Here are five signs that the tourists have already taken over Miami for the season
We love snowbirds, and we’re so not being sarcastic. They’re not only great for our economy, but remind us that we live where they vacation.
That said, because we’re actually Miami residents 12 months a year, forgive us if we are slightly irritated when we are in traffic thanks to a tourist (whose hometown is a frozen tundra) gawking at the gorgeous sunset over the Palmetto.
Because we need to do like, actual workaday stuff like commute to an office, pick up kids, do holiday shopping, or God forbid, feed ourselves.
Excuse us if we’re bitter. We locals don’t have an express pass to jump to the front of the line just because we survived countless hurricanes, Mars-like temperatures in August and the occasional iguana in the toilet.
But down deep, we’re proud. We know you’re in the 305 because, despite boasting the highest inflation rate in the nation, it’s awesome.
Here are five glaring signs we know that snowbird season has arrived.
Restaurants are packed
Carbone. Rao’s. Cote. Pastis. Noticing a trend here? All these esteemed one-named NYC restaurants have opened in the 305 since the pandemic. Good luck getting a table at any of them until early 2024 unless you manage to finagle yourself onto the waiting list for the first Monday night seating. And no, these fancy places do not have early bird specials. Plan on selling an organ to dine at any David Grutman outfit, unless your last name is Kardashian or Beckham.
Malls are hell on earth
Need to start checking off the old list? If you value the last thread on which you are hanging, certain malls should be dead to you this time of year. Like don’t even think of venturing in the vicinity of Aventura, known not so affectionately to frazzled insiders as Aventorture. You won’t get a parking space within a mile unless you camp out in a van overnight. Other retail destinations like Sawgrass Mills, Dadeland and Dolphin are already packed to the gills with wheeler-toting bargain hunters from abroad and those bags hurt when they hit a shin. Tip: You may have a shot at Sunset Place because most folks think this place was condemned during COVID.
Traffic is a (bad word)
Miami traffic is always an expletive. During the holidays — with snowbirds in town, Art Basel, and Christmas shopping — all that traffic, and all of the ongoing clogging construction, also means all of those cars gotta park somewhere when they stop moving. Not that they ever really move on the crowded roads save the daredevils treating the left express lanes on 95 as a personal racetrack.
Finding parking in parts of town, like in Wynwood, Miami Beach and Coral Gables, can be as challenging as getting through a family dinner without an argument.
Theaters’ really big shows
As Ed Sullivan used to say to open every broadcast of his famed TV variety series, “We have a really big show tonight.”
Local theaters roll out the “really big shows” at this time of year and into the New Year given the seasonal influx of snowbirds who might dig a Broadway-styled taste of home. Now, just roll through the traffic and parking crunch to get to them.
Among the lures this season:
▪ The Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts in downtown Miami hosts the oft-delayed South Florida premiere of “The Cher Show” Jan. 2-7.
A quarter century ago Cher camped out in Miami on a January 1999 weekend for a series of events to promote her “Believe” album and to sing the national anthem to open Super Bowl Sunday at what is now called Hard Rock Stadium in Miami Gardens.
We know “Believe” made it into “The Cher Show.” Now, a series of actresses fill in for the real Cher and her various guises to recreate a stretch of Cher in Miami.
▪ Actors’ Playhouse at The Miracle Theatre in Coral Gables wraps its run of Richard Blanco and Vanessa Garcia’s “Sweet Goats & Blueberry Señoritas” on Dec. 3 to ready its big musical event of the season, “Legally Blonde The Musical.”
That one runs Jan. 31-Feb. 25. You probably saw the hit movie version of “Legally Blonde” with Reese Witherspoon as Elle Woods in 2001. But you didn’t hear her comedic story adorned with new Broadway show tunes the way Miami’s about to turn ‘em out.
▪ Broward Center for the Performing Arts has the “Funny Girl” revival on its stage through Nov. 26 just as you make it through original star Barbra Streisand’s newly-released 970-page memoir where she recounts her role in the original 1964 Broadway classic or an Eden Roc Hotel performance in March 1963. (Note: Babs loves to nosh when she’s in South Florida. She told us.)
“I go where the good food is,” Streisand told the Herald in November 2016 on the eve of her last Miami concert visit. Bet she can get a reservation at Joe’s on the Beach faster than you can, though.
Airports are slammed
Miami International Airport expects a daily average of 147,000 travelers during the Thanksgiving Day travel period that began Nov. 17 and runs through Nov. 28 — when your guests and leftovers should be rank and expired. The MIA is expecting an all-time record 1.77 million passengers during the Thanksgiving Day travel period. That’s up 4.6% from the 2022 holiday, the Miami Herald reported. This Sunday after the holiday should be the busiest when passenger traffic at MIA is projected to approach or exceed 160,000 travelers.
Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport figures that an average of 108,642 daily passengers will flow through its terminals during the Thanksgiving travel week for an anticipated total of 760,494 travelers — a 10% increase over 2022.
