From the South Beach Seafood Festival on the southeast coast of Florida to the Florida Seafood Festival on the coast of Apalachicola. From the Cayman Cookout in the Caribbean islands to Jacksonville’s PorchFest on the tip of the northeast coast.
“One cannot think well, love well, sleep well, if one has not dined well,” Virginia Woolf once said. We’re going to crawl out on a limb here and add “travel well,’’ either.
Because the October issue of “Explore Florida & the Caribbean” is sending us off for some good meals before traveling on. Orlando Sentinel food writer Amy Drew Thompson sets the table, with 11 Orlando-area restaurants worthy of a special occasion – maybe even a special trip. Eric Barton eats his way through South Florida, one Brightline station stop at a time. Some of the best food in South Florida is also coming out of the kitchens at Calusso and Sotogrande, two new restaurants at the landmark – and recently renovated – Pier Sixty-Six resort overlooking Port Everglades in the southeast.
The venerable resort that started in 1957 as a fuel dock by the Phillips 66 Petroleum Co. is a new and gleaming space again, fresh from a respectful, billion-dollar renovation in time for this month’s Fort Lauderdale International Boat Show. Spoiler alert, yes, the Pier Top lounge still revolves a complete turn every 66 minutes 17 floors atop the landmark tower, exactly the way it did when it opened 60 years ago.
Having dined well, we’ll travel on to Universal’s Epic Universe, where dragons and other beasts have taken the stage for an entertaining show; check into Regent Seven Seas Cruises’ massive new luxury suite, which starts at $25,000 a night; go aboard NCL’s Aqua and MSC’s World America, two big ships that surpass expectations; and spend some relaxing time on the beach at The Islands of Islamorada in the Florida Keys. We even have suggestions where to live if you go off on vacation in Florida and the Caribbean and decide you want to live there.
And we’ll also answer an enfolding travel question, have hotel and cruise-ship towel and linen sculptures gone too far?
All of this – plus calendars of 10 good reasons to travel through regions of Florida and the Caribbean basin this fall and winter – in the new issue of “EF&C,” a collaboration of the South Florida Sun Sentinel and Orlando Sentinel.
A lineup that will leave you hungry for more. Coming this weekend in print, online and digital, https://www.qgdigitalpublishing.com/publication/?i=853296&pre=1
