Interestingly, my wife and I were in South Beach about 10 days ago on the night of Saturday, March 13 after spending a week at Marriott's Ocean Pointe up in Palm Beach Shores. I hadn't been to South Beach's famous Joe's Stone Crab restaurant in 25-30 years or so and wanted to go while we were in the area. Not thinking about spring break, I was able to book that one night at Marriott Vacation Club Pulse South Beach with our MVC Points. That property is just a couple of doors down from HGVC McAlpin Ocean Plaza. It didn't even occur to me when I booked it back in early February that the place would be a madhouse of spring breakers.
The first warning sign came in the days leading up to our reservation when we got emails from MVC Pulse advising us of "Spring Break capacity rules" at the property. Ocean Drive in front of MVC Pulse and McAlpin has been closed for months to allow for expanded outdoor dining and a pedestrian plaza, so there is no vehicle access to those properties on Ocean Drive. We were directed to either use a city garage a couple blocks away or use the valet services at the parking deck for the Z Ocean Hotel about a block and a half away. That is what we did.
We arrived about 5pm and the streets were crawling with spring breakers, but we managed to get through the traffic and to the valet, unload the bags we were taking with us, and walk to the Marriott. The biggest challenge wound up being getting the Uber to Joe's a couple of hours later. Police were blocking various areas along Collins Avenue due to the crowds, and the Uber driver wasn't able to get through the traffic and roadblocks to us. Fortunately, we were able to get him on the phone and we were able to walk to him. It was a stressful few minutes for two 60+ travelers trying to dodge partying spring breakers while trying to find our Uber. We made it to Joe's just in time for our reservation. (They now take reservations, having long been noted for their first-come-first-served policy and long waits.) The stone crabs and key lime pie were great! Not surprisingly, Joe's was peaceful, as not many spring breakers were there except for maybe a few we saw who were wearing shirts from Wharton, Yale, and Harvard. The return Uber ride was much less stressful and we were dropped off about a block from our accommodations. The next morning we were up and out and on the road by 10am, so the streets were quiet as the kiddies were likely still sleeping it all off from the night before.
Things were hectic enough that weekend, sounds like things got even worse this past weekend.