The Confidante Miami Beach: Our New Year’s Eve Stay
Andrew and I just got back from an amazing New Year’s Eve trip to Miami Beach and I am dying to tell you all about the hotel we stayed at. The Confidante Miami Beach is the Hyatt hotel where we resided for our two night trip. It is right off of 41st street, so the location is in the north part of South Beach. I find it to be the perfect spot for a resort getaway.
Our Trip to Miami
Before I dive in to the review, here’s the details on what prompted our little vacation. With my parents recent move to Florida, we found ourselves with a lot of extra time over the holidays since we were not traveling to New Hampshire. I am always looking for new places to explore for this blog, so I started checking to see which Hyatt hotels were available in Florida for New Year’s. I was shocked to see that The Confidante still had availability for only 15,000 points a night! For a hotel that was going for $700 a night after tax and resort fee, this was an amazing offer.
I did have some hesitations about spending New Year’s in Miami, as it is arguably one of the most expensive cities in the country. Looking for NYE parties, pretty much everything started at $100 per person with options easily going into the tens of thousands. However, it’s a big city and there is still something for everyone.
We ended up at the Broken Shaker for free on New Year’s Eve, as we got there at 10 when there was no issue getting in. It was clear most people in Miami had just started partying when the clock struck midnight and this bar we were at was still letting people in at 11:30. The Broken Shaker is more of a hipster bar and a very fun option for those who aren’t into the club scene.
Visiting The Confidante Miami Beach
I think our New Year’s Eve was proof that you can make Miami whatever you want it to be. During our visit, we saw typical young partiers, but also families of all ages, older couples, groups of friends and everything in between. There is pretty much every imaginable type of cuisine, art in the form of extravagant pieces to graffiti, pristine nature preserves, museums, shopping, beach yoga classes and so much more in this small area.
If you have Chase points or Hyatt points, I highly recommend checking out this hotel. If you have the Hyatt Credit Card, you could also redeem your free card member anniversary night here. The points per nights rates have gone up about properties I have blogged about in the past, so who knows how long this deal will be around for. All I know is that we were so glad we could take advantage of it!
The Best Part of The Confidante – The Pool and Beach!
The main appeal of the Confidante is definitely the beach and the pool. The resort is situated on a white sand beach with water that was in the high 70’s when we visited during the holidays. The beach is decked out with pastel striped beach chairs that add the whimsical feel of a Wes Anderson movie. The comfy beach chairs are included, however you have to pay to rent an umbrella or a cabana.
We spent Sunday afternoon lounging at the beach and then the better part of Monday hanging at the pool. They have a DJ at the pool from 12-5 on Saturdays, Sundays and most holidays. Between the heated pool, the fun DJ remixes and the perfect 80 degree weather, I literally could have spent the whole weekend here and been happy. It did get a little crowded around 1-2, but there were still a few chairs around and I noticed the staff moving towels of any “saved” chairs that had gone unused for some time.
It wasn’t a crazy pool party like other resorts in the area have, but it did have a fun vibe. We made drinks in our room and sipped them out of hydroflask cups instead of spending the $15 on cocktails and no one had a problem with it. I did splurge on the $22 signature coconut beverage, which was strong and tasty enough to almost make me not feel ridiculous for buying it for the ‘gram.
The Confidante Miami Beach also has a happy hour from 4-7 where the cocktails and beer are half off. Randomly so is the poke bowl and it’s the only happy hour food item. We got it as a snack and it was a well done poke bowl. The bar is really slow, so keep that in mind if you plan to buy drinks there.
Other Resort Amenities
I imagine most people visiting will spend their time enjoying the sun or exploring the city, however the hotel does offer a spa and a pretty nice fitness studio. The 10th floor is home to the “rooftop wellness playground” (Haha at whoever in Corporate thought up that one!), where they frequently have yoga and boxing classes. We went up for the view and it was pretty nice. I could see myself enjoying some yoga up there. Pop-up fitness classes are becoming a huge thing in cities, so I wouldn’t be surprised if they brought in some Soul Cycle bikes or held a Pure Barre class up there. They have already had Kickboxing and Pvolve just in the past few months.
There is free coffee in the lobby every morning until 10 AM, as well as free citrus water throughout the resort. They also make a point of having an art exhibit that changes. While we were there, the feature was the art of Atomik, who is known as a graffiti legend in Miami. We saw his tag of a smiling orange all over the city, so it was cool to see the hotel putting his art on display as well.
Other events that went on during the week of Christmas were a sandcastle making contest, a beach Olympics, a poolside movie, and NYE party. This hotel continued the trend of other Hyatt resorts of promising a wide range of activities that are often not well executed. We saw this a lot in Maui with different Hawaiian cultural events like lei making, and also in Cancun with the free tennis lessons. They tend to advertise these offerings heavily, but then the staff has all sorts of misinformation.
New Year’s Eve at The Confidante Miami Beach
We saw online that they would have a New Year’s Eve event from 5-9 PM as a sort of pregame. It was advertised to cost $40 per person and include champagne, a raw bar of local delicacies, a tarot card reader and live music. When we told the front desk we would like to register for this, they told us that it actually started at 9 and was from 9-1. Both people at the front desk confirmed this and we were like okay, sounds like fun for New Year’s.
