The Knecht's and Sherwoods

Airboat Tour in the Everglades

Sydney at the Alligator Park--Yes they are real and they are not fenced in!

Well I am going to backtrack a little bit to explain were we have been this year.

In January we decided to go to Fort Lauderdale. We were ready for a break from the cold and were in search of warmer weather. We left on Jan 29 and came home Feb 5. We stayed in Pompano Beach which was about 10 minutes from Ft Lauderdale. We also drove down to Miami a few times and played at the beach, did an Airboat tour and Alligator Tour. We took the kids into Fort Lauderdale and took a water taxi to dinner one night.

Here are some of my tips we used for this trip:

Lodging:
We used my mom's timeshare. She has three weeks a year. Last year I bought a additional year and tacked it onto her time share. If you don't have a time share--there are so many that do. Go to www.homeaway.com. I have used them several times when we didn't have access to the time share. Our timeshare (Global) traded with the Wyndham in Pompano Beach which is were we stayed.

Go with friends. First off--it is just so much fun. Secondly--you get to share the cost of the condo. We rented a two bed, two bath condo for the 10 of us. It slept 8 and we brought two twin size blow up mattresses with us for the other kids to sleep on. It had a full kitchen, 3 pools, waterslide, tennis courts, volleyball court, miniature golf, kids room with games, free daily games.

We were able to cook breakfast, pack lunches for our outings and make dinner. We went out a few times but mostly cooked at the condo. This saved us a ton of money!

Total Coast for our family for the week was $200 plus about $100 in groceries.

Flights:
This is going to be your most expensive part of the travel. I highly recommend Southwest Airlines. Here is what I do to keep my prices low;

1. Get a Southwest Visa (you will get 1 free flight upon opening an account)
2. Book early--and then watch the prices. You can rebook and take the credit if the price goes down. If it does, you have 1 year from the purchase date to use it. THE PRICE ALWAYS GOES DOWN. I usually have quite a bit of credit to use on any give flight since previous ones have gone down. The passengers name does need to be the same on the credit and flight now.
3. Pay all your bills on your visa (that is if you pay everything off every month). You will be surprised at how fast you will earn free flights.

Car Rental:
Book early. Most car rental places have coupon code that you can do a search for. It can bring down the price dramatically. Also, you don't have to put a credit card down when booking so keep an eye on the prices.