Adventure Guide to Cruisin’ Bahamas & Florida

by | Lifestyle | 2 comments

What a blast! We gotta admit… Cruising is not our preferred way to travel, but for a cruise we had a pretty fantastic time! We don’t love being shipped around like cattle, and ideally like to be in places longer than a blink of an eye… BUT when you’re able to travel across the Florida Keys, and Bahamas hanging out with other super successful entrepreneurs from all over the world… Seems pretty silly to pass up!

We flew into Miami a couple days early so we could hangout, see the city, and get some work done.
Because we have made travel our lifestyle we don’t go on daily excursions. We enjoy working on our business in beautiful places, and living in each destination like locals… Not as tourists!

That being said when we arrived in Key West we took the time to really enjoy it since the boat only stops for eight hours. What a beautiful little place! We walked for miles & miles discovering the old houses, cute shops, and history of the place. After a long day of walking we checked out Fort Zachary Taylor Historic State Park, which is right beside a kool beach that is kind of off the beaten path. Beware the beach is pretty rocky walking in, but the warm water makes it worthwhile. Also… It is nothing water shoes, or flip flops couldn’t cure!

The next day we enjoyed being at sea, mingling with our entrepreneur friends, enjoying great conversations about life, and getting the inside scoop on how to be successful business owners.

The day after we went to Balmoral Island in the Bahamas for Brian 35th birthday. We swam with the dolphins, soaked up the sun, and took in the beautiful beach with its silky sand, and bright blue waters. Swimming with the dolphins was wonderful, they are mystical creatures. BUT to be quite honest, we don’t really like the idea of supporting animals in captivity, so we likely won’t participate in something like this again.

Getting to mingle with people who are earning 6, 7, 8 Figures in their business, and now be able to call our biggest mentors friends… What an incredible experience! Absolutely a blessing to be able to learn while you travel!

When we returned to the port in Miami we decided to finish our stay with a couple more days at an AirBnB, which lead to us meeting up with our friends for one last night in Miami… Enjoyed a dinner together, and fantastic conversations. An out of the park experience!

Miami: 
We took a lot of Ubers in Miami, which started to really add up. When we returned to Miami we figured it was a good idea to rent a car since we were flying out of Fort Lauderdale so we could go check out the beach for our last afternoon. Miami has a pretty great little transit system, and is fairly walkable. Before booking your accommodations just be sure to check walkability to the places you wanna check out. We kind of dropped the ball with that on this trip when it came to book our AirBnB, even though the place was so relaxing… It was kind of far from the core of the city.

Key West:
The Royal Caribbean – Empress Of The Sea Took us from Miami Port to Key West. We were at sea for one day, on our way to Bahamas.

Balmoral Bahamas:
Once we arrived in Bahamas, we took a ferry to Balmoral Island.

Miami:
Our first couple nights we stayed at the Holiday Inn near the Cruise Pier. It was $298.64 USD for 2 nights, and that was low end. If you’re looking for cheap… Miami isn’t it! Once we got back to Miami we stayed in a nice little private pool house. We booked it through Airbnb, you can search it as “Nice cozy Cottage/ private entrance.” (Never booked with Airbnb? Get a discount HERE!) This was a great little place, just outside of the Miami core. We had full access to their pool, along with a private bedroom, bathroom, and small kitchen. The bed was comfy, and Gustavo & his wife had great recommendations about where we should go!

The Royal Caribbean – Empress Of The Sea:
We cruised the Key’s for 5 days on The Empress Of The Seas with Royal Caribbean for $1500. That was with our sweet group deal because we went with our Marketing Crew. The Royal Caribbean is definitely a high end ship to sail the seas. We have cruised with them 3 times, and recommend it if cruising is your thing. Our package came with drinks included, along with food at the buffet, and dining room for breakfast lunch & dinner. We paid a pretty penny for internet while on board… Because our business depends on it… Totally worth it for us to get a plan for 2 devices.

Miami:
Le Chat Noir was the perfect date night! What an awesome little jazz bar, in the basement of a two floor restaurant. The place was full of beautiful artwork, and there was an entire wall of wines to chose from. We took a day trip to South beach which was pretty entertaining because we landed right in the middle of Spring Break. LOL… If you want to avoid Spring Break… March is pretty much out of the cards.

Key West:
As for Key West… We walked all over the island! They have some really quirky little shops, lots of history, and we found a really wonderful beach beside Fort Zachary where we met up with our friends. There is plenty to do there, but if you are cruisin’ through… Hit the beach!

