshop it will be a great solo shot, or I will put Chris’ head on his body!

IMG_5172

But let me tell you about the low point … A dream of mine has always been to be in a rap video. They were filming a video earlier in the evening. The camera man told me he was going to the after party and he was going to invite me but couldn’t because I was married. That one hurt.

So we moseyed on down the street to look around and stumbled upon a huge block party. Unfortunately it was mostly young teens that were really into moshing. Which is great, and I love, but then it started raining and it was too much. Right across the street there was a covered outdoor venue and it was a little redic. We did get to witness a teenage boy standing on his friends shoulder, pull out 2 glow yoyo like balls and start flayling them around. I was as close to a rave as I have ever been.

IMG_5170

  • We eventually called an uber to get back to South Beach around 1:30 am. Everything we knew was closing at 2:00. we wondered around the hotels and heard of a cool late night service industry bar but somehow ended up at a club club ORA for about 7 minutes before it was time to go.

IMG_5175

Day 3:

The next morning we were awoken by a combination of a phone alarm going off every ten minutes, stomping/jumping/bowling ball noises from upstairs, and  screaming next door. It was not cool.  On top of everything, I️t was daylight savings time, literally the worst. I felt like an hour of fun, or sleep, was stripped away from me.

The sun was shining and we were ready to hit the beach! We were expecting a rainy overcast day so this was awesome news. We headed back to Bird & Bone for a quick breakfast, I️ had the burger. I will say their burger is to die for! They have battered seasoned waffle fries, ugh so yum! I also guilted our server into making me a pina colada, shaken, bc they apparently don’t have a blender, which is absurd. It was good, and now I want a pina colada.

(i literally just went in the kitchen and made myself a pina colada)

IMG_5193

We walked to the beach and we insisted on sitting in Danny’s section again. We ordered a couple of pitchers of confidante lemonade, enjoyed our last rays of sunshine and before we knew it it was 3:00. We wanted a little more to drink so we decided on rose, but we didn’t have a menu so we asked Danny if they had a good rose, preferably French. Danny responded in the best way possible “I don’t know if it is good but you guys housed two bottle in 15 minutes Friday so I think you like it.” Ha. So we ordered a bottle, took a few last minute pics and we were off to our room to pack up.

Our final stop was Puerto Sagua Restaurant for a Cuban food. Of course we ordered sangria, and half the menu and OMG it was so good!

We hopped in our uber, which quickly turned into our own version of cash cab, and were off to the Airport for our late night flights. By the time I boarded I could barely keep my eyes open. Thankfully my ostrich pillow serves as an eye mask to keep out the bright lights of the plane.

Even though I had the best time on my first ever non-bachelorette girls trip, I was so ready to come home to Chris.

IMG_5192

Where we stayed:

The Confidante:   Friendly staff, great on-site restaurant, direct beach access and two pools divided for families and adults. The rooms are spacious, with comfy beds, a stocked fridge and balcony. Not in the party section of Miami Beach but its a short cab ride away.

Where we ate: 

Bird & Bone

Day 1: The best part of the meal was the Chicken and waffles. I was not the biggest fan of the avocado toast with sprouts. There were too many sprouts and it killed the flavor, but the bread underneath was delicious.

Day 2: The burger is amazing!  It comes with delicious battered seasoned waffle fries. Best thing on the menu.

Nikki Beach: Fun drinks and the food was pretty good! We had the vegiterian pizza, a tuna poke bowl and a cheese quesadilla.

Puerto Sagua Restaurant: Delicious and low key. This place was packed. We had a cuban sandwich, white bean soup, chicken, cuban beef, plantains and rice.

Bagatelle:  We had a lot, I cannot remember everything we had but I ordered the Onglet de Boeuf Grillé (flank steak), it was so good!!!! To start we had Sliders Rossini, Coquillettes au Jus, Jambon et Emmental & Poulpe “a la Plancha.” For dessert Bagatelle Tiramisu “Truffle” and something else. The Tiramisu was not my favorite but still yummy.

Wynwood Kitchen and Bar: This is a trendy restaurant in the fun Wynwood neighborhood. The food is focused around small plates. We ordered the Charred Tomato Salsa, Ropa Vieja Empanadas,  Flautas, 48 Hour Crispy Pork, and succotash. Everything was delicious but our absolute favorite was the Flauta. The Gambas Al Ajillo (shrimp) was not good, so skip that.

Late Night: 

ORA : This is a full on club club. If you are into table service and dancing into the wee hours of the night this is your spot.

SLS: Head through the hotel and towards the back pool. Behind the velvet rope there is a fun dance bar/lounge. Although the drinks are pricy, its nothing crazy for south beach and closes around 2.

Leave a Reply

Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:

WordPress.com Logo

You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. Log Out /  Change )

Facebook photo

You are commenting using your Facebook account. Log Out /  Change )

Connecting to %s