Spring Break 2021: Why this year’s Fort Lauderdale beach party is unlike any before

Spring Break 2021 is shaping up to be the most unpredictable version of the time-honored South Florida tourism bonanza since “Where the Boys Are” started the party 60 years ago.

The annual influx of college students hitting hotel rooms from Miami Beach to West Palm Beach is expected to begin this weekend and bar owners, restaurant managers, inn keepers and elected officials have plans in place to welcome that business with pandemic safety in mind.

The opening of Spring Break is most visible along the 200 block of A1A, ground zero for action on Fort Lauderdale beach. Steel barricades were erected between multiple bars and restaurants Friday morning to enforce social distancing.

Rock Bar on Fort Lauderdale beach will reopen its backyard pool deck for the first time during COVID, and the Asian eatery Tsukuro is now called Solluna, a “seaside cantina” for Mexican food and tequila by the shot and in 45-ounce margaritas.

Another welcome mat was thrown down this week by Broward County commissioners, who decided against a three-week Spring Break curfew, with a warning to rogue businesses about more rigorous code enforcement and the potential for fines and shutdowns.

In Palm Beach County, where commissioners also voted against a curfew, Spring Breakers will find a range of targeted programming in all the popular entertainment rooms.

Respectable Street in West Palm Beach has booked rocker-wrestler Jeff Hardy and popular Smiths tribute band Ordinary Boys in the middle of Spring Break, March 12-13. That same weekend, the stage at Crazy Uncle Mike’s in Boca Raton will share music from sunny jammers Vibes Farm and Southern rock true believers Southern Blood.

But while the table is set, no one is quite sure who is coming and when.

Concerned about students returning to campus after a dip in the petri dish that is Spring Break, the University of Florida canceled its Spring Break recess, originally set for March 6-13. Florida State University (March 15-19) did the same.

Also scheduling classes instead of Spring Break are cold-climate colleges such as Penn State, Boston University and all schools connected to the State University of New York system.

The University of Central Florida postponed its Spring Break to April 11-18, the week before final exams.

Pick a school and you’ll find student Reddit threads and Instagram posts filled with emotion over the Spring Break buzz kill.

“How are students supposed to mentally survive 15 weeks of school with absolutely no break? IN A PANDEMIC!!!!!!!!” a Penn State student said on Twitter.

Spring Break is “a time to decompress …” and “breaks are scientifically proven to increase grades,” wrote a University of Florida commenter on Reddit. “And this is all just happening because people are idiots.”

But with virtual learning a spring-semester norm, can your school tell you when and where to party?

Local tourism and hospitality veterans believe students are coming, if in a less predictable flow.

“College students have a great deal of freedom this year. Even though many schools have canceled their traditional Spring Break weeks, courses for many are online and can be done from anywhere, so some will choose South Florida beaches,” said Stacy Ritter, president and CEO of Visit Lauderdale.

Last-minute travelers may find almost no room at the inn, with students vying with an unexpected wave of traditional vacationers, along with remote workers and learners who have already booked most hotel rooms near Fort Lauderdale beach through March.

Ritter says recent industry research into traveler sentiment shows nearly 60% of Americans are ready to hit the road.

“That’s a pandemic high partly due to the vaccines and also a pent-up demand for travel,” Ritter says. “We expect spring to be busy and not just due to college kids.”

The Hilton Fort Lauderdale Beach Resort is experiencing record occupancy during the pandemic and is nearly sold out through March, according to Thomas Park, director of sales and marketing.

Spring Break 2021 can’t be fixed to a certain week, or even a certain month, says Park, who serves on the Broward County Tourism Coalition Council.

“It’s a weird year. I’ve said to many people, Spring Break is already happening. Since clear back in January,” he says. “College students are saying, ‘Hey, I’m attending classes virtually, why do I need to hole up in a flat or an apartment far away, when I can do the same thing in South Florida, in the good weather?’”

He credits part of the occupancy surge to another trend: Individuals and families booking long-term hotel stays of 30, 60 and 90 days, with parents on a “workation” and children attending school virtually.

“They do their daytime business and by 3 p.m. they’re down by the pool or on the beach enjoying our climate,” Park says.

Hotel rooms at the Seminole Hard Rock Hotel & Casino also “are in high demand,” with some March dates sold out, says spokesman Gary Bitner. The property’s flashy outdoor dayclub DAER is teasing an imminent return, though no reopening date has been set, he says.

On the A1A strip, steel barricades will be used to corral crowds among the open sidewalk patios in front of Rock Bar and its sister properties nearby, including Spazio, Solluna, Blondies and Café Ibiza.

The barricades, which will be covered in colorful signage alerting visitors to pandemic rules, are a step up from the stanchions and ropes used last year. Pedestrians were able to lift the ropes and walk too close to sidewalk diners and each other, says Arianne Glassman, who represents the group of beach restaurants.

“We want guests that are coming and sitting down to feel comfortable,” Glassman says.

Rock Bar was best known as a club for drinking and dancing, but when the pandemic hit, socially distanced seating was moved onto the dance floor, where it remains for late-night dining. The pool area out back will open for the first time in a year, with mask and social-distancing rules in place, Glassman says.

Visitors to A1A also will find that police have installed a cordon of water-filled traffic barriers along the west side of A1A, lined with bars and restaurants, to prevent pedestrians from entering the roadway.

On Tuesday, Broward County authorities decided against a countywide curfew during Spring Break, with an agreement with the city of Fort Lauderdale to enforce shutdown orders if necessary.

“We are still in the middle of a pandemic,” Broward Mayor Steve Geller said.

Geller said he wants to prevent a potential “super-spreader event” as the county is trying to attract national tech and financial companies.

“Having national pictures of Fort Lauderdale as a town with all of those crazy college kids in the middle of a pandemic will be counterproductive to our goal of bringing … major businesses to Broward County,” Geller said.

Commissioner Mark Bogen said “bad actors” should be watched more closely.

“We need to let businesses operate, but in a safe manner” said Bogen, suggesting code-enforcement checks every two hours for “those businesses who continually violate.”

County Administrator Bertha Henry said she is reluctant to close businesses, but reminded officials that 500,000 Americans have died “because we didn’t take this seriously.”

“We’re talking about people that are coming here from all parts of the country with God knows what variants they have,” Henry said, recommending the Sheriff’s Office accompany code-enforcement officers as needed.

“My concern is, as a destination, we don’t want to look irresponsible,” says Tim Petrillo, chairman of the Broward County Tourism Coalition Council.

Petrillo also is co-founder of the Restaurant People, which operates several local hot spots, including the beachfront restaurant S3, upscale YOLO and Rooftop 1WLO, and the boozier Township downtown.

“We were expecting a dismal season. We didn’t expect people would be inclined to travel. But we are seeing hotel occupancy is up significantly. Restaurants are busy,” Petrillo says. “People are tired of being locked in and locked down.”

A benefit of the COVID era, Petrillo says, is the new lines of communication established in the hospitality industry (”we were in free fall”) and among city and county officials. He says this has produced a united front in protecting the spring 2021 tourism season from Spring Break unruliness.

Petrillo isn’t quite saying we don’t need Spring Breakers. But ...

“We’re not trying to market to that crowd. As a destination we are telling people, through social media, if you’re going to come here, you have to be responsible,” Petrillo says.

Staff writer Ben Crandell can be reached at bcrandell@sunsentinel.com. Staff writer Lisa Huriash can be reached at lhuriash@sunsentinel.com.