I've been wanting to check out EZE for sometime (steak and strong US dollar!) but needed to lure the GF with promise of sand and sun. Some reading here led me to Punta Del Este (PDP) but our earliest travel date is late February. I have a hotel booked in EZE Feb 28-Mar 5 (locked at last years *point rate) and was trying to do a week in PDP before or after.

Issue #1: Seems PDP is booked pretty solid Feb 22-28.

Issue #2: PDP fairly open March 5-11 (see a nice rate at the Conrad) but weather looks luke-warm.

Issue #2A: If aforementioned girlfriend isn't able to spend all day at least 4 of 6 days lying on the beach from sun up to sun down, I will have one very unhappy travel companion.

Summary: Is it warm enough to lounge the day away on the beach in early/mid-March and do some swimming? Or is this not quite the beach town I've taken it to be?

If it won't work, is there another beach resort further north in South America that may be a more appropriate second stop? We're not at all Spanish speaking so we would like somewhere safe and at least somewhat English speaking (I can speak some French but I doubt that will get me very far ;-) )

Any other ideas for a EZE-??? combo? We have only 2 weeks total. And as an aside, is there any reason fares NYC-BUE have gone up about $40-$320 pp in the last 2 days for dates 6 weeks out?