Open Water and Broken Beds in Miami Beach
We were in Miami Beach last week, a couple of New Yorkers looking for balmy weather, pretty scenery, and stiff drinks, same as anybody. Through a combination of zealous planning and happy accidents, Jenn and I found all that and more, and most of it was better than we had anticipated. For us, Miami Beach was the perfect balance of action and chillout time, with an open-water kayak adventure followed by some cocktails and a couple hours of horizontal relaxation on the beach: yin and yang coming together harmoniously in South Florida. Miami is hardly uncharted territory, and there's no shortage of tourist information and guidebook coverage, but since we had such a grand time and didn't blow too much money, I'd like to share a few highlights and tips I gleaned while digging the scene in South Beach.
Once a "Hip Miami South Beach Hotel" called the Strand Ocean Drive snapped up my $165-a-night bid for four nights, we were in business. The hotel is comprised of four art deco buildings on Ocean Drive between 10th and 11th streets, and at the moment, which building you're in makes all the difference. Since we were checking in with a scarlet P (for Priceline) on our reservation, we wound up in the Retro building. The room itself was quite posh, but it had a view of an alley and a parking garage on one side, and a construction site on the other. After being assured that the hotel was booked for the night and another room wasn't available, we decided to give it a chance, unpacked our bags, and took a stroll through town.
We started with a cheap but satisfying meal at the nearby 11th Street Diner (we're New Yorkers after all), and then headed up Washington Avenue, a surprisingly scuzzy street thick with tattoo parlors, smoke shops, and souvenir stores with mannequins that looked like sex dolls wearing thongs that said "shut up and lick it." Every beach town, no matter how chic, has its seedy side. But we did eventually reach the tony part of South Beach in the pedestrian thoroughfare of Lincoln Road. Lincoln Road is essentially an outdoor strip mall, but a fancy one, with plenty of attractive options for alfresco dining and drinking. It's also a nice place to stroll through and not buy anything at all, but simply take in the nonstop fashion show and beauty contest.
Back at the room later that evening, our attempts at amorousness were interrupted by our bed collapsing beneath us. The bed was essentially a futon mattress over a low, slatted wooden frame, and a couple of the ribs had somehow slipped out of their grooves, leaving us to claw our way out of a mini-mattress sinkhole. It was both sad and funny, and since changing rooms wasn't an option, we made the best of it.
What wasn't funny was the ungodly construction noise at 7:00 the next morning. It came from the Clevelander hotel next door, which is currently being gutted. Power saws and pneumatic concrete blasters made it impossible to sleep, and it quickly became a matter of either changing rooms or ditching the hotel altogether, even though it was paid for up front. Fortunately, a sympathetic desk manager named Ashley was able to move us to a room in the Contemporary building later that afternoon, and our trip instantly got about twenty times better. Perhaps it was that broken bed that got us the coveted upgrade.
True to their marketing, the Strand Ocean Drive really is a stylish hotel. The suites have futuristic-looking Luminaire furniture, Flos lighting fixtures, tidy kitchenettes with full-size refrigerators, flat-screen TVs (which get the Bravo channel, as Jenn quickly discovered), H20+ bath products, and rainfall shower heads that make you feel like a rich person as you do your daily ablutions. We dug it. After enjoying a swim in the stellar rooftop pool (I do love a pool with a view), we toasted our good fortune in our new suite with a couple of Campari and sodas with lime. (A tip of the glass to the liquor store on 11th Street and the Art Deco Supermarket on Washington, both grimy places that had everything we needed.)
That evening, my nerdy tourist fantasies came true as we boarded the Island Queen for a 90-minute sunset cruise through the islands of Biscayne Bay. The affable narrators pointed out the celebrity mansions, and we ogled homes owned by such luminaries as Oprah, Diddy, Shaq, Gloria Estefan, Al Capone, and Vanilla Ice. You know who had the biggest and most opulent estate? The inventor of Viagra, Dr. Simon Campbell. The narrator made the "raising the bar" joke twice, in case we missed it the first time. Also, Alicia Keys has a big yacht named Alicia moored in front of her house.
The Island Queen was perfect, because the very next morning we rented kayaks from South Beach Kayak and paddled past many of the same houses we had seen on our cruise. We would have never known which houses belonged to celebrities without the benefit of the previous day's narration. We would have never been able to holla at Lil John, not that he heard us.
The weather was perfect and the seas were calm. We happily paddled past Belle Island, Rivo Alto Island, and Di Lido Island; looped around Hibiscus Island; skirted Star Island; and even made a stop at sandy, uninhabited Monument Island to snap some photos and guzzle some water before heading back to Island View Park to return the boats. In all, it was roughly a four-mile paddle (according to Ana Marie, the owner of South Beach Kayak), and we felt terrific having done it. I can't recommend the kayak trip enough, because sometimes you've just got to float.
We had dinner that night at the loud and festive Taverna Opa. As we feasted on delicious Greek-style octopus, snapper, and salmon, and guzzled white wine from Santorini, we talked about which of our friends could hack the kayak trip, and which would be best left on dry land.
The next morning, I made another discovery: The place to get your morning caffeine fix in South Beach is Yogo Cafe on 11th between Collins and Ocean. I brought a couple of well-made Segafredo Zanetti cappuccinos ($2.75 apiece) and some chocolate croissants back to the room, and we woke up on our own time.
Then we hit the beach like we were supposed to, and did some serious relaxing. Our $12.50-per-day resort fee got us a couple of lounge chairs and an umbrella, and we enjoyed a day of sun, sand, and surf at one of the world's most famous beaches. It's true what they say on those softcore Travel Channel shows: there's no shortage of uncovered flesh in South Beach, and the bodies on display were generally quite fit. I sucked in my gut more than once. But it was all good. The sunshine and Campari drained us of all our remaining city stresses, and we rode out the week like a gentle wave, wandering from beach to pool to bar to restaurant without a care in the world.
