Things to do in Florida in March

@compunaut Crystal River has a nice manatee place. I forget what the name of the place was called. There was an underwater building you could walk into while they fed the manatees right next to it so you were right underneath them.

@RiotDemon I love manatees. I’m hoping to see some on this eco tour. I got to swim with them at Chankanaub park on Cozemel. If Crystal River was in reach we’d go to that. Maybe I should goggle manatee encounters. Edit: I see a bunch of Crystal River manatee adventures. It appears there’s a Manatee Park in Fort Myers, though.

@moondrake Crystal River is probably 1.5 hours from Orlando. I think it’s out of your way towards Ft. Myers though.

Edit: just double checked. Ends up being north of Orlando, so no good.

I’m sure there’s other places though.

@RiotDemon Oh, that might be something to do “in” Orlando. I’ll look at it, thanks.

@moondrake

Lake Okeechobee isn’t much to look at if you want postcard pretty. But it’s fascinating if you want to understand the ecology of S Florida and the Glades. Everything is connected.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Okeechobee

How could I forget. If you pass by Deerfield Beach, and it’s the weekend, they’re having the annual Renaissance Festival.
www.ren-fest.com

@RiotDemon We went to Wonder works probably 20 years ago and it was great. It’s on my maybe list. The eco tour in Fort Myers is an all day thing that includes an airboat tour, a “duck” (sea and land vehicle) tour, lunch, a walking tour and some animal encounters. That’s why we’re staying in Fort Myers instead of Ft. Lauderdale, this tour had a lot of the experiences my friend wanted out of her FL trip. I’m not sure what route well take on the drive to Fort Myers, we have all day so we can divert to interesting stops and we’ll be navigating by Google maps on my phone. I travel a lot, I’ve already done a lot of this (sometimes I feel like I have done everything), but I want to be sure to hit the high points for my friend’s first and probably last trip to FL. The reason we are ending up in Fort Lauderdale is that’s where the cruise deoarts, I didn’t even pick it, we are cruising with a 200 person board games enthusiast group. I’d never have chosen to sail out of Florida the week of spring break, and the Bahamas were our training wheels cruises, when we were seeing if we liked cruising. I never intended to spend my cruise dollars on such a humdrum destination again. But the folks that organize the event are new to cruising so they are still in that learning curve. Anyway, that leaves my elderly, mobility impaired friend alone in Ft. Lauderdale for three days, and a tour to Miami sounded like fun.

@moondrake I’m sure if you find a nice tour package to Miami, it’ll be interesting. It’s been years since I’ve been there. The only place I remember shopping was South Beach. I know a lot of people go there to go club hopping which I can’t understand because drinks are $15+. My dad worked in Miami for a very long time, not too far from all the bad spots. They were close to the port though, which was kinda necessary since he worked on ships.

My brother works in Ft. Lauderdale. I’ll try to remember to ask him if there’s anything must see there nowadays. I used to live just north of it… But I’ve been away for a long time. He usually comes to visit me, not the other way around.

@moondrake

Florida is heavy sunburn season by late Feb if not before. Please take this very seriously. It’s completely intense in a very different way than EP. You can think you’re fine and the next day you need to visit the ER and you look like a lobster.

You don’t wanna mess up the cruise by being sunburned into misery. Personal experience in Feb!!! and I used sunscreen. But it was a long time ago, so the products weren’t as good, and I was casual about re-applying.

Since you are going to Fort Meyers, let me sing the praises of Sanibel and Captiva Islands. Just walk the gorgeous beaches. If you hope for nice shells, the best time is very early am, starting as soon as you can see. The local people can tell you more. Both those islands are among the best shell-hunting places in the US. You will find a lot of stores selling locallly found shells.

If you go a bit north, Casey Key has a beach off a shark graveyard. You can be on the beach (dry) and dig shark’s teeth out of the sand all day. This beach has black sand. So HOT sand during prime hours. Go in the morning or the evening. And wear beach shoes in case you are there when the sand heats up.

No Land Sharks or Sharkanados so far.

@RiotDemon
Yeah, the Miami nightlife is kinda for youngish or energetic or rich people who want to throw money into the air and not see where it comes down.

Amazing food in Miami.

Last time I was there, South Beach was still on the downlow and very ethnic and cheap and completely wonderful. That’s gone.

