Last week, the hubby and I were originally supposed to set sail on the new Virgin Voyages cruise ship out of Miami, but due to the ongoing pandemic, our cruise was sadly cancelled. However, as we’re never ones to turn down a vacation, we decided to keep the pre-cruise portion of our trip even if it meant visiting Miami in the height of the summer. Follow along to see what all we saw in the “Magic City”!
The Points-and-Miles Strategy:
A big part of our decision to keep our trip even without the cruise was because of the amazing price we got on our hotel. We had booked this particular stay last summer, in the height of the pandemic, when hotels were luring anyone they could with low rates. We managed to book a Premium Oceanfront Balcony room at the Hilton Cabana Miami Beach for a rate of just $229 a night — by the time we took the trip, they were selling this same room type for $750 a night.
But that wasn’t all. I also took full advantage of the fact that I’m a Hilton American Express Aspire cardholder. At the time I booked, AmEx was running an Offer in which you could get a $60 statement credit for spending $150 or more at any Hilton property. The one-night deposit that I paid at booking qualified, knocking $60 off the cost of our trip.
Even better still, the Aspire card offers a $250 credit each cardmember year for spend at a qualifying Hilton Resort, and the Hilton Cabana Miami Beach is among their list of official resort properties. Combining all of these discounts together meant that we got 3 nights in a premium room with an amazing view for just $377 total (before taxes and fees) — that’s a whopping 83% off the standard rate.
Of course, paying cash rather than points for this stay also meant I could earn points on my spend. Through the elevated earning rates I get through being a Hilton Diamond member, being an Aspire cardholder, and having pre-registered for Hilton’s latest “More Nights, More Points” promotion, I earned a whopping 37,560 points in return for my spend. Given an estimated value of Honors points of around 0.6 cents per point, I effectively earned $225 towards my next Hilton free redemption, further bringing the “net” cost of my hotel stay down to just $152.
For 3 nights. Over a weekend. On the beach. In a premium room. 🤯🤯🤯
Our flight strategy wasn’t quite as mind-blowing, but still made for a good deal. We redeemed 27,261 Southwest points, earned through credit card spend on our Rapid Rewards Visa, for a free round trip flight from Dallas to Fort Lauderdale for the hubby. Then, we doubled the value of that redemption by adding a free companion ticket for me, available via our Southwest Companion Pass Status. Given these flights generally run about $130 each way, that means we got about 1.9 cents per point value out of our points redemption, which represents a “better than average” redemption on Southwest.
We opted not to rent a car this trip, and decided instead to rely on Uber/Lyft. While this was ultimately the least expensive decision because of the super-pricey cost of parking in and around South Beach, I can’t really say it was a deal at all. But we had a lot of the city to see!
Our Trip Experience in Miami:
As our flight took us to Fort Lauderdale rather than Miami proper, I arranged to have a private towncar pick us up and take up to our hotel through a local limo service for $79. While this was admittedly a bit of a splurge to kick off the vacation, this turned out to be a great decision as it was raining when we got in, resulting in a short supply of Ubers and Lyfts servicing the airport coupled with surge pricing. Plus, our driver even agreed to a quick stop at a Walgreens on our way so that we could pick up sunscreen & coldbrew coffee for the room.
Once we checked in, we headed down to the hotel’s pool bar for some frozen drinks to get us in vacation mode, and took a quick walk to explore the pool and beach areas. The Hilton Cabana Miami Beach is located directly on the beach, and while the beach itself is public, they had a beach shop that was happy to set up chairs and umbrellas for guests. My only complaint there is that the beach shop closed daily at 5pm — despite the fact that the sun didn’t set until closer to 9pm. So if you wanted to explore the beach later in the day, you were essentially on your own.
There were also two pools on property, but they weren’t really anything special – just large rectangles surrounded by lounge chairs. We ended up spending most of our time at the first floor pool, because it had servers and towel service, while the pool on the 3rd floor did not.
After our initial tour, we changed into our evening clothes and got a Lyft over to the Faena Hotel Miami Beach to kick off our first night. And can I just say — WOW. The Faena hotel is GORGEOUS, from the meticulously painted murals to the intricately styled bars and restaurants. We started with dinner at Los Fuegos by Francis Mallman, and it was definitely one of our top meals of the trip. After dinner came the real reason we were at the Faena, though: the show Tryst.
