From breakfast through to the final meal of the day, there are plenty of kid-friendly options for meal times throughout Miami Beach. Most likely your hotel will offer some form of a children’s menu but if you’re wanting to eat elsewhere there are quite a few good options, even for fussy eaters. The Front Porch Cafe is popular with everyone, including families, and is especially famous for its fish tacos if that’s something that appeals to your kids. Big Pink on Collins Avenue looks so fun that it’s naturally attractive to kids and serves plenty of choice on its kids’ menu. Johnny Rockets on Lincoln Road is a reliable burger meal to keep children happy, or just up the road try Pizza Rustica with its pizza sold by the slice, ideal for kids who can’t make up their mind; other franchise restaurants with family-friendly atmospheres are easy to find in Miami Beach, too.
If you’ve headed off further afield, then a great place for a seafood dinner is the Islamorada Fish Company in the Upper Keys, because the kids are bound to enjoy the huge aquarium as well as the replica of Ernest Hemingway’s fishing boat. On your way back to Miami Beach you could stop in at the Dadeland Mall in Miami to try a meal at the Cheesecake Factory which has an extensive children’s menu – and who of any age can go past the choice of fifty different cheesecakes?
Miami Beach at night
At the end of the day – or shortly before the day finishes, when your kids start to tire out – you’ll need a comfortable place to crash. In Miami Beach, the most popular accommodation tends to be housed in quaint Art Deco buildings, but these kind of hotels are rarely suitable for families – the rooms are too small to accommodate extra beds for kids and there are few suites or adjoining rooms. This means the best accommodation options for family travel to Miami Beach are the resort-style places or the large chain brands.
Along Collins Avenue, the numerous beach resorts are a good place to start your accommodation search: the Miami Beach Resort, Marriott’s Eden Roc Renaissance Miami Beach and the Fontainebleau Resort, just to name a few, all offer suites which can easily accommodate a family. A number of resorts in or near Miami Beach also offer kids’ clubs or other kinds of organised activities for children. Loews Miami Beach Hotel in particular welcomes children, and even have a “Loews Loves Kids” program with clubs, camps and other amenities for the younger traveler, even Fisher Price toys! If some of your kids are older they even have a special entertainment program for teenagers. The Sagamore at South Beach offers family bungalow accommodation and even does a good job of making kids feel important; the Ritz Carlton South Beach provides luxury for the adults and a daily Ritz Kids program where you can leave your children for full-day supervision and fun, and they even offer a special meal deal for kids regardless of which part of the hotel you eat at.
If hotels like these are not really acceptable to your budget, then take a look at the apartments and apartment-hotel arrangements you can make in Miami Beach. They can offer more self-contained accommodation if you want to prepare some of your own meals – something which can sometimes make a trip with kids a lot easier than getting them to eat in a restaurant. Wherever you decide to make a reservation, be sure to ask about the availability of pull-out beds, adjoining rooms or family-sized suites, along with children’s meals and other amenities, before you place a firm booking.
Whether your stay in Miami Beach is very short or lasts a couple of weeks, it is still a great choice for a family vacation. Parents will find plenty of culture and novelty to keep them interested and for the kids, there’s always the beach, great sightseeing attractions like zoos or aquariums, and the chance to get active on rollerskates, bikes, canoes or boats. If you choose your hotel carefully then there are numerous options for family-friendly accommodation with large suites or adjoining rooms offered in many hotels or apartments. And because Miami Beach is such a popular holiday destination for families as well as others, many of their restaurants feature menus designed to impress the taste buds of the younger travelers of the group. If you drive down or rent a car, then the rest of southern Florida is at your fingertips too, and you could easily spend a couple of weeks exploring the region with the kids and nobody will complain of being bored. And surely that’s what a vacation with kids is all about!
