When we first booked our 8 day Eastern Caribbean cruise, my husband was really excited that the cruise was based out of Miami.He’s been trying to convince me to go to Miami for years and now he finally had an excuse.
The hubby decided to book our cruise flights so that we would arrive in Miami a day before our cruise.For convenience sake, he decided to book our flight out of Reagan International since it’s only 2 metro stops away from our apartment.
So 9am Friday morning with our luggage in tow, we hopped on the Metro up to Reagan.After sitting around for a few hours, our flight to Miami was ready to go around 11.
Three hours later, we arrived in beautiful, sunny Miami.
I can’t tell you how crazy it was to leave our 40 degree weather and arrive in the balmy 80 degree heat of Miami.We must have looked like total weirdos carrying our winter coats around.
Once we collected our luggage, we headed out to the taxi line to catch a cab to our hotel in Miami Beach.Miami is one of a few cities that operates its taxis on a flat fee depending on the zip code for your location.We ended up paying $34 for the ride from the airport to our Miami Beach hotel (it’s about a 20 minute drive).
We stayed at the Crest Hotel which is located one block off the beach in-between 17th Street and Lincoln Road.
It was a cute boutique hotel that served our function well since we were only staying one night. 
Although I will say it probably has one of the smallest showers I’ve ever seen in my life.It was even smaller than the shower on our cruise.But like I said, we were only there for a night so it wasn’t a big deal.
Once we dropped off our bags and freshened up, we decided to head straight to the beach.
In less than a 5 minute walk, we were greeted by the soothing sounds of the ocean.
I was so happy.For someone who can’t stand winter, it was amazing to be able to walk comfortably on the beach in February.
We were so entranced by the beach that we ended up walking almost 2 miles all the way down to the famous South Beach strip. 
We decided on the way back up to our hotel to walk on Ocean Drive which holds most of South Beach’s iconic art deco buildings.
We loved how timeliness and tropical the whole area felt.Having taken a million pictures of Art Deco buildings, we had worked up quite an appetite.The hubs suggested that we walk over to the Lincoln Road area to grab a bite to eat.Lincoln Road is an open air 8 block pedestrian mall filled with tons of shopping, restaurants and cafes.
When you first walk into the mall, you are greeted by a beautiful turquoise fountain.
The rest of the 8 blocks contained shops and restaurants on either side with parks and café seating in the middle.The whole area has this wonderful tropic, busy vibe.
Everywhere we turned we could hear different languages being spoken.We walked the entire area before finally deciding to eat at Spris, a Mediterranean pizzeria.
We opted to eat in the outdoor café seating so we could soak up as much of the warm sun as possible (and maybe people watch a little bit too).
The energy surrounding this area was amazing.We could hear Cuban music in the distance and the hum of people talking everywhere.It really felt like we were in the place to be. 
We started off with their Mesta salad which contained tomatoes, greens and some yummy balsamic vinaigrette.
To compliment our salad, we added their Classic Bruschette.It was crisp and crunchy with a sweet tomato topping.
We topped the meal off with their Toscana pizza, a whole wheat pizza dough covered in tomato sauce, mozzarella, grilled chicken, spinach, mushrooms and ricotta cheese. This pizza was killer.You should have seen us drooling at the mouth. Since we had seen a million ice cream and gelato places in the mall, we decided not to do dessert at Spris.In total, the meal came around $30 and it was an absolute steal.I definitely recommend Spris if you are ever in the Lincoln Road area.
After walking our dinner off a few blocks, we popped into one of the local gelato shops.We had been jonesing for gelato ever since our Mediterranean honeymoon (where we literally got gelato every single day).
We got one scoop of chocolate brownie and another of chocolate banana split.It was every bit as delicious as I remember.I love how satisfying gelato is without being heavy.It’s light and airy but still creamy.
With that we decided to head back to our suite to pass out, we had just spent the last 5 hours walking all over South Beach and we were totally beat.
If you are cruising out of Miami, I definitely recommend coming in a day early to check out South Beach.It is a wonderfully vibrate, eclectic town with tons of spirit. And besides, who doesn’t want another day in the 80 degree weather when it’s snowing back at home?
