Our Summer Family Travel Itinerary for Miami, Bahamas and a Perfect Day at CocoCay
Issue #29-23 of a weekly family travel newsletter from The Family Travel Guy takes a look at our Summer trip to Miami and the Bahamas
Just Got Back: Miami, Bahamas and Our Perfect Day at CocoCay
In this series titled, "Just Got Back", I go over a quick trip itinerary report for our Summer trip that included a stay in Miami and a cruise to the Bahamas and CocoCay with Royal Caribbean that some of you may find interesting and useful, as I always try to optimize our family travel itineraries and maximize value in the form of cost savings, time savings or other value I can find.
The trip itinerary below gives you a quick glimpse on where we stayed, how we got to each city, some of the highlights of activities we did in each city, where we ate and some of our top recommendations on things to consider adding for your next trip to one of these amazing cities.
Miami
We took a red-eye flight , which is less than ideal, but there aren’t many options unless we fly out of a bigger airport like from San Francisco (SFO). We arrived a day before our cruise, just in case of any delays or mishaps getting into Miami. Anytime you’re taking a cruise, I highly recommend arriving to the destination at least one day before to account for anything that delay your arrival into the destination.
Flight: SMF to FLL with a stop in ATL on Delta Airlines.
Since it was an overnight flight, I decided to book Delta Comfort+ to give us a little more space to try to get some sleep on the flight.
I booked a car service from FLL to our hotel with Blacklane, which is a chauffer service I typically use for airport pickups. I don’t want to have to hunt around for an Uber or wiat around in a taxi line, especially on little sleep at an airport I have not been to previously. With Blacklane, our driver is waiting for us at the baggage carousel and provies seamless service to our destination. We have used Blacklane in London, Paris, New York City, Rome, and other major cities on our travels.
Stay: JW Marriott Marquis Miami
We spent one night in Downtown Miami, close enough to the Miami Cruise Terminal and Brickell City Centre (shopping, restaurants)
Royal Caribbean Cruise with stops at CocoCay and Nassau, Bahamas
We embarked on a three-night cruise on Royal Caribbean out of Miami that included stops at their private island, CocoCay, and then a stop at Nassau, Bahamas.
We booked a Junior Suite on Freedom of the Seas, which offered lots of space for our family of four. We also purchased “The Key”, which gave us priortiy embarkation/departure, internet access, preferred seating areas at the shows, welcome lunch, departure breakfast and many other benefits.
Since we had a cruise credit from 2020 that we had to use, the overall cost of the cruise was relatively inexpensive, but when you start adding up all of the other things we purchased like drink packages and tours, the overall price increased quickly.
Perfect Day at CocoCay: We splurged a little here and booked an overwater bungalow at Coco Beach Club that was an amazing way to spend the day at CocoCay.
Nassau, Bahamas: We booked a tour through Royal Caribbean to Baha Mar, where we enjoyed a day at the Baha Mar Water Park and touring the hotels there. This area of Nassau is relatively new in terms of the hotels and development there, with the other popular option in Nassau is a visit to Atlantis Bahamas.
Miami Beach
After our cruise, we spent the next week in Miami Beach at two luxury hotels, one in South Beach and another in Bal Harbour. We enjoyed shopping and dining in South Beach Miami, as well as visiting Wynwood Walls, taking a boat tour, and a quick trip to Everglades National Park.
The Ritz Carlton South Beach: We spent three nights here and booked a Marriott STARS rate that gave us a daily $113 breakfast credit, $100 hotel credit and other benefits. Our Marriott Bonvoy Titanium status is almost meaningless at Ritz Carlton properties (no breakfast benefit, room upgrades, etc, based on our Marriott Bonvoy status). I booked this hotel due to its location on South Beach and benefits we would receive when booking a STARS rate.
The St Regis Bal Harbour: We spent the next three nights here and used Marriott Bonvoy points to book our stay. Our Marriott Bonvoy Titanium status helped unlock daily breakfast (amazing benefit here!) and we used Suite Night Upgrade Certificates to help us get an upgrade to a Deluxe Oceanfront Room. It is much more relaxed in Bal Harbour and the hotel had a nice family pool area with sports equipment and what felt like a private beach, as it was not crowded like South Beach.
On our way home, we experienced a major flight delay due to weather and were stuck on the runway for 2+ hours in FLL due to thunderstorms. We ended up missing our connection in Atlanta and had to book an overnight stay at a nearby airport hotel without our luggage, as the next flight out wasn’t until the next morning. The most annoying part of the whole experience was a lack of communication and understanding/caring from Delta (we weren’t the only ones experiencing delays and missed connections). I have submitted a claim for reimbursement, so we’ll see what happens with that.
In the coming weeks, as I get back up to speed from vacation mode and find some time, I plan on adding reviews of the hotels we stayed at, our experience on the cruise, as well as the best things to consider seeing and doing that you should consider adding to your next trip to Miami over on the blog at The Family Travel Guy.
In the mean time, you can find content in the form of Instagram Reels for each of the places we visited that include some of the highlights of our trip.
"Miami – where every day feels like a vacation"
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I hope this email helped spark some travel inspiration!
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