Plunge Beach Hotel: Lauderdale-by-the-Sea
Amidst COVID it was so nice to finally jump on a plane again and escape to the beach! Both my husband and I were vaccinated so we finally made the plunge to travel via plane again and brought along our daughters who are ages 9 & 12. Florida is a lot more open than our home state of VA and even my daughter made the comment about how nice it was to feel a sense of normalcy again. We wanted a beach destination with warm, sunny weather and a beautiful beach. Lauderdale-by-the-Sea fit that bill. It is a charming beachfront town located on the east coast of Florida just north of Ft. Lauderdale and is a short 30-minute ride from Ft. Lauderdale airport. The downtown area is lined with shops and restaurants all within a few blocks walking distance. The surrounding area is home to several boutique hotels and residences. The town doesn’t allow tall buildings and high rises, which helps to maintain its old Florida charm.
The Hotel
During out visit we stayed at the Plunge Beach Hotel, which is a lovely 3-star beachfront, boutique hotel situated just a 15-minute walk from the downtown area of Lauderdale-by-the Sea, making it a great location for a beach vacation. We had a wonderful stay, but it was not without its faults. Poor management and communication prevents this resort from achieving a 5-star review, but if they can iron out the wrinkles, it could truly be a gem!
The hotel actually has 3 separate buildings with 2 right on the beach and the main building across the street. We stayed in a resort-view room with 2 queen beds in the main building. Our particular unit only had a balconette, but other rooms do have balconies available. The size of the room was sufficient for our needs and the bathroom was a nice size so it felt pretty spacious for our family of 4. The beds were super comfy and I loved the décor! I also liked that it had a small mini fridge in the room. There was also an ice fridge on each floor with COVID friendly individual bags of ice. The lobby had an inviting bar area with plenty of couches and tables, shuffleboard, and board games you could borrow. In non-COVID times I bet it would be bustling with guests and would make for a rather fun place to hang out at night. It also has a coffee shop, called the Bean and Barnacle serving Starbucks and breakfast options in the main area. The lines were always long, but the staff was very pleasant and very customer service oriented so kudos to them! There is also a Dunkin Donuts in the nearby shopping center if you prefer something different. There you’ll also find a CVS, Publix, and liquor store as well as First Watch Café if you are interested in a sit down breakfast or lunch.
Backflip Beach Bar 
Plunge Hotel – Main Building
COVID Practices
The Plunge Beach Hotel had good COVID practices in place. They enforced mask wearing in all indoor public spaces and limited elevator usage to 2 guests only. The beach bar required masks until you were seated, so we felt very safe at the resort. Housekeeping service was only provided every 3 days to limit contact in the rooms, but if you needed anything done prior to that time, they were happy to fulfill your request.
The Pools
The resort has 2 small pools, one is beachfront and is designated for those guests staying in the beach bungalows. The other pool is opposite the beach bar. It’s not a very big pool and gets very crowded. If you enjoy lounging by the pool, come early or you will not find a seat. The pool/beach staff starts their shift at 9am at which point you can get your towels. You are issued towel cards at check-in and are allowed one towel per card. This is strictly enforced.
The Beach
For beach lovers like us, you’ll enjoy the sizeable beach and the stretches of sand that you can walk for miles. The waves are moderate and the water clear, but it did have some seaweed and sadly, a bit of trash in the water, nothing terrible, but still unpleasant to encounter while swimming or wading in the water. Guests of the Plunge Beach Hotel are afforded 1 umbrella and 2 lounge chairs per room booked, but this was not enforced the first couple of days of our stay until it quickly became a massive problem.
This is where the resort needs to make drastic improvements in communication with their staff and guests. The first full day we were there, we were out bright and early just before nine to grab chairs oceanfront. We secured the perfect spot for soaking up the Florida sunshine for the day. They only had one guy setting up all the lounge chairs and umbrellas, so it took a while to get an umbrella assigned and put up. As a result, it was a free for all the first day where people were grabbing umbrellas to ensure they got one. It quickly became evident that they didn’t have enough chairs or umbrellas for the amount of guests staying at the hotel.
