In the game
Water is everywhere in the footage. The first trailer has a woman on a jet ski cutting across green water with the skyline behind her, and a scene of boats rafted together in a crowd, people dancing on decks and standing waist-deep between the hulls. The second trailer adds fast boats, the Keys, and the run out to the stilt houses. The bay is not a backdrop in Vice City; it is a road.
The match is clear because it is not to one spot but to a whole scene, and the scene is real. Miami’s bay is shallow, flat and warm, and on any weekend hundreds of boats tie up at sandbars and turn into floating parties. What the trailer shows is what happens at the Haulover sandbar every Saturday. The specific shots are composites of that life and we do not try to pin them to one anchorage.
The real place
Biscayne Bay is a lagoon about 35 miles long, sheltered from the Atlantic by Miami Beach and the barrier islands, and rarely deeper than a swimming pool. The city sits on its west shore, the beaches on its east, and the water between them carries everything: cruise ships, container ships, sailboats, yachts, jet skis, kayaks and police boats. The southern half is a national park.
Out on the water on a clear day, you get the whole of Vice City at once: the skyline, the causeways, the islands, the port cranes, the beach hotels. The detail a GTA fan will recognize is the color, a green-blue over white sand that looks fake in the game and is not.
Go there
The easiest taste is a bay cruise from Bayside Marketplace, $30-45 for 90 minutes. The real thing is renting. Jet skis go for roughly $100-200 an hour from operators at Bayside, at Crandon Marina on Key Biscayne and at Haulover Marina in the north; most include a short briefing and a guide. A small powerboat with a licensed captain runs $300-800 for a half or full day, split between a group. Prices swing with the season, so check and book ahead.
If you want the rafted-up party, that is the Haulover sandbar near Haulover Inlet on weekend afternoons, or the Nixon sandbar off Key Biscayne. Both are open water; you need a boat to get there.
Bring more sunscreen and water than you think you need. Eat before or after at the marina you leave from; Bayside and Key Biscayne both have plenty in the $15-40 range.
The honest warning: the bay is policed. Manatee zones mean slow speeds near shore, boating under the influence is enforced with arrests, and the shallows will strand a rental in seconds. Listen to the briefing, stay out of the shipping channel at Government Cut, and do not try to drive like the trailer.
Nearby
- Stilt houses on the bay: the far end of a bay day, by boat from Key Biscayne.
- The waterfront mansion pool party: the islands are best seen from the water.
- Vice Beach and its lifeguard towers: the ocean side of the same island.
- The port cranes on the skyline: the shipping channel you have to stay out of.
On the map
Photo: miamiphotography via Pixabay. Updated September 12, 2026. Spotted an error? Tell us.
