Hotels in Miami-Dade had this date circled for a while now and on Monday they finally were able to open their doors to guests again.
The other draw they were counting on was the beach being open but that didn’t happen.
On Monday the water looked inviting and so did the South Florida sand, but in Miami-Dade it was still off limits when it comes to the beach. Beaches were supposed to reopen but the county mayor is keeping them closed for now due to the weekend protests.
A few yards away from the beach at the iconic Fontainebleau Hotel temperature checks greeted guests at the door.
"It’s really interesting to see how they check the temperature with the face recognition thing,” said Sammy Spern, a college senior from Maryland who just finished his spring semester zoom classes.
Lots of cleaning was taking place at the Fontainebleau and other hotels. They’re stepping up their sanitation regiments. Also lots of social distancing to keep visitors apart, especially where people can congregate like at the swimming pool.
“I feel like really safe and healthy. They are doing a great job of keeping the space clean,” Spern said.
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Phillip Goldfarb, the president of the Fontainebleau, said they've been eagerly awaiting reopening.
"It's a new month, June 1, we’ve got a lot of guests as you see all around us," he said.
Goldfarb said the new measures likes guests all being required to wear masks unless you are in your room are all in line with the CDC directives.
“There are Purell stations at every elevator. There’s spacing requirements everywhere throughout the hotel whether you are waiting in line to check in, whether you go into an elevator, so we actually exceeded any of the CDC requirements," Goldfarb said.
Similar measures will be in place at hotels across South Florida to prevent the spread of COVID-19.
Next on Goldfarb’s wish list is a beach that his guests can not only see, but use.
“Yes, the beach was supposed to open today, eventually the next couple of days we will get the beach open,” Goldfarb said.
Goldfarb said they did try to take advantage of this time when unfortunately the hotel was closed to get a lot of their construction projects and work done, so that as guests come back they are not inconvenienced by that.
