Spring Break for the Teens of New York's Elite: Sun, Fun and Networking

New York Times

25-03-2025

The sun glistened across the turquoise water. The palm trees shimmered in the warm breeze. For a certain set of high school seniors from New York, spring break on Paradise Island in the Bahamas was underway.
Last week, hundreds of teenagers from about a dozen private high schools engaged in what has become an unsanctioned tradition, frolicking across the powdery beaches of the luxury Atlantis Bahamas resort and its '14-acre waterscape' of swimming pools, beaches, waterfalls and stingray-filled lagoons.
Some dined at the resort's NoBu restaurant where $34 sashimi and $65 lobster salad are on the menu. Some dressed all in white for a 'white-out party' at a nightclub called Waterloo. Some launched themselves through a clear, tubular water slide surrounded by sharks.
As one student from Ethical Culture Fieldston School in the Bronx, recognizing his good fortune as he was sunning himself on the beach Wednesday afternoon, put it: 'No care in the world.'
In a city where a growing economic divide sometimes shows up most prominently in classrooms, this kind of extravagance is out of reach for most students. It is a closed-off world of wealth and connections many will never set foot in: Even before deciding on which college they will attend this fall, these teenagers, from some of the most elite and expensive high schools in the United States, mingle among the next generation's upper crust.
In most cases, the students' parents were paying the nearly $3,000 bill, not including meals.
The trip, arranged by a tour company called GradCity, also offered a networking opportunity for America's future power brokers. The private high schools historically have produced alumni who fill positions in the nation's top echelons of political, financial and other influential institutions.
During last week's trip, a teenage Rockefeller descendant was lounging under a palm tree near a blue lagoon. Rumors swirled on the beach that afternoon: Was that a young Koch scion spotted at the resort's bustling casino? His classmates confirmed he was on the trip. On Paradise Island, anything is possible.
Mingling students traded Instagram accounts and phone numbers, finding future college classmates, maybe future fraternity brothers and sorority sisters and even 'future opportunities,' as one senior said.
On Paradise Island, the gambling age is 18. So is the drinking age. The students took advantage of both.
For five nights, 1,200 teenagers surged through the resort clutching canned cocktails and sporting strappy sunburns and hickey-dotted necks, ready for selfies at any moment. They weaved among shoppers at Christian Louboutin and Balenciaga and strolled past the yachts parked at the marina. Family vacationers caught off guard by the group gripped their children's hands. One small girl shouted, 'I'm surrounded by teenagers!'
'P.I.,' as students call the island north of Nassau, has reached mythological status at some schools, where talk about the trip begins in ninth grade. Many teenagers interviewed by The New York Times on Paradise Island — as well as those who had traveled there previously — did not want their names or even the names of their schools used, to avoid tarnishing reputations.
The annual trip generally makes school administrators cringe.
'Know that unsupervised Spring Break in places like the Caribbean is not a rite of passage that Marymount School endorses,' read a note sent to students by the headmistress of the all-girls school on the Upper East Side where grade levels are expressed in Roman numerals and tuition will be $67,510 next year.
Topher Nichols, a spokesman for The Dalton School, where tuition is $64,000 a year, said in a statement that the school 'does not sponsor, organize, or endorse these trips.'
He added: 'We inform families that participation is a personal decision and encourage them to consider all factors carefully.'
This year, as in the past, a few parents stayed at the resort or a short drive away, just in case.
The students on last week's trip congregated at the resort's main hotel, The Royal, where guests check in under a tall, domed oculus, and swirling $1 million glass sculptures by Dale Chihuly dangle from the casino ceiling.
They sunned themselves in more than a dozen pools and lined up for Shake Shack burgers. Their age, a mélange of adult and child, was on full display. On Wednesday afternoon, three boys sat at a swim-up bar sipping drinks. Another group wandered in from a round of golf. Four others strolled and chatted as they licked ice cream cones.
As the day wore on, clusters of boys surrounded craps, roulette and blackjack tables at the casino. Screaming and high-fives broke out.
