Bill and Jackie's Fort Lauderdale Trips

Fort Lauderdale is one of our favorite destinations. We've been there 5 or 6 times in the last six years, most recently in July, 2005. Unfortunately, we rarely take any photos while we're there. I'm not sure we even take the camera. All of our trips to Fort Lauderdale are long weekends, with the longest trip being 5 days.

Our favorite type of vacation is relaxing on a beach and eating good food, and Fort Lauderdale offers plenty of both. One factor that makes it a favorite destination is that many airlines fly into Fort Lauderdale, so the competition means that we can usually find a decent price for airline tickets, and sometimes a real bargain. We don't rent a car since we plan to do nothing more than lie on the beach and walk to wherever we want to go.

Lodging

On our first trip to Fort Lauderdale, we stayed at the Best Inn (I'm not sure it's even called that anymore). Since we want to be close to the beach, we always look for a place along Route A1A (Ocean Ave.). Most of the hotels and motels are on the west side of the road and the beach is on the east side of the road. The Best Inn is far enough down A1A that it's past the public stretch of beach and there are condos on the other side of the road. The rooms there were OK, clean, but definitely a bit old. The people who worked there were friendly and it has a small bar and a pool in front. Its biggest disadvantage was location, since it's not near much shopping or restaurants within walking distance, and getting to the far edge of the public beach is about a 5-10 minute walk. If you have a rental car, then neither of these is really a concern.

We've stayed at the Holiday Inn twice and enjoyed it there. There isn't much outstanding about the hotel, except the view and the location. All the rooms face the ocean, either directly or at an angle. It's great to get up in the morning, look out, and see the ocean. The staff is friendly enough and there's an OK (but no better than that) pool in the back. It has a restaurant there, but it always seems empty and the menu looks unexciting. We stopped in for dinner one night and after nobody waited on us for several minutes (and there was hardly anyone else in there), we left. The Holiday Inn is located in a small area along A1A that has some shopping, bars, and restaurants. We found plenty of good food and enjoyed the little neighborhood. The rates were excellent and the best thing about it was that we could walk across the street to the beach. If we wanted to get a drink or a snack or something from our room, all we had to do was walk back across A1A. It's also about a mile north of Beach Place, the center of night life and restaurants in the Fort Lauderdale beach area. We had no problem making the walk back and forth to Beach Place in the evening.

We've also stayed at the Best Western Oceanside Inn. This is on the far southern end of A1A right behind the Sheraton Yankee Clipper resort. The room was nice and clean. It has a balcony, although it's not a private balcony. It wraps all the way around one side of the hotel. From our balcony, we looked down on the swimming pool at the Yankee Clipper. The Oceanside Inn has a nice pool and bar, with tables under an eave where you can sit and still be outside when it's raining. There is a restaurant there that serves breakfast and lunch. We ate breakfast there each morning. We could get a free continental breakfast and a small buffet breakfast for $3 each. You can't see the ocean from the Oceanside Inn, but it's a short walk around or through the Yankee Clipper to get to the beach. The beach is very wide at this point and there's plenty of room. You can either sit among a crowd or find a more private section of beach. Beach Place was about 3/4 mile to the north on A1A, so access to there was a nice stroll for us.

The Yankee Clipper looks like a nice resort, although it's large enough that you could end up without a view of the ocean, and even on the western side of A1A. We didn't see the added value for the extra price they wanted. All we need from a hotel room is for it to be clean, have a hot shower, and a comfy bed. And be close to the beach.

We did stay at the other Sheraton on A1A, the Sheraton Yankee Trader. We found a great deal there for a long weekend. It's on the western side of the road, but there's an elevated pedestrian walkway across the road. It has a nice pool by the walkway, but we didn't spend much time there. The hotel prefers its beachgoers to enter and exit via the walkway rather than walk through the lobby and by the swanky restaurants while in beach wear.

Food and beverage

After four trips, we're developing some of our favorite places to eat and drink. Beach Place and the few blocks around it is our most common destination. It's a combination of shopping, restaurants, bars, and nightclubs. The bars and restaurants are on the second and third floors facing A1A and the ocean and they have wonderful views. We always try to get a table that is either outside on a balcony or close to the windows. We'll have dinners at Sloppy Joes or Lulu's Bait Shack, or stop for a snack and a few beers at Hooters. The food is good, we've never been hurried, and the drinks are huge and plenty if you want them. We've gotten the 64-ounce bucket drinks at Sloppy Joes each time we've gone. That's a lot of Long Island Iced Tea to share. Sit out on their balcony, enjoy the nice breeze, watch the ocean and the people on A1A, good food and drink . . . ah, nothing like vacation.

