Ok, here is a different perspective. Buy your parking in advance, reserved, underground, American Airlines Arena, online for $25. We got there around 9-9:30 am, and that parking lot was empty, and we parked right night to the stairs going up to the shuttle bus. Use the shuttle bus instead of
water taxi. It's a nice Greyhound-type bus and gets you to show in something like 20 minutes. At that time, there is no line at all to go right into the show. That said, we attended on Sunday and Monday (federal holiday), so Miami traffic going in wasn't an issue.
Stayed at a Hampton our near the
airport, in a nice room that was $170-something per night. Eat the free breakfast before you get away in the morning. You won't want to eat any more
meals than you have to at the show, but it is typical of all sports venues - not that great, and expensive. That said, nothing about boat
ownership is
cheap, and attending the
boat show to payout with
equipment "deals" is never going to
work. Stay at home and wait for the Defender annual
sale, and order online.
As for billkny's comment, we cruised for four months in our
Seawind 1000, with
watermaker,
kayak,
dinghy, and way too much
food and alcohol stores. We sailed right past many of your "real" sailboats - all with waterline length longer than ours - on the way to the
Bahamas. And many times watched those "real" sailboats roll in
anchorages - to the point that the owners couldn't sit in the
cockpit - while we were tucked in shallow water, avoiding the swell. Oh, and maybe our dual outboards don't
motor as well as your
diesel, but OTOH, unless its glassy conditions, we are sailing. I wouldn't own a boat that doesn't sail - which excludes all of those condo-cats - so we probably agree on that. But your generalization still overlooks the fact that some of your "real" sailboats - i.e., with one
hull - don't sail well either.
We signed on to buy a
Seawind 1160 Lite at the show, which I suspect with more waterline length will be an even better cruising boat than our shorter
Seawind 1000. And we test sailed with nine people onboard, and
gear for a full crew that was about to take the boat back across to the Abacos, and it sailed very well. Actually, I was shocked at how high it sailed to
weather, and tacking angles.
For us, the
Miami Boat Show provided the opportunity to see all of the boats we were considering
buying, all in one place. (Actually, all around
Dock 800 - so we were able to not waste time sifting thru 100's of boats on Docks 100-700). I did notice there were some really big monohulls at the show, but didn't count their numbers to see that there apparently weren't many. I know there were some monster cats there, but didn't board those either.
The vendor spaces in the tents could have used more-visible space numbers, as most were covered by displays. But I thought the grouping in the tents was well-thought out, and a couple of the tents we didn't go into, because we had no vendors of interest to us in them.
B&G had a large tent on the docks with lots of new
equipment, and I got the low-down on new Zeus 3 features (did everyone know that autorouting is about to be released, in the US-version Zeus 3 units?), and some Airmar transducers that have non-mechanical speed sensors.
Tent C had
C-Map (next +Wide chip release should have Active
Captain back on it), Dometic (got the low-down on air con choices), Fusion,
Rocna &
Mantus (both anchors), Ocean Air (those neat
hatch sliders that have both
screen and blackout materials), Vesper (killer
AIS system, this will be my second one to install), and
Garmin. All in one tent.
Tent F had
Spectra (including JT Holden "Tellie" working the booth, so that alone was worth a visit!) Also Doyle - who is now the Seawind stock sail maker, and answered questions about sail cloth options, and square top
head, etc. - and North (getting a quote on 3Di
sails, but afraid they might be too expensive). Checked out
Isotherm in Tent E as I had questions about their ASU and Smart Energy Controllers to reduce
current draw on
refrigeration.
ALL of the reps (above) that I talked to were extremely knowledgeable regarding their equipment. Some had
boat show deals or rebates. Seawind had a rep from their factory in
Vietnam who knew all aspects of their build process from start to finish, and therefore able to answer all of my detailed questions.
I'm not sure what Tents A, B, D, or others had in them, as I figured out pretty quick with the show guide what I wanted to see. And there were seminars going on, but we packed in two days seeing boats and vendors instead. Oh, and we stayed until the show closed at 6 pm each day. Most people seemed to be leaving around 3:30 pm, as the crowd dropped off around then.
I'm not a fan of big city Miami, and specifically attended the boat show on Sunday and Monday (holiday) to avoid the traffic. On Saturday, we spent the day at nearby Coconut Grove at a very big outdoors art show, walking the waterfront around Dinner Key marina, and having drinks on a bar at the water. That was especially nice day for my wife (although at the boat show, she visited a lot of vendor booths she had interest in, and gathered a pile of business cards for insurers that I need to get quotes).
I'd love to go to the
Annapolis boat show, but schedule conflicts with a long-distance
offshore boat
race here each year. There are a lot of other big sailboat shows in the US, but in my
experience many of them are brokered yacht shows, and don't offer new, big sailboats from multiple manufacturers. And/or have far fewer equipment vendors. For my wife and I, the Miami Boat Show ticked all of the boxes this year.
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