After being disappointed with the lunch at the beach bar on our first day we decided to walk into town for lunch. It’s about a 15-minute stroll down the beach to get to El Mar Dr. & Commercial Blvd where all the restaurants are located. When we returned to the resort, to our surprise all of our stuff was missing. My immediate thought was someone stole it. Panic set in and I inquired with the people who were now sitting in what used to be our chairs. When I checked with the beach staff, they thankfully had all our stuff, but now we were without our chairs and our umbrella, which we specifically got up early to claim. At this point, the beach was packed and they were unable to accommodate us. This was totally unexpected since we were only gone about 90 minutes. Unbeknownst to me they have a policy where you can only leave your chairs unattended for one hour or it will be confiscated and given to other guests. I completely understand this policy when people are reserving their chairs all morning before ever using them, but I think 60 minutes is unreasonable since it’s barely enough time to eat a sit down lunch, especially if you want to leave the resort. This policy was never communicated to us at check-in. Needless to say after some yelling and an unpleasant chat with the manager, we were put on a waiting list for new chairs and umbrellas. I’ll admit I could have handled things better, but this was not how I wanted to start my vacation.
This continued to happen for the next couple of days where several guest had their stuff confiscated and others were consistently put on a waitlist for chairs due to lack of availability. Thanks to our incident management finally took the initiative to update the handouts given at check-in and post larger signs by the towel hut so people were aware of their policies. However, if you are going to charge a resort fee of $36 a day that states it includes 1 umbrella and 2 chairs, then you need to assume enough beach equipment to fulfill that amenity for every room in the resort regardless of capacity. It’s a beach resort. People come for the beach, so management needs to fulfill their promise or refund the resort fee. It puts a lot of undue stress on the beach staff that was already working their tails off trying to accommodate all of their guests to the best of their ability. There were a lot of disappointed and angry guests during our stay. Purchase enough beach equipment to support demand and viola, problem solved!
The Food
The hotel has one restaurant on site that is open 7-days a week called Backflip, which is their beach bar restaurant. Apparently, they have another restaurant offering breakfast on Saturdays and Sundays called Octopus, which we did not experience since we arrived on a Monday and departed on a Saturday. Sadly, the food at Backflip is pretty underwhelming. It is mediocre at best and the menu does not have enough variety to be able to eat there the entire stay. This was unfortunate, because with the stupid 60-minute rule with the lounge chairs, we could rarely leave the resort to seek out a better quality experience. We couldn’t borrow bikes either to speed up the trip downtown since we were told you had to be 16 or older to use them. I had read about the bikes prior to our stay and I was psyched we could ride into town for lunch / dinner everyday, but of course there was no communication about the 16 or older rule. My kids are 9 and 12 and could have totally handled the adult size bikes, so that too was rather disappointing since we were being charged for a service we weren’t allowed to use. Unfortunately, we couldn’t find any sub shops near by either where you could grab a quick to go order to bring back to the beach. If the food were better at the hotel we would have eaten there all week out of sheer convenience and we wouldn’t have had to stress about losing our chairs.
In Summary
Despite the hiccups earlier in the week, we thoroughly enjoyed our stay at the Plunge Beach Hotel. The weather, the ambiance, the friendly staff, the comfortable rooms all contributed to a wonderful stay. We loved relaxing on the beach all day and wrapping up our afternoon at the beach bar for happy hour while our girls swam in the pool! We had lots of delicious outdoor dining options to choose from downtown and loved that we could walk there every night. Besides the manager, we enjoyed all our encounters with the staff. They greeted you with a smile, were happy to assist you with whatever you needed, and worked hard to provide a positive experience. If the resort can adjust their policies and order the proper amount of beach equipment to accommodate all their guests, then I wouldn’t hesitate to go back! In fact, I encourage you to give it a try since you’ll know exactly what to expect when you go and can plan accordingly!
Plunge Beach Hotel