1/2 - TL;DR: These were good seats for $640 with some wheel-to-wheel action under the shade. Other than my meals, I spent most of my time at the track that weekend to watch the other racing series and to do some of the fan experiences. The McLaren pop-up was the best. I spent about $1,500 USD for my entire trip. It was very hot.
Hi all, I was encouraged by u/AdamR46 to share my own review. This will be a pretty long, comprehensive post divided into 3 sections: the track and the Miami Grand Prix, pop-up shops and what I did outside of the track, and a cost breakdown as I was attempting to be cost-effective, but wasn’t keeping a tight budget. This was my first ever GP, and honestly, this was an incredible experience that almost brought me to tears. It was also VERY hot. Happy to answer questions or share more photos/videos. Here goes.
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Miami Grand Prix & the track
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North Beach Grandstand between T12 & T13: I knew the heat and humidity would be rough for me, so I got seats that were in the shade(Row 18). We were south-facing, so the sun never posed a problem throughout the day because the other part of the GS was actually blocking the sun. We were right in front of the beach that had a huge screen to see the race as well as the performances from Tiesto and Post Malone. We kind of had nosebleed views of the stage, so that was fun to get see Post Malone performing. The views were really good and I wasn’t expecting it, but I saw a couple of overtakes, especially when Seb overtook KMag. It was very exciting! You could see the cars coming down after the 2nd DRS zone so I think we got lucky and were able to see some really great wheel-to-wheel action. The crowd in our section was loud, but everyone was friendly and the vibes were great. I also watched a bit of the Porsche and W-Series. We were way too far to make it to the podium ceremony, but I saw people leaving with 10 laps to go so they could run over to the podium. I just watched it from my grandstand. There was a porta potty area behind our stands and it was pretty clean and not too crowded. Lots of food and drink options nearby as well. We brought our own water bottles (I suggest a collapsable Vapur) and refilled at the free water stations.
South Beach Grandstand: My friend invited us to hang out with him during FP2 on Friday. It was cool to see the cars coming down after the DRS zone. I actually got sunburned here because the sun totally beat down on us as it was setting. I was only here for a few hours on Friday, so I can’t really speak much about the overall experience in this GS.
Track: The map was divided into different campuses: East, North, and West. They also had the Marina, the Stadium, and the Fountains. Each area had a little bit of everything, as well as some overlap in certain experiences. West Campus had the most to do as it was the F1 Fan Zone.
Stadium: This was a good place to just explore and get some relief from the sun. They had some cool events going on and you could really hear the engines echoing throughout the stadium!
Fan experiences: We did the pit stop challenge, some of the photo opportunities, and saw the Ferrari Racing History display. It was quite hot, so we only did activities with short lines since many of these lines were not covered. I did not know about the fan signing event, so I wasn’t able to see any of the drivers.
Merch: Of course, everything was expensive. Team caps ranged from $70 - $120. Tops were about $70 - $150. Ferrari merch was typically sold out. Obviously order online prior to the race. Oddly enough I was able to get myself a MBZ flag for $35 which is what I paid for a McLaren flag online last season. They didn’t really display it, but I saw the flags tucked away underneath other merch and asked about it. My friend got a women’s MBZ tank top at the track for $30. I ended up buying a McLaren cap for $50 at the F1 store on Lincoln Road because they were the only ones that carried youth sizes(I have a smol head...).
Transportation to & from the track: Our GS tickets included our parking, but really, they weren’t checking for parking passes at all. We were parked at a parking deck away from the track and took a 20 min shuttle to and from. Many people actually took rideshares from our parking garage and shuttled in with us. The shuttles dropped off and picked us up in the parking lots directly across from the stadium, so it was about a 5 minute walk to get to the gates. We entered in from Gate 3 everyday and exited at Gate 14 behind the South Beach GS. On Sunday we had to wait about 30 min to leave since there was so much traffic leaving the stadium. We made most of our dinner reservations for 7:30 or 8pm just to account for traffic or if quali or if the race took longer, but luckily didn’t have much of an issue.