Tight Little Islands

Anyone heading south just now had better forget his dinner jacket and pack a pup tent instead. With hotels throughout the Caribbean booked solid and Florida enjoying its best weather in 16 years, finding a place in the sun is less of a social whirl than a survival course.

Last week Bluebeard's Castle hotel in St. Thomas moved its employees out of their quarters into private homes to make room for overbooked guests. Bachelors staying at Antigua's Anchorage Hotel were invited to sleep aboard a sightseeing boat. One Miami rental office hung out the sign, "Why sleep in your car? Come to us" for those who had come on down only to find the town all booked up.

The Sound of Laughter. Travel agents, flooded with reservation demands, call it the most fantastic season ever. Last-minute holiday planners--even those willing to settle for any room in any hotel on any island--meet with derisive laughter. "This is truly a bounty year for us," glowed the head of the Caribbean Tourist Association in New York. "In all my 32 years in Miami Beach, I've never seen such pressure for reservations," crowed Doral Hotel Director Jean S. Suits. "Saturday night there were guests sleeping in my office. They were even in the cabanas and the solarium."

The southward push became so urgent over Washington's Birthday weekend that even Bermuda, where the season usually begins at Easter, was overbooked, despite chilly temperatures. The crowds overflowed from the more popular islands like Jamaica and Barbados outward to lesser-knowns: Martinique, St. Maarten, St. Lucia and Grenada are all filled to the gunwales. In Mexico, Acapulco is jammed and, in Puerto Vallarta, beach space is hard to come by. The big boom, which began before Christmas, reached its peak in mid-January and has stayed there ever since.

Sharing the Dollar. Why the rush? The buoyant economy has encouraged Americans to spend their profits on pleasure. Airlines fostered the boom by increasing the number of flights and decreasing fares (the lowest seasonal round-trip rate from New York to Jamaica is $44 less than last year's). The main reason for the boom, and perhaps the simplest, is that winter vacations to sunny climates have become more and more a vital part of American life.

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