'I'm up two grand!' yelled one young man, a red GradCity bracelet dangling from his wrist as he waved $100 bills to his friends in front of a blackjack table with a $25-bet minimum.
In the run-up to evening events, the hotel's long hallways had the vibe of a college dorm, with barefoot teens pattering from room to room. Music wafted from behind almost every door where small groups of students gathered, despite warnings from the tour company against hosting parties in their rooms.
Rules may have been broken. After a ruckus Tuesday night, the plastic was shattered in several hallway exit signs. On Wednesday, someone set off the sprinkler system on the seventh floor. On Thursday, one of the elevators was briefly out of service after too many people had squeezed in.
Spring break was once the domain of college students and has been notorious for binge drinking, debauchery, stomach pumping and, sometimes, horrific accidents.
But in recent years, spring break trips have become popular among high school students. Some students pad their resumes with educational or philanthropic excursions. Other trips are just for fun. Companies like GoBlue Tours market to high school graduates; GradCity started focusing solely on high school spring break trips about five years ago, said Kathleen Osland, a company spokeswoman.
Its clients include students from Michigan, Louisiana and elsewhere.
Students from 'tradition-based schools' in New York are regular customers, Ms. Osland said. Another GradCity representative and New York students who have taken past trips said no major, dangerous incidents had occurred on their trips.
Students on Paradise Island said that almost 80 percent of Trinity School's graduating class had joined the trip. Half of the senior class of Hackley School, a college prep school in Tarrytown, N.Y., in Westchester County, was there.
One student at each school is informally appointed a representative for GradCity, rounding up peers to book the trip and serving as a liaison with the company. At some schools, the position is handed down as an honor.
The trips cost about $2,700 a person for five nights with four students sharing a room. An additional $250 'platinum pass' provides access to sunset cruises and other amenities. Longer stays and rooms with fewer students cost more. In exchange for their work, student representatives can qualify for a discounted or free trip. Sometimes, students raise funds or pool money to pay for peers who cannot afford the trips on their own.
Meals can be expensive. A hotel breakfast is $45. Alcoholic drinks are not included in the trip price. The tour company organizes events: a 'dress to impress' party, 'neon night' and a concert by Australian DJs, Stafford Brothers.
GradCity representatives travel to Paradise Island, offering safety briefings and lectures about responsible behavior.
'My parents were very nervous,' said Anjali Anand, 19, who attended a public school in Jericho, N.Y., and last year was part of a group of Long Island teenagers who take another spring break trip with GradCity at Breezes, an all-inclusive Bahamas resort. 'My mom put AirTags on all my stuff. She wanted me to wear them in my shoes.'
Ms. Anand recalled walking through the Breezes hotel and spotting a student wearing a University of Southern California hoodie. She had just decided to attend the school. The two became fast friends.
'Looking back, spring break trips aren't really my thing, actually,' she said. 'I do think this specific spring break trip is. Having the ability to meet friends is super important.'
The Paradise Island trip coincides with one of the most anxiety-inducing periods of students' high school careers: notifications from colleges about acceptances.
Students said several universities had sent admissions decisions throughout the trip. High school counselors had urged them not to open emails until they were home.
Khari Taylor went to Paradise Island last year when he was a senior at Brooklyn Friends School, a private school 'guided by the Quaker belief that there is divine light in everyone,' according to its website.
Part of the trip included a boat ride to a small island where a DJ played, lunch was served and students could hang out in beach cabanas, play volleyball or swim with the island's beloved pigs.
'Oh, my God, it was beautiful,' Mr. Taylor said.
On the boat ride home, several teens started to scream. He looked at his phone and realized what was happening: The University of Southern California had just announced its admissions decisions.
He clicked the email and learned that he had not been accepted. He already had been leaning toward accepting an offer from the University of Miami, so was not disappointed.
'I was fine,' Mr. Taylor said.