Checking in to Jimmy Buffett’s Newest Margaritaville Resort
The newest Jimmy Buffett hotel
By Sarah Greaves-Gabbadon
CJ Travel Editor
I’m not a Parrothead. I’ve never stepped on a pop top or blown out my flip-flop. And I’m definitely not searching for my lost shaker of salt. Yet I was impressed with Margaritaville Hollywood Beach Resort, a new Caribbean-style South Florida oasis for Jimmy Buffett fans – and the rest of us.
More Tommy Bahama chic than tropical island kitsch, the 11-month-old hotel is unparalleled on Hollywood Beach Broadwalk, where cheap low-rise motels and a non-descript high-rise have, until now, been the only games in the tourist town.
Light-filled and spacious, the ‘Ville’s 349 rooms (most with beach or Intracoastal views) are decorated in contemporary beach house style, with a pastel palette and theme-appropriate details such as faucet handles shaped like whale tails.
Three pools (two oceanfront and one adults-only oasis on the 11th floor) keep water babies happy, and guests can also set up camp with a pair of complimentary loungers and an umbrella on Hollywood’s broad sands.
If you simply must have the Cheeseburger in Paradise Buffett famously sings about, you’ll find it at Margaritaville, one of eight bars and restaurants on property. But for casual eats my pick is Floridays, the resort’s beachfront Airstream trailer-turned-cafe, where the Hula Girl hot dog (topped with pineapple relish, bacon and aioli) was worth definitely worth the trip from my chaise.
Sunset at Margaritaville
Appropriately, there’s music all over the resort, whether playing in the elevators, restaurants, at the pool decks, or live from the Broadwalk’s iconic bandshell stage, which offers free nightly live music performances for both guests and the public. But if all that’s a little too intense for your taste, find serenity (and, perhaps, that missing condiment) at the St. Somewhere spa, where the signature Lost Shaker of Salt exfoliating scrub comes complete with a margarita.
Because, as Buffett himself says, “It’s five o’clock somewhere.”
It makes it all the more exciting to think about Jimmy Buffett’s next hotel, the soon-to-open Margaritaville in Grand Cayman.
