jjtravel

We are planning a one week trip in Southern Florida in March. The plan is to see a Sox game in Ft Meyers, the Circus museum in Sarasota, visit a few parks in the Everglades, and a few days in Miami.

We would love some advice on the following:

1. Which airport should we fly into (from Boston or Portland, ME)? Ft Lauderdale, Miami, Ft Meyers, or???. Which would be the least hassle?

2. The best website for finding affordable (less than $100/night) lodging.

3. Best source for a car rental

4. Any recommendations for places to visit or avoid

Thank you.

Sassafrass

I have not done Ft Myers, but I avoid MIA if at all possible. Every time we go theough there, I hope never again to have to. Ft Lauderdale is a nice, easy to get around, airport - one of my favorites to fly onto/out of.

gail

Flights - JetBlue is the main airline from BOS - Florida. They let you put "southern Florida" in the search - which includes PBI (West Palm Beach), FLL and MIA. You can also fly into one airport and out of another.

Car - there are not a lot of deals out there for Florida, but one good thing is that it does not generally cost extra to rent from one FL city and return to another. The trick is to weigh costs of flights with cost of car, since sometimes you can find a deal in one city but not another. I saved $100 for a long weekend by renting in PBI and returning to MIA - but that was just by chance since that is what my flights are.

Hotels - not likely to find under $100/night.

Red Sox - a lot of games are sold out. Check first - you can't just walk up and buy tickets for most games.

Have a good trip - assuming you live in north of Boston area/NH/ME area - hasn't this winter been a spirit killer?

Ackislander

Fort Myers is the easiest. I haven't flown into FLL.

Miami is a lousy place to change planes but okay for driving to the West Coast on 41. 41 is much more interesting than I-75 since it goes right through the Everglades. I wouldn't drive either at night because of critters in the road.

$100 per night is not realistic in March but it will be less that area than in any of the popular Spring Break spots. You may find that as a quoted rate, but you need to be careful about location. It may be in a sketchy area. Don't pay in advance.

We just rented a car for our March trip to Marco through Costco. We saved enough to pay twice our annual membership.

jjtravel

Hi All,

Thanks for all the useful tips and the reality check about the cost of hotels and car rentals. I expected them to be more moderately priced. Guess I was a bit naive (overly optimistic?). We chose to fly into Ft Meyers.


Sassafrass:. Thanks again for the planning guidance you offered for our ill fated Caribbean cruise.

Ackislander: Unfortunately, Cosco doesn’t offer car rentals in Ft Meyers. Good idea to keep in mind for the future.

Gail: I found out the hard way about the difficulty of getting Sox tickets. Before finalizing the air tickets, I checked the Red Site and it showed grandstand seats. After finalizing air, I went back to the website and found it was ONE seat available, not seatS. Bummer.

We are up in Maine. A good place for you to come to in order to escape the high snow piles in MA. We have only 2.5-3 feet in our backyard. Supposedly the highest point in Florida is 345ft above sea level. There might be some snow piles in MA approaching that height.

Ackislander

You book the car online through the Costco site just like using Expedia.

Our car is a Budget rental booked through Costco's travel service and picked at Ft Myers Airport (RSW).

They don't rent their own cars, sorry if I was confusing

sludick

Ackislander, I don't see Ft. Myers on the Costco Travel site either (although Ft. Lauderdale is). Hmmm. Too bad, I also usually find the best car rental prices through Costco.

sludick

OK, I take it all back. It's there, you just need to search for an airport and it is RSW.

Sheesh.