Miami Boatshow

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I will be attending the Miami boatshow this weekend with my lovely wife. This will be our first time to the show. Any recommendations on the show...food, deals, things to do etc?
 
The Miami boat show primarily takes place in 4 locations. ......

First is the Miami Beach Convention Center (MBCC) This is in the northern end of "South Beach". South Beach roughly comprises the area south of 23rd St. in Miami Beach. The MBCC will have many vendor booths, and boating electronics and accessories, etc. They usually also have some of the smaller boats.

There are bigger boats / yachts at the in-water displays at 2 locations. One is the yacht and brokerage (used) show that takes place along Indian Creek in the mid-Beach area of Miami Beach. This is along Collins Avenue and a couple miles north of the MBCC.
The other in-water location is at Sea Isle Marina on the Miami mainland, just to the north side of the west end of the Venetian Causeway. That will have mostly new boats. In addition to the large "yachts", it will have performance boats along "Thunder Row".

If you are looking for sail boats, they are at the "Strictly Sail" show at Miamarina at Bayside. Like Sea Isle, this is also on the Miami mainland, rather than Miami Beach. Miamarina is south of the Sea Isle Marina, and below the MacArthur Causeway and Dodge Island/ Cruise port causeway.
Both Sea Isle and Miamarina marinas also have some small marine vendor booth displays, in addition to the MBCC.

The Miamarina / Bayside area has few restaurants right there. If you prefer to eat in South Beach/Miami Beach, they have casual to very fancy. What type of eating are you looking for?

The best way to get around will be by their shuttle busses and the water taxis that will be running. There is parking on the mainland at the Adrienne Arscht Center, which should have plenty of parking. From there, you can pick up shuttle bus rides.

It's a great show for both experienced and new boaters. They have lots of learning seminars, and even some in-water docking / boat handling lessons.
You can easily spend a few days at the show.

What types of boating are you interested in? Even if you have no intention of buying anything (and most attendees don't), it's still a great, fun event.

Enjoy!

Glenn
 
This should also help quite a bit. It's the show's website, which has maps of various parts of the show, shuttle routes, water taxi routes, hours, admisssion prices, vendor lists, etc. Also check out the schedule of classes, seminars, etc. .. good for both "old salts" and newbies.

http://www.miamiboatshow.com/
 
If you do the MBCC, and I'm sure you will, be sure to walk down to South Beach area (can't remember the street name) it is only 2 or 3 blocks past the Jackie Gleason Theater which is next door to the MBCC. It's great fun watching the locals while sidewalk dining.
Also, it is usually easier for us to use the valet parking at the Jackie Gleason Theater and it is sometimes cheaper than the independent rip-off parking.
Enjoy and we'll be one of those thousands of people you will bump into Thursday and Friday.
 
We stay on Collins near and spend most of our time at the Yacht Show [free] with many new boats, and great variety of brokerage ones. We'll do the convention center and the Sea Isle/Bayside displays in one day [its very doable]. After the Yacht Show closes, be sure to cross Collins from the Yacht show to visit the Glow Bar in the lobby of the Fountianbleu, Great for people watching in a unique environment. Dinner is usually along the Lincoln Road pedestrian mall, just a couple of easliy walkable block from the convention center. We also spend time on South Beach to eat, drink and more people watching. Leaving today, and after the show on Monday. well rent a car and be heading to the Keys for the rest of the week. See you there!
 
Plan on spending several days and dont miss the inside displays at the convention center unless you are just boat shopping on this trip..
 
Also worth mentioning is the Coconut Grove Art Festival, which starts this Saturday. The Grove has some good dining options, as does the Brickell district, which is less-likely to be drowning in Art & Boat Show tourists.

There's a new transportation option downtown that's a lot of fun: it's called The Monkey Shuttle, and it's juat an enterprising guy with a couple of electric Gem cars. He'll take you anywhere around downtown and Brickell, and claims that he'll venture further. There's no fee - he works only on tips and you can pre-schedule a ride.
 
On South Beach, the Lincoln Road outdoor pedestrian mall is between 16th and 17th Street. Think of it as 16th and a half steet. The pedrestrian part starts west of Washington Ave. For the part of South Beach that looks like what you see on post cards, go to Ocean Drive. That's the street that is closest to the ocean, south of 15th street. When you are north of 15th, Collins Ave is the closest to the ocean. Below 15th, Ocean Drive borders the beach, while Collins is one block away from the beach.
 
Rusty Pelican for drinks and dinner just before sunset. Best urban sunset view in the US.

Ron
 
WOW!!! Great feedback. I will be checking out these areas on googlemaps to figure it out. The show seems bigger than I thought it would be. Right now I am not shopping for anything, but if a good deal shows up for a gadget I can't do with-out, I guess I will have to buy it. Thanks again.
 
I went on Thursday.

The show is not as big as it used to be but it was still productive to meet with some trailer manufacturers as we are looking to add that to the dealership.

If i were looking for a big sportfisherman, i would have been disappointed.
 
The big sport fishes are a Collins, did you go there?

We went to Strictly Sail yesterday and it was much smaller than a few years ago. They didn't even use all of bayside.

Many catamarans, including the stunning Discovery 50 but disappointing monohull section as the big four (Catalina, hunter, Ben and Jen... ) represented 90% of the selection.

One new Intersting boat is the seaward 46 with their trade mark lifting keel and 2'5" draft... Nice looks and Intersting interior layout but cramped heads.
 
quote:
Originally posted by mintregila

I went on Thursday.

The show is not as big as it used to be but it was still productive to meet with some trailer manufacturers as we are looking to add that to the dealership.

If i were looking for a big sportfisherman, i would have been disappointed.

Click to expand...


The night after we pulled into the show we went walking around and saw a lot of big sportfish boats along Colins Ave.
 
Ah you are right. My mistake. We went to Sea Isle and the convention center. Sea Isle actually had open slips.
 
We went...we saw. That is a lot of walking. We got to all three shows but did not get to the Collins area boat show. We ate in Southbeach...very cool. Thanks all for the info. It made the experience much better. Southerly 58 was very nice. Oyster sailboat was spectacular. Wife really liked the Sabre 48. Oh, we love dreaming. West Marine had a killer deal on inflateable life jackets, but being from Canada I am not sure if they would be 'certified' for Canadian waters.
Cheers
 
The admiral and I went yesterday. We recently relocated to the Keys from VA and I must admit we enjoyed the Annapolis show so much more than either the Miami or Lauderdale shows. The larger shows seem more like a convention.

The selection is impressive, but can seem overwhelming. I counted 4 different Flitz displays within 6 different rows.
 
quote:
Originally posted by Naut Home

We went...we saw. That is a lot of walking. We got to all three shows but did not get to the Collins area boat show.
Click to expand...


Gotta say it, if you didn't see the Collins Ave. Yacht and Brokerage Show, you didn't see the Miami boat show. We spent 3 days there, and did the other 3 venues in one day.

Quite disappointed in the Sea Isle display, almost nothing there of interest to us except the Marlows. Bet they show up off Collins next year.
 
Sea Isle Marina was really, really empty compared to past years. Empty slips and very few vendors at that part of the show.

Collins Ave was packed as usual and the marina reps I spoke with were pretty happy with Dec/Jan sales.

I got this tweet today about sales at the show which is encouraging:
http://www.tradeonlytoday.com/home/518832
 
Oh no! Bill is right - you missed the best and largest part. The good news is: that's a great excuse to go back next year.
 
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