Balmoral Bahamas:
We took a quick day trip to  Balmoral Island in the Bahamas where we swam with the dolphins, soaked up the sun, and took in the beautiful beach. Absolutely breathtaking with its silky sand, and bright blue waters. Swimming with the dolphins was wonderful, they are mystical creatures. BUT to be quite honest, we don’t really like the idea of supporting animals in captivity, so we likely won’t participate in something like this again. For us this is our lifestyle now… So as we work we like to fit little adventures into the nooks & crannies of our days. It is kind of hard to work on a cruise, so we are giving this a pretty low Digital Nomad Score. There is always something to do… Whether that is dinner with friends, walking around, or splashing about at the beach. We travel not to escape life, but so life doesn’t escape us.

Miami:
Our first night in Miami we enjoyed a great date night at Le Chat Noir which had a sweet little jazz bar in the basement. From the Holiday Inn we travelled through a pretty sketchy neighbourhood to get there, and didn’t really realize it until we were already in the thick of it. We love a good walk, but would recommend taking an uber to get to the other side of that neighbourhood to arrive at Le Chat Noir. We LOVED it there! The food was wonderful! Another favorite of ours was a Peruvian place called CVI.CHE 105. They place some great music, but it is pretty loud. It has a really cool modern vibe. We went there with our friends, and recommend ordering to share! We tried quite a few things we would never think to order on our own, but the diversity of the group attracted lots of new dishes! The plates are huge for a mid range price.

The Royal Caribbeans – Empress Of The Sea:
We had some pretty wonderful meals. The buffet gets a little tiresome, but we had a pretty great dinner our last night at Chops Grill with our friends. Its a steak house… So if your a strict Vegetarian… Try something else. The lobster and fish dishes are wonderful, along with the steaks.

Key West:
We had a great lunch at Carolines. They have a huge range of salads, burgers… Mostly American food though.

Miami

Footprints-5-2Digital Nomad/Location Independent Score
Footprints-5-3Relaxing
Footprints-5-5Cost Of Living
Footprints-5-5English Speaking
Footprints-5-3Friendly Locals
Footprints-5-5Wifi Speed/Availability – Hotels/Bnb’s/Cafes
Footprints-5-3Safety
Footprints-5-5Weather
Footprints-5-3Walkability
Footprints-5-4Vegetarian Friendly

The Royal Caribbean’s – Empress Of The Sea

Footprints-5-2Digital Nomad/Location Independent Score
Footprints-5-4Relaxing
Footprints-5-5Cost Of Living
Footprints-5-5English Speaking
Footprints-5-5Friendly Staff
Footprints-5-2Wifi Speed
Footprints-5-5Safety
Footprints-5-5Weather
Footprints-5-5Walkability/Wheelchair Accessible
Footprints-5-4Vegetarian Friendly

Key West

This study is not really conclusive considering we only visited for a few hours… So the Digital Nomad/ Location Independence Score was a hard one… Along with the wifi. Though we could see it being a pretty cool place to hang your hat for a while because of all the cafes, and kool looking guest houses to stay,
Footprints-5-4Digital Nomad/Location Independent Score
Footprints-5-5Relaxing
Footprints-5-5Cost Of Living
Footprints-5-5English Speaking
Footprints-5-5Friendly Locals
Footprints-5-5Wifi Speed/Availability – Hotels/Bnb’s/Cafes
Footprints-5-5Safety
Footprints-5-5Weather
Footprints-5-5Walkability
Footprints-5-4Vegetarian Friendly

Balmoral / Discovery Island Bahamas

This study is not really conclusive considering we only visited for a few hours… So the Digital Nomad/ Location Independence Score was a hard one… Along with the wifi. There is a hotel on the one side of the island, and the other side is a Dolphin Sanctuary. So if you’re looking for a happening place… Nassau Bahamas would likely be more up your alley. Though we only saw it for a blink. We walked around a wee bit, and got some ice cream before we had to get back on the ship… It looks like a pretty awesome little place!
Footprints-5-3Digital Nomad/Location Independent Score
Footprints-5-5Relaxing
Footprints-5-5Cost Of Living
Footprints-5-5English Speaking
Footprints-5-5Friendly Locals
Footprints-5-3Wifi Speed
Footprints-5-5Safety
Footprints-5-5Weather
Footprints-5-5Walkability
Footprints-5-2Vegetarian Friendly

Erin Nicole Bick

Until Next Time!
Adventure On… Adventure On!

 – Erin Nicole Bick

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2 Comments

  1. Dr. Lisa Thompson

    Thanks for sharing all of the cool places to visit in Florida!

    Will definitely check it out

    Dr. Lisa

    Reply
    • BE Adventure Partners

      Florida is a fun place to go! Thanks for reading, Dr. Lisa!

      Reply

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Brian Garcia + Erin Nicole Bick

Hey, we're Brian + Erin. Currently, we're workin' on our bug out bus. Lucky the proverbial $hit hadn't hit the fan yet when we picked up this 40-foot beauty in Phoenix AZ and drove it up to Canada to convert it. Hopefully, we all still have time...

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