Chicago Yacht Cruise: Mystic Blue

Pink Tiered Dress (so good for weddings!) | Beige Heeled Sandals | Ombre Tassel Earrings | Similar White Studded Bag | MantraBand Bracelets | Sunglasses ($55)

Two weekends ago, we celebrated Matt’s (my Instagram husband) 30th birthday with a marathon of events. For someone who hates having the attention on him, he really wanted to go big this year. I can’t think of anything worth celebrating more than him though (sappy but true)! Being relatively new to Chicago, one of the things we tried was a yacht cruise with Mystic Blue. Why not spend Sunday Funday on a boat?

I feel like the entire weekend led up to this boating event. Here’s what we did. We started celebrating Thursday night with a dinner at Mastro’s. Matt had never been to a steakhouse so I figured that 30 years into life was a good time. They have 2 Mastro’s in LA so I had been a few times for business dinners and knew he needed to at least have one steak there in his life. It was a great, relaxing way to ease on into the weekend. And then we came home to find ambulances in front of our apartment building… Some guy had murdered and mutilated another guy INSIDE our building. Insane!! While I feel pretty safe in our building and neighborhood, it was a great reminder that things like this can happen anywhere. Since it was a domestic dispute, it helped easy the fear a little too.

Then, on Friday we went to the White Sox game (surprise surprise for those of you who follow me on Instagram). We did the all-you-can-eat patio beforehand and somehow, Matt conned 15 of his friends into attending this event. I was impressed! Don’t expect to eat much if you’re vegetarian BTW and if you’re vegan, this is not for you. The disclaimer on the tickets is very accurate. However, you can always drink some grapes with the (ever classy) boxes of Franzia wine they serve… After the game we headed to the Parlor in the West Loop for a few drinks on the patio. Midwest people are obsessed with patios. Really obsessed.

Saturday night, we rounded up the crew again to go to Untitled Supper Club. We saw a little jazz, a burlesque show (which was only one song thank goodness – it’s not really my thing), and then it turned into a club a little later. While we had a great time and were so happy with the turnout, I probably don’t ever need to go back to Untitled again. The service was pretty terrible. We had opted for bottle service because we had such a big group but there were a slew of mishaps. Nothing to get upset about, it was just a little annoying throughout the night!

Sunday rolled around and I feel like all of us were mustering the energy to roll out of bed. I was initially skeptical of how fun this Mystic Blue boat cruise would be since cruises make me think of grandparents. However, I convinced 10 of our friends to join us for brunch and bottomless mimosas aboard the boat on Sunday. This was Matt’s actual birthday so I feel like that gave everyone a little more willpower to fight through the exhaustion from this marathon of Matt!

We arrived at Navy Pier around noon to get on the boat and everything looked pretty normal. The boat left the dock at 12:30. Fast forward to walking up the stairs to the top deck only to find we had a huge couch with champagne bottles and fun props waiting for us. This was going to be good. Wait, this was going to be great. A waiter immediately came over asking if we wanted to pop a bottle and our group unanimously said yes! Another thing I learned about Chicagoans is that they really like to drink. Gotta love ’em. The waiter was so incredibly attentive to our party during the entire 2 hour cruise. It was amazing!

On the top deck, there was a DJ that played really good music (for people our age) the entire time! There were also some freaking amazing views of the Chicago skyline as the captain of the boat took us up and down the shoreline. Matt at one point looked over at me and said “I love this city”. That’s all I needed to hear to know I made the right decision with this cruise! He also insisted upon wearing one of the captain hats they had left for us during the entire ride. He looked so cute! The boat also had shuffleboard and giant jenga (which we were using for almost all of the 2 hour cruise). It was all just perfect.

A few mimosas in and our hunger was calling. We went downstairs for a 3 course breakfast buffet and it was legit good food. I didn’t have my hopes up – buffets don’t usually get me excited unless maybe we’re in Vegas. Everyone in the group was so satisfied though! Lots of bacon, fresh baked goods, an egg quiche, and salad just to name a few options. Our waiter was right there with us the whole time making sure our champagne classes were filled! You also still had a view of Chicago which I really appreciated!

After we finished our meal, we headed back upstairs to enjoy the rest of the yacht cruise from above! We played a few more games of jenga and even ordered a few rounds of tequila shots. Matt went on his bachelor party years ago and returned with a new appreciation for tequila which still has not subsided. I don’t ask questions.

We got to see just about every angle of the Chicago skyline during this 2 hour event! I would totally recommend a Mystic Blue cruise for people visiting Chicago during the summer months. If you’re a bachelorette celebrating in the city, this would be a really fun way to ease into a Sunday! All in all, we all had an amazing time on this brunch cruise! Every single person – even the guys – was raving about it so you know that’s saying a lot. We would totally do this again!