My Miami Beach vacation review (Fort Lauderdale, Key West: real estate, hotels, live)

[Robert5]

I spent 5 days in Miami Beach this past week. South Beach in a $180/night hotel near 10th and Collins. In summary, the most over rated vacation City I have ever been in. 90+% of the reviews on Trip Advisor must be astroturfing . Maybe I would have a higher opinion of it if I spoke Spanish, it was often a struggle to find someone that *understood* English beyond a 4th grade level. I think there is a higher percentage of people that speak English well in Cabo San Lucas. And Cabo is less than half the price. At times I found myself wondering if a particular business accepted U.S. money before I entered. I suspect a Cabol of people/companies own all the hotels and bars in the area and maintain artificially high prices, and of course put a lot of effort into hyping the South Beach experience. The price of real estate and labor in the area does not justify the prices being charged for Hotel, food and drink. I observed a lot of homeless, and had a general feeling that people working there were trying to Hustle me. I'd estimate 75% of the tourists when I was there were Euros, maybe that changes based upon season. It is nice on the eyes to see that most of the Euro women are not over weight like the typical North American woman, but many of the Euros Smoke, most don't understand English beyond said 4th grade level, and they all start to look alike after a while. I spent half a day in North Beach (just 5 miles north of SOBE), for some reason I assumed North Beach would be more English speaking, it wasn't, same experience, just a slightly lower social class.
eta: why do they have to air condition everything to the max? It is 80 outside, but the Hotel, the Airport, the buses, etc.... are all 68ish inside. I saw people walking with coats due to the excess AC even mid day.

[perry335654]

Glad you enjoyed your stay, beautiful place Miami Beach.

[CityScape0322]

While South Beach is awesome, literally everything your wrote says your not discerning enough of a traveler to have avoided the tourist traps. I bet you actually went to Ocean Drive. I'm an English speaking American, and I love the international vibe of the city and on the weekends I love kicking it with European and South American women. BTW, I live on South Beach and have no problem finding fluent english speakers.

You don't really come here looking for an American experience, this is the destination for those who wanted the Jetset feel but did really have time to pull off a full blown trip to South America or the Mediterranean.

[ace587]

should've gone to Fort Lauderdale then

[FlyMIA]

You did not see nor do much of what South Florida has to offer.

And why would European tourist know English?? How is this a negative?

[unquiltom]

I actually agree with most of what the OP posted. Miami Beach tries very hard to be like a European beach city. I mean, who wants to go to a beach bar with velvet ropes, cover charges, dress codes and $7 domestic beers except those who are or pretend to be European? On the other hand, a little bit of Google searching would have told a traveler as much and if one didn't want to pretend to be European on their vacation, they could choose another destination.
Personally, I'll drive down to Key West for my Florida beach fix, even though I only live 30 min. from SoBe. The vibe there is more to my liking, and everyone speaks English!

[HumboldtParkShiner]

Maybe its changed since I left, but South Beach always hyped the whole ghetto, "hood life" bullcrap too much for me to ever want to hang out there. I worked security there, it was always broke wannabe thugs, homeless people and rebellious girls from America and Europe who always exclusively seemed to prefer black guys. Classier Euro and Argentine tourist sightings did pick up a bit before I left, but once 11:00 pm hit, it would always transform into one trashy, ghetto, hood block party until sunrise.

I always imagined South Beach would have wanted to shed this image sooner or later, as apparently I heard numerous times that this ghetto image the city was appealing to was causing the city to go broke because their trashy thug clientele could never afford anything outside of the costs of their hotel room.

[perry335654]

Originally Posted by HumboldtParkShiner

Maybe its changed since I left, but South Beach always hyped the whole ghetto, "hood life" bullcrap too much for me to ever want to hang out there. I worked security there, it was always broke wannabe thugs, homeless people and rebellious girls from America and Europe who always exclusively seemed to prefer black guys. Classier Euro and Argentine tourist sightings did pick up a bit before I left, but once 11:00 pm hit, it would always transform into one trashy, ghetto, hood block party until sunrise.

I always imagined South Beach would have wanted to shed this image sooner or later, as apparently I heard numerous times that this ghetto image the city was appealing to was causing the city to go broke because their trashy thug clientele could never afford anything outside of the costs of their hotel room.

I think what your trying to say in that first paragraph is you can't afford to hang in Sobe, so you in an inferior sense have to put the area down, I believe that is analogous to the OP comments.

[TooLoud]

Originally Posted by HumboldtParkShiner

Maybe its changed since I left, but South Beach always hyped the whole ghetto, "hood life" bullcrap too much for me to ever want to hang out there. I worked security there, it was always broke wannabe thugs, homeless people and rebellious girls from America and Europe who always exclusively seemed to prefer black guys. Classier Euro and Argentine tourist sightings did pick up a bit before I left, but once 11:00 pm hit, it would always transform into one trashy, ghetto, hood block party until sunrise.

I always imagined South Beach would have wanted to shed this image sooner or later, as apparently I heard numerous times that this ghetto image the city was appealing to was causing the city to go broke because their trashy thug clientele could never afford anything outside of the costs of their hotel room.

What the hell... When did you work as security in SoBe? The 90s?

[CityScape0322]

Originally Posted by HumboldtParkShiner

Maybe its changed since I left, but South Beach always hyped the whole ghetto, "hood life" bullcrap too much for me to ever want to hang out there. I worked security there, it was always broke wannabe thugs, homeless people and rebellious girls from America and Europe who always exclusively seemed to prefer black guys. Classier Euro and Argentine tourist sightings did pick up a bit before I left, but once 11:00 pm hit, it would always transform into one trashy, ghetto, hood block party until sunrise.

I always imagined South Beach would have wanted to shed this image sooner or later, as apparently I heard numerous times that this ghetto image the city was appealing to was causing the city to go broke because their trashy thug clientele could never afford anything outside of the costs of their hotel room.

You had to have specifically worked at a hiphop club to experience any of that. None of the spots I hang out at ever looked like that, and I'm out in SoBe most weekends.