@f00l That sounds very nice. I am sure my friend would like to collect shells. I am terrible about sunblock, because despite my fair skin I don’t burn easily, but I have paid the price a couple of times out on the water. I am not sure where South beach is, the one time we stayed in Miami is was in an older part of the town, our hotel was across the street from the ocean, lovely pastel facades, sad tiny rooms inside. We used to see our hotel on Dexter sometimes.

@moondrake

South Beach now all looks like modern glitz: think Miami Vice and CSI:Miami and Versace. It looks like that. And it looks like the sort of place the Madonna and big Hollywood and sports people wanna hang at. Cause they do.

Unless you wanna window shop for stupidly expensive stuff you can’t afford and wouldn’t wear even if you were Beyoncé, and see the ultra modern glass-everything, reflective-everything design, avoid.

A historical tour of Miami might be nice. I’ve never done it.

I bet there are some extraordinary gardens there and perhaps some nice housing/neighborhood tours by bus around Ft Lauderdale and Miami.

@moondrake

PS. Re shells. Varies by season, currents, tides, storms, water temp, total ecology. You might find nothing.

The best time to go is super early morning (still dark, take a flashlight) after a storm. If you don’t go early they will be gone. Some shellers might be out looking as soon as a storm clears, even at 2am.

And even if conditions are perfect you might get nothing. But those two islands are famous for shelling and pristine beaches. And the beaches are what postcards are made of.

PPS. You will burn in Florida even if you don’t burn in EP or Houston or Corpus. Huge diff. Sunscreen!

@moondrake Practice doing better on the sunblock thing. I’ve been under a doctor’s care twice for severe sunburn (I’m apparently a slow learner), and these days I generally avoid summer and/or mid-day sun at all costs. Tell yourself you sort of know a native Floridian who has spent a lot of miserable sunburned days just to create a bad example for you.

@magic_cave I got a spectacularly bad sunburn at RCL’s little private island Cococay on one of our trips to the Bahamas. We’d been swimming and my friends had gone back to the boat and I was just wading in the shallows. I got into an interesting conversation with some folks and we all stood there, unmoving, waist deep in the water for at least half an hour. I got a ferocious sunburn, I couldn’t sleep or stand to put on a bra the rest of the trip, bought some baggy clothes in port to wear over a nylon shirt as my endowments don’t allow for going out in public braless. The only relief I got was on a wonderful stingray swim, the cool seawater just sucked the fire out. Ironically, one of our best trip photos was taken when I was in this wretched state. We were on a cable car I think on St. Thomas with a couple of Dutch newlyweds. I offered to take their picture with the ocean backdrop and they reciprocated. It’s one of the few photos with all three of us in it, as I am usually behind the camera.

@moondrake Eek! A similarly situated easy-burner. The worst times are the sneaky days that don’t feel hot, leaving your brain to think all is just fine. For lighter burns, I’ve had good luck with the folk medicine of a nice vinegar soak. Wet a cloth, wring it out, place it gently on the red parts for 5-10 minutes. You’ll smell like a fresh salad for a while, but (for me, at least) it pulls most of the heat away. For worse ones, the nice doctor has a good cortisone spray that seemed to help. These days, though, I just settle for looking like a New Jersey vacationer before she gets to the beach.

@magic_cave Nice. I wonder if they have those little electric chairs for loan. I’ll look at their accessibility stuff. My friend doesn’t walk well, but she’s not accepting of her limitations so she starts stuff that she really can’t do. She’s finally started using the wheelchair service at the airport, so that’s helpful.

@moondrake I understand. I’ve just graduated to a cane, and when we go to museums and such I make use of a wheelchair if they’re available. Bad back and arthritis in the hips = no fun. I hope your friend is able to enjoy her vacation!

@cranky1950 you don’t sound cranky

@DrunkCat is Flanigans only in Florida? I didn’t know. There’s one not too far from me.

@DrunkCat are they all over FL or in a specific city?

@moondrake south east only, apparently.

https://www.flanigans.net/location.php

@RiotDemon @moondrake They use to go up as north as southern GA but it later shrank back down to the home their home turf. The one in Coconut Grove I believe is the original. But you should find them in either Dade or Broward county.

@matthew