MIAMI
What a weekend!!! I swear every city I visit I fall in love with and want to move there haha. Miami was absolutely STUNNING and such a FUN place, with the NICEST people!
To backtrack, I went to Miami for my friend's bachelorette party. Going into the weekend to be honest I was worried I would feel resentful and be unable to enjoy myself, since I haven't drank or partied since I stopped. I really wanted to stay true to my healthy lifestyle, so that I would feel my best and happiest the whole trip, and so that I could come back to real life without needing a week to detox. I'm happy to admit I achieved both, even though I did drink and indulge more than I was planning to!
In the post I'll recap our whole trip and give my Miami reco's, as well as little tips and tricks I used to not completely let myself go, while still enjoying an epic girls weekend. Skip to the end for the spark notes version :')
DAY 1
We arrived in Miami Thursday night, around 9pm since our flight was delayed. We entered our AirBnb and immediately ran around squealing - it was SOOO nice!! We stayed in Brickell, which is the financial district so of course the whole neighbourhood was super fancy and beautiful.
Half of the group had arrived earlier in the day, so they had a head start on us and were already in South Beach partying! We met them at The Clevelander (a famed spot for it's tacky decor and outdoor beach club vibe). As soon as we stepped out of the Uber it happened - we were approached by one of the infamous promotors, offering a night of free clubs and bottle service!! We got his info and said we'd meet him later.
Around 11pm we headed to SLS Hyde Beach Club to meet our new BFF aka Promoter 1. 11pm is still super early in Miami (the clubs don't get good until 12pm-1am), so SLS was pretty dead but there were a few other groups there and the music was great, and so were the free drinks, so we had a great time just dancing and enjoying our first night of being in Miami.
At 1am it was time to go to the real party, and Promotor 1 took us to Mynt (in South Beach). It was a packed place and we had a booth right at the DJ, so of course we all got up dancing on the booth! It was super fun - an amazing night considering we literally just hopped off the plane and had zero expectations!
As soon as I met up with my friends at the airport, I knew I was going to drink this weekend. It's Miami after all, and YOLO!!!!!! So I had a few drinks throughout the night but not enough to get drunk, and kept a drink of water in my hand at all times to stay hydrated and pretend I was drinking more than I was lol.
We called it a night at around 2am since we were all so tired, half the girls hadn't slept since their 3am plane the day before lol!
DAY 2:
Friday morning I woke up first as I did every day (perks of not getting drunk/hungover), and went to get groceries. We had a pretty laid back day relaxing at the pool at our AirBnb. Later we went for a nice dinner at The Mondrian (in South Beach), which was absolutely beautiful and very affordable! Our server was soo nice, as was everyone we met! The Uber drivers, cashiers, pedestrians, everyone would always say hi and was so nice! It was a nice surprise!
After dinner we headed to Story (a famous huge club), where the event that night was the DJ Alok. Our promotor said to get there for 11:30pm, but of course it was dead since it was so early. On the way there one of my friends rolled her ankle and was in a lot of pain, and since the club was dead we were all too tired to wait around for it to get lit, so we decided to call it a night early and save ourselves for the next day.
DAY 3:
BEST. DAY. EVER. The bride's one wish for the weekend was to rent a yacht, so her wish was our command and we got a private one for the day! It was only $150 CAD each for 4 hours, and they ended up giving us an extra 2 hours just because they liked us and had nothing to do after! They also picked us up and drove us back to our AirBnb, so it was great value, highly recommend! We booked it through an app called Get My Boat, and their personal IG is @the_pirate_of_the_caribean, so you could probably DM them to negotiate a rate. We had to bring our own food and drinks and everything but they were SOO nice and literally took photos of us the whole day and drove us around to different beautiful islands to stop and jump off the boat and party, plus they had loud speakers for music! Plus some random guys on Seadoos pulled up and we just hopped on! So fun lol!
After the boat it was time for a free dinner and night out with Promotor 2. Prior to this trip everyone kept saying how girls get everything for free in places like Miami and Vegas, but I thought it was that you had to finesse your way in and have to hang out with weird dudes in order to have them buy you dinner and drinks and stuff. I didn't realize that it's literally a business - the promotors get paid to bring girls into clubs for free and give them everything for free, in order to make their club look good so men come and buy drinks. What an amazing business model!! And the promotors were so nice, not sketchy at all they were so respectful and just wanted us to have a good time.
So back to the night, Promotor 2 invited us to a dinner party at the Marion (in Brickell). We arrived and the place was a beautiful, fancy place, and he brought us to have some wine and apps at a standing table before we were seated. We had unlimited wine and sushi, until we were seated outside on the beautiful patio. 3 other girls joined us (it's so funny how this is a thing lol, but I love it!), one of which had been on MTV's Siesta Key and was telling us all about that world! So cool. All of a sudden the restaurant came to life and all the guests were up on the tables dancing with sparklers and the servers were up on the bar in Pablo Escobar and Donald Trump costumes and the women in lingerie, spraying smoke machines everywhere. It was crazy lol!!!!!! So funny since it was so classy and calm when we walked in.
