Where to stay with family in Miami
When travelling to Miami in the past, I’ve loved staying on South Beach. Cool hotels, bars and restaurants and walking distance to shops like Intermix. It really wasn’t worth looking anywhere else.
But now it’s a different story. When booking a hotel for our half-term holiday in Miami, I was suddenly a lot more concerned about partying outside the hotel room at night, or feeling out of place with a toddler by the pool or in the hotel restaurants.
After much research, we decided one of these two hotels were good options for us:
Turnberry Isle
We chose Turnberry Isle in Aventura, a 35-minute drive from South Beach when there’s not heavy traffic, for our family holiday, and this was a great place for us to stay. Turnberry Isle (see photos above) has 408 guest rooms, two golf courses, tennis courts, two large pools, a lazy river and a water slide, and a beach club a short shuttle-ride away on Sunny Isle Beach, where there’s also a pool.
There were lots of families with children staying at the hotel, and this was a big bonus since Baby Girl loves seeing other children. Every morning the little ones could help feed the Koi fish by reception, which was great fun for her.
In the restaurants in the hotel, there were kids options, high chairs and plastic straw cups. We often had dinner in the lobby lounge, but we also took Baby Girl to the amazing Bourbon Steak in the hotel, and she–like us–became a big fan of the trio of duck-fat fries.
The hotel restaurants start serving dinner at 6, but there’s 24-hour in-room dining and a number of restaurants serving dinner earlier across the road at the huge Aventura Mall. It was excellent to have the mall, the third biggest in the US, across the road, and on the first day we had dinner early in The Cheesecake Factory at the mall –ideal for families!
Fontainebleau
We also considered historic beach hotel Fontainebleau for our Miami holiday, and Fontainebleau, which has 1,504 guest rooms, is now owned by the same company as Turnberry Isle. The hotel is located on Miami Beach, closer to South Beach, and has 12 restaurants and lounges, a large spa and several shops.
Fontainebleau underwent a two-year $1 billion reinvention and reopened in 2008. We would definitely also consider Fontainebleau for our next family holiday.
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