We've also eaten at different restaurants along A1A just south of Beach Place or over by the Swimming Hall of Fame. Nothing terribly fancy, although those huge drinks can make your bill add up quickly.

When we've stayed at the Holiday Inn, we've eaten at a few restaurants in the little neighborhood around it. Our favorite was the Blue Fish Cafe. It's just up a little side street near the hotel, and it's an open air restaurant. We'd take the paper and get a table right by the sidewalk and eat a hearty lunch. Their chicken wings are some of the best I've ever had, especially their jerk wings. If I could get them delivered to Vermont, I'd pay to have them shipped here. Their sandwiches are excellent too. We'd enjoy a leisurely meal, read the paper, enjoy the girls in bikinis walking by, have great food . . . ah, nothing like vacation.

There is a restaurant down on A1A down toward the Best Inn called Shooters. We've eaten there a few times and what I enjoy there are the Alaskan king crab legs. A pound and a half makes an excellent Thanksgiving meal, if you're not in the mood for turkey and stuffing, or any other time. We also walked from the Best Inn to Lauderdale-by-the-Sea where there are plenty of restaurants to choose from. We ate at the Aruba Cafe after a long wait, but we got a table by an open sliding glass door, right next to the beach.

One of the common things many of the restaurants and bars have in common is huge drinks. Besides the 64-ounce drinks at Sloppy Joes, we had 48-ounce margaritas at the Aruba Cafe and a Mexican restaurant near the Holiday Inn. There were some large drinks also at Lulu's Bait Shack. We're not big drinkers, and one of these was usually enough for me. It's a good thing we walk everywhere.

Fort Lauderdale in different seasons

We've been to Fort Lauderdale in March, June, July, September, and November. Our March trip was during Spring Break, but there wasn't too much of a crowd anywhere besides Beach Place. We had a nice day or two of beach weather. The other two days were cloudy, temperatures in the 60s, and a stiff wind off the ocean. The beach was empty and the only way to be on it was wrapped up warm. That wind cut right through you. Some bozo from a Miami television station was doing a report about how Fort Lauderdale didn't attract many Spring Break visitors, and to drive home his point, he was standing on an empty beach. Duh, it was too cold to be on the beach. If he'd been there the day before, there were plenty of people there.

The November trip was over the Thanksgiving holiday. The weather was similar to March. Some days were nice beach days with temperatures in the upper 70s. Other days were cool, cloudy, with that wind off the ocean. Still, we had no problem finding ways to entertain ourselves when the weather wasn't cooperating with our beach relaxation plans.

The June, July, and September (Labor Day weekend) trips were very nice. The June trip had temperatures in the 80s, and the July and Labor Day trips had days about 90 degrees. The hot weather felt good on our skin. The water temperature on the Labor Day weekend was very warm. We were nervous about that trip since the weather forecast before we left showed thunderstorms every day. The local weather while we were there showed thunderstorms every day. We had great weather! No rain for two of the days, and rain just in the morning or late in the evening the next two days. This is also hurricane season, but we were fortunate that those weren't a problem.

The beach

We love the beach and Fort Lauderdale has a nice one. It's a long stretch of beach, starting down by the Yankee Clipper where it's wide enough for plenty of beachgoers, volleyball courts, and picnic tables and grills for cookouts. The public beach ends a few miles up the road closer to the Best Inn, where it's much narrower and less crowded. It's white sand and mostly clean. You can rent beach lounges for $5 a day, or just sit on your towel or blanket. The only days we've been there when there have been good-sized waves were on the cloudy, windy days. I like to body surf, but I've yet to have a good day for that in Fort Lauderdale. There a plenty of people on the beach and in the water. We pack up our towels, books, sunscreen, and drinks into a backpack, and head for the beach for a good portion of each day, weather permitting. Sun, surf, sand, and relaxing with Jackie on a sunny day . . . ah, nothing like vacation.