Then it was time to head to the club for the night - Rockwell (South Beach). It was all hiphop all night, so I was happy :) Again we were right by the DJ booth and they had amazing Gogo Dancers, it was so fun!!!
DAY 4:
Pool party!!!!! We went back to SLS (same place as our very first venue on Day 1) for their pool party on Sunday. It was a whole other beast than what it was on Thursday! We had Promotor 3 bring us to a booth but quickly migrated over to a better one by the pool with some nice guys in it who kindly let us join them (pics below lol). It was so fun, your classic day drinking in the pool with floaties, the works!!! Afterwards we went to Big Pink for food, a super cute old school diner with a HUGE menu. I got a BLT with fries but saved one half of the sandwich for later. Shared mozzarella sticks with the table too. Besides a lot of snacking on chips, other than this I stayed pretty healthy in terms of eating. All about balance and enjoying being on vacay, while being mindful not to go crazy.
This was our last night, but I didn't end up going out because I was stressed about being on the wrong flight lol (long story), so I stayed home with my friend who rolled her ankle and the other girls went out. They went to Mr. Jones with Promotor 1, which is a supper club kind of like Marion, they had giant ice cream sundaes, sushi, and pizza (the bottle service girls bring them to the table with sparklers as if they are bottles lol), and then it becomes a club. Then they went to E11even, which is an all-night ultra club with strippers lol. Sounded like a crazy fun night, but I was happy to stay home and get a good sleep. I woke up at 7am the next day and went for a long walk to Wynnwood to check out the famous murals. I really wanted to see more of the city during the day! We lounged by the pool for the rest of the day until our flight.
In case this was too long for you to read, and you don't care about my story-telling, here are the key takeaways:
HEALTHY VACATION TIPS:
- Workout before your flight. I was lucky to have an afternoon flight there so I did bootcamp the morning of, since I know I get so antsy sitting on planes.
- Stay EXTRA hydrated. Drink more water than alcohol!
- Go grocery shopping (save money too!!)
- Don't get wasted. I decided to drink even though I haven't in 6 months because it was Miami and YOLO; but I didn't get drunk so I wasn't hungover, therefore I was able to make healthier decisions the next day as well.
- Get exercise - somehow! I managed to do one workout in our condo gym, but the rest of the days I would just do some stretching, situps, pushups, planks, squats, and mountain climbers just on our patio whenever we were just chilling, just to get the blood flowing and not feel sluggish. Dancing all night counts as well!
- Pace yourself - we called the second night an early night so that we could rest up and keep the rest of the weekend lit. Don't kill yourself on the first night or two, or you'll feel like shit the rest of the weekend and not even enjoy yourself! I personally can't enjoy partying if I feel exhausted, hungover, bloated and disgusting.
- Let go of guilt; even though I did try to stay as true to my healthy lifestyle as possible, I definitely indulged more than I originally wanted to. But I enjoyed every second of it because ultimately the trip was about having fun with my best friends, and I didn't want to spend it being resentful or a buzz-kill. One weekend of fun won't kill you :)
- Get right back into your routine afterwards, the longer you wait to go back to the gym the harder it will be! I came back to an insanely busy week of dance and I'm so glad I didn't go crazy on my trip, because I had legit no time for recovery. It felt so good to get right back into it and I was so happy my trip didn't set me back at all!
PLACES TO GO:
Rockwell: Hiphop club, smaller but nice, great gogo dancers and music!
Story: Famous club, really cool huge space but we got there before it got fun so idk. Usually they have events like DJs and celebrities.
E11even: Not a strip club but they have strippers. Go as your after party
Marion: Dinner/club; get a promotor to get you in for the free dinner and wine before a night out, great pre!
Mondrian: Beautiful, chill restaurant with a gorgeous pool and view. Really good food and really good prices; we got a bunch of shareables and my bill was less than $30 USD (didn't get alcohol). They even brought us complementary champagne since we were celebrating!
SLS Hyde Beach: Lit pool parties on Sundays.
Yacht Rental: @the_pirate_of_the_caribean
Mr. Jones: Supper club Sundays, giant ice cream sundaes, pizzas, and sushi. Becomes a club.
Mynt: Smaller club, pretty fun, nothing special.
Clevelander: Outdoor bar, super touristy and tacky in a good way with lots of neon lights. Very over priced but fun to go to.
Wynnwood Walls: Hipster arts district with gorgeous murals and galleries everywhere. I went during the day to check it out but apparently it has a vibrant nightlife as well!
Big Pink: Super cute old school diner with generous portions and good food :)
SOOO many other places to go that will have to wait for next time! I wish I had time to check out the latin culture and also the dance community but that will have to wait til next time!