For the bargain seeking FTer...

Private room being sold at Dorm price... 58 bucks for two nights...

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/hotel...l#post22336416

So since we are in South Florida, the beach and booze and great ways of spending the weekend, but why not try some other things� the links are just the first ones that showed up after a quick search...

Daytrip to Key West
Full Day activity and can be a long but nice drive or just take a bus and back...
http://www.halfpricetourtickets.com/...ey-west-tours/

Airboat rides in the Everglades�
90 minutes away from Miami, you can ride an airboat and see gators and other wildlife (not sure if we can bring some beverages hehe on board)
http://www.airboateverglades.com/

Got it penciled in the calendar.. let's see if it sticks. Most everyone staying in downtown or South Beach? Checking out hotel options/pricing that weekend for my usual spots.

Thanks to JetBlues fairly decent weather waiver I have $70 credit to use by November. That covers 50% of todays fares. Looks like i can take GoShuttle to Miami from there.

Still waiting to cancel my AA ticket due to the storm. Hoping AA cancels so I can refund. Looks like i will have to pay change fee. Really wish it was like B6, UA and AS where i can get credit for the full fare to anywhere for 1 year.

Looking forward to the details so I know what days to fly in and out

If anyone wants to rent a car together from FLL I might be interested. I usually fly into MIA but also have some scrap Airtran and Southwest points that I can use to FLL.

That's what we did for Japan Do this year. It was over Easter last year, picked the Easter Weekend again this year (obviously the actual dates differed). Some who attended last year can't make it this year, but them's the breaks and everyone understands.

If you want the 'do to be an annual thing, picking a date and sticking to it is the best way forward. Some might make it, some might look forward to the second, third or fourth iteration.

Eg. SIN Do is always the 2nd/3rd weekend of January, OzFest is always the memorial day weekend, same for the London Hyatt Do, and a couple of other regular ones. Japan Do, in its first two iterations would have been over the Easter Weekend

What might also help is if you keep the event sufficiently spaced from other major Do's so people have time to plan forward. And justify the additional flight and hotel costs to their spouse/partner/bank account.

Just my 2c as a 'do organizer.

Everglades could be fun, and probably wouldn't take more than an hour to get somewhere to do an airboat ride. Weather should be somewhat reasonable (the Everglades can get very hot/muggy over the summer, and there are tons of mosquitoes... it is a swamp, after all).

Not sure that Key West is that practical. I actually just did the ride a few weeks ago, but for this sort of trip doing 4 hours each way on a bus seems like there will be a big opportunity cost when South Beach is a few minutes (or less) away. I would recommend people do the drive at some point though, because it's a beautiful drive and a leisurely way to spend a day or two.

A couple other things to consider:

Marlins game: the Dodgers will be in town all weekend and should be very easy to get tickets.

Beach and pools: they abound in South Beach, and that's how I like to spend my vacations.

There's lots of other "culture" to be had, depending on people's appetite to take it in. If there's a desire, I can throw out a few more options to take in based on my ~20 years of living there.

Echoing the thoughts above, I think Key West is a bit of a stretch, but the everglades for a Saturday afternoon might be fun. Go choot some gatas! Or add a bit of booze and enjoy a fan boat ride. Baseball game would be fun. Maybe a bit premature to ask, but what hotels are people planning to stay at?

I'll be setting up the official DO thread eithin the next few days so keep those event suggestions coming.

As far as Hotels are concerned, so long as everyone is either downtown or Miami Beach/SoBe, I'm cool with it. If you end up staying near the airport, I recommend a rental car. The last time I did the DO in Miami, we were everywhere from the Beach to Hialeah, Davie and in between.

Bolding mine.

I would have preferred you say admired.

SIN DO is always on the Martin Luther King Day Weekend. I believe it will be the same for next year.

My apologies

I second the idea of a Marlins game.

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/commu...l#post22361184

DO is official.

Lock the thread Willie. Oh, and if you can edit the DO heading with the dates, that would be cool.

Will do !

Per El_Chif's post, please follow the new thread here: http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/commu...-beach-do.html

Willie
co mod CommunityBuzz