Tryst is a cabaret style show with singers, dancers, aerialists, musicians and drag performers, all in the Faena’s custom-built theater. The plot is loosely (very loosely) based around the idea that the emcee (Kat Cunning) is recalling all her exes and all they’ve taught her about sex. What results is just a gorgeous, immersive, eye-popping show; think an even more sultry version of Cirque du Soleil’s Zumanity, only way more up close and personal. We loved it, I’d highly recommend if you’re planning a trip to Miami.
The next day was our museum day, which meant rising early to beat the crowds and the heat to Vizcaya Museum & Gardens. This museum is the preserved former estate of John Deering, a millionaire industrialist who built the gigantic estate for his winter residence in the early 1920s. You can explore both the house itself, which is styled after an Italian villa, as well as the impressive gardens. Just be careful not to stray off the designated paths, as this is still very much Florida, and wildlife abounds.
After exploring Vizcaya, we headed to the nearby Key Biscane marina for brunch at the Rusty Pelican. And this was such a fantastic choice! The view itself was amazing (the header photo at the top of this post is from here) but it was also pretty excellent food. We split the Petite Seafood Tower, followed by the Crab Cake Benedict, and enjoyed a key lime pie for dessert. They also had bottomless mimosas in a variety of juice flavors, which we enjoyed alongside our brunch.
Next up we headed back to the city to take in some modern art at the Rubell Museum. Miami is of course known internationally as a huge art city due to the annual Art Basel festival, and the Rubell exemplifies this. We were thrilled to learn that they had just recently re-opened their TWO Yayoi Kusama infinity rooms just before our trip!
And Kusama wasn’t all. I have to say the most impressive piece to me was the absolutely massive Kehinde Wiley portrait in the main gallery. It was just stunning.
Just across the street from the Rubell is another art experience, an immersive projection experience created by local Miami artists. Called “Superblue“, this exhibit consists of three themed rooms where you are actually able to interact with the projections through your own movement in the room; it’s somewhat hard to describe, but was very neat (if not particularly easy to photograph.)
By this time, those brunch mimosas were setting in, so we headed back to the hotel for a nap and some beach time before dinner. That evening, we went to Boia De, a tiny gem of a restaurant hidden in a strip mall in Miami’s Little Haiti neighborhood. Sitting outside, we got to experience some truly amazing food while watching area residents come and go from the Laundromat next door — very surreal. The food was AMAZING though, with some of our favorites being the bone marrow, the beef tartare, and the pasta.
After dinner, we headed to Esotico, a tiki bar in Downtown Miami. There, we toasted the night with smoking rum drinks and Hawaiian decor before heading back to the hotel.
Our next day was a Monday, meaning a lot of places in Miami were closed — but not the beach. So we decided to make this our beach/pool day and rented a cabana. The cabana was located on the main pool deck at our hotel, and came with a dedicated server, plenty of towels, 20% off food from the pool bar, and a bottle of our choice. And while we took full advantage of the bottle, the pool menu didn’t seem particularly appetizing to us, so we called an audible and had local taqueria Taquiza delivered via DoorDash, which felt all the more luxurious delivered to a cabana.
That evening, we crossed the Causeway once again, to take in dinner at Amaro at Paraiso. Here, we noshed on tapas and half-off bottles of wine (Go Mondays!), and while the food here was tasty, it didn’t quite live up to the two world-class dinners we’d had on previous nights.
After dinner, we headed to South Beach, assuming that a Monday night might be a bit calmer for mid-30-somethings like ourselves. That…didn’t exactly turn out to be the case, and we soon found ourselves seeking out respite away from the club-like atmosphere at somewhere a little more sophisticated. So we headed to Swizzle Rum Bar and Drinkery, a speakeasy tucked away in a non-descript corner of the Stiles Hotel, and even better, lucked into two seats at the bar. Here we had some fantastic cocktails, even if the dark and secluded atmosphere didn’t exactly lend itself to great photos.
On our final day, we slept in a bit and found those cocktails from the day before still rattling around a bit inside our heads, so went to the hubby’s age-old cure-all: donuts! We sampled a few different varieties from The Salty Donut (surprise: the classic glazed was actually our favorite!) in the Wynwood area of Miami before heading out to explore the area’s famous street art and grafitti.
Soon after, it was time to head back to the hotel and, with the help of late checkout courtesy of my Diamond status, were able to shower and change before heading to the airport. All in all, I’m so glad we kept this trip even despite our cruise being cancelled — and when we come back for that cruise next year, we’ll have some new favorites to revisit!