We still had our doubts though and went over to the Crown Room at 7 and it had in fact started at 5 and was definitely ending at 9. This of course changed our NYE plans drastically. This is the exact issue we had in Maui with the front desk telling us an event time had changed and then us getting there to find out that was wrong. None of this will make our break your vacation, but it can definitely be annoying and I’m sure even worse if you have kids whose hearts are set on doing one of the activities.
As for the NYE party, I highly applaud the Confidante’ efforts. The attendance was very low which I’m not sure if that was because of the communication issue or just the fact that there’s a lot more going on NYE in Miami. They had a lovely array of crab, oysters, mussels, lobster sliders and ceviche as well as champagne, sparkling rose and a champagne gin cocktail. The live musician did an excellent job and we had fun with the tarot card reading.
I think they even ended up making the event free because of the low attendance since, we weren’t charged at check out! We were tempted to hang out there until midnight because it was a really nice hang out but ultimately walked over to the Broken Shaker since we were in Miami after all. There’s no guarantee on what they will do for New Year’s Eve in later years, but we had a great time celebrating there.
The Rooms
I’m finally getting to the part about the rooms because we spent way more time at the pool than in the room. We stayed in a standard points room with a king bed and it had everything we needed for this short trip. The bed was very comfortable and we had no problem keeping the room at a cool 65 degrees. There was a large shower in the bathroom and a small vanity which is typical of hotel rooms.
The art on the walls was a bit suggestive, but tasteful. My favorite part was the bar cart, which we did not expect to be there. On top of the mini fridge was a nice marble surface with an ice bucket and glasses. Since we were making our own drinks, it ended up being the perfect place to prep them.
I think the room would start to feel pretty small for a week long trip, but if you are spending the days exploring then it does the job. We had a city view, and they did not have any upgrades.I didn’t expect one with it being a holiday week, but always ask in case. The balcony rooms facing the ocean looked heavenly and I could definitely see splurging for one for a longer trip!
The Bird and Bone Restaurant
The hotel also features a Southern-Inspired restaurant that reminded me of Homecomin‘ at Disney Springs. A restaurant like this is pretty unique to the area and does a good job complimenting the other nearby fine dining like Cecconi’sand Los Fuegos. We ate here on New Year’s Eve before going to the party.
They were serving a special Prix Fixe menu and then a few a La carte offerings for the holiday. I am not a fan of Lamb which was the main on prix fixe and it also seemed like a heavy meal, so we opted for a la carte. The entrees available were the famous Hot Chicken, the Bird & Bone Burger, The Dry Aged Duck and the Prime New York Strip.
We started off the meal with the Smoke Show Mezcal and Blood Orange Cocktails. They were just the right amount of smoky and citrusy. We found all the drinks at the restaurant, the pool and the Nrw Years Eve party to be very well made.
We saw the giant plate of fried chicken and realized that sharing it would be plenty for us. However, we also got the smoked fish dip and the seasonal picked greens as appetizers. This was more than enough food and we even had some chicken leftover for breakfast the next day! It was amazingly crispy and so flavorful, so i definitely recommend it, but be sure to share it!
The fish dip and the salad really hit the spot as well. The bread that came with the fish dip was a crunchy country bread that complimented the white fish well. We found the salad to be so fresh and a good bade of greens before indulging in fried chicken.
I would have loved to try the Spiny Lobster with tequila butter and a side of mac and cheese, but that and any many other items weren’t on the menu that night! I guess that is just another reason why we need to come back to this hotel another time.
The Pros and Cons of The Confidante Miami Beach
I was so happy we decided to come to this hotel for our short getaway. It seriously felt like a luxurious vacation even though we were just a couple hours away from home. If you are looking for a hotel in Miami with an amazing pool and beach atmosphere, this is definitely the place.
I think the hotel caters adults more than children, but we did see a lot of families enjoying themselves here. There was plenty of room around the family pool and they even had some poolside games for kids to play that didn’t interfere with the adult area. The standard rooms only have one bed though, so it’s definitely more conducive to just couples.
The location was an upside and a downside. The bad part was that it was on a congested corner. I did hear a lot of cars and beeping when I went to bed around 2 AM on NYE, but I expected that. Almost everywhere we went was south of our hotel, so the uber drivers would have to go from the right lane at our hotel all the way over to the left lane to head south and this caused some difficulties every time.
However, the nicer Miami Beach hotels are in this north area and you could tell the beach was more pristine too. Also it was less than 10 minutes from South Beach and very close to lots of restaurants and our favorite bar, The Broken Shaker. Wynwood was a 10 minute drive right over the bridge too.
We hated having to pay the $45 per night valet fee, especially since we didn’t use our car from the time we checked in to when we checked out. It is just so hard to find parking in Miami, that we found ti much easier to Uber around for two days. If you are flying into Miami, you would better off using Uber for your trip, instead of paying for a rental car and the valet fee. They also offer free bike rentals to hotel guests!
As long as your aren’t going to Miami to go clubbing, I think this is a great hotel for your stay! If you are more into the nightlife, you would be better off staying further south, like at the Hyatt Centric instead. I think The Confidante Miami Beach is my new favorite hotel in Florida, so try and get here before they raise the points redemption! Here’s hoping that doesn’t happen any time soon.
Don’t come to Miami unprepared! Check out my Miami Packing List and find out the essentials I recommend for a Miami vacation.
Have you been to Miami before? A lot of people I know have all sorts of misconceptions about it, but I think there is such a cool culture and some beautiful beaches here.