December 10, 2011

Meet Santa at the Central Florida Zoo. There will be lots of fun holiday cheer and activities for the whole family. Share your holiday wishes with Santa and enjoy up-close animal encounters. After breakfast everyone can enjoy creating a special animal treat and then watch as the Zoo Keepers give the animals these special holiday gifts that were made.

December 17, 2011

All aboard the Santa Claus Express at the Central Florida Zoo.

Time: 1:30pm-2:30pm Join us for a special holiday book reading and meet some of Santa’s animal friends. Enjoy cookies and hot chocolate, receive a special gift, and take a ride on the Zoo train with Santa himself! Cost: $15.00 per child (ages 3-12), $10.00 per adult, children 2 and under are $3.00

January 16, 2012

KangaZoo School Break Camp at the Zoo!

9:00am-4:00pm Begin your day with an eco-adventure into the trees as we take on the Zoom Air adventure course. Then travel to the land down under and meet some of the unusual animals found there. Explore Aboriginal culture and go walkabout as we journey through the Zoo. Discover ancient rainforests, rugged mountain ranges and ocean treasures as we make tracks to Australia! For more information or registration please call 407.323.4450 or register online at www.centralfloridazoo.org.

January 28 & 29, 2012

Orange City Blue Spring Manatee Festival

Join the Central Florida Zoo & Botanical Gardens as they partner with the Orange City Blue Spring Manatee Festival from 10:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. at Valentine Park in Orange City. The Manatee Festival will offer live entertainment with great shows from local performers, animal ambassadors from the Zoo, along with many friends of the Zoo. There will also be loads of arts and craft booths and kids games, so everyone will find something to spark their interest. And, just when you get tired of that New Year’s diet, there will be plenty of festival foods available to purchase. Take the shuttle to Blue Springs State Park to see the magnificent manatees in their natural setting. Typically 100 or more manatees grace the festival goers each year by visiting the springs. So join the Zoo as we enjoy some good ole festival fun and check out the manatees at the Orange City Blue Spring Manatee Festival. To learn more go to www.themanateefestival.com.

America is under cordon not by a foreign power, but by invasive species gradually working their way across the nation, leaving sometimes devastated and often-changed scenery in their wake. Just as Dutch elm disease from Asia removed an iconic tree from the American landscape beginning in the 1940s, the emerald ash borer may overcome the ash tree in coming years. West Nile virus from Africa killed 57 Americans last year. And work crews often encounter giant Burmese pythons in South Florida.

The newest addition to the list of non-native creepy-crawlies is the hairy crazy ant. The tiny foragers are supposed to have come from South America. They first got to the Caribbean in the late 19th century and are working their way through Florida and the Southeast. First discovered nine years ago in Texas by exterminator Tom Rasberry, the ants are now also in Florida, Louisiana and Mississippi, Va. According to Texas A&M University, the ants are semitropical, so cooler temperature as they move northward should finally stop them.

When the insects meet another colony of crazy ants, they become a super colony and "can overrun an area hundreds of thousands of ants can darken a sidewalk or a building," Fredericks says. "When they get into folks' homes, it's like a scene out of a horror movie." Invasive species like these are costly and risky to both humans and the ecosystems we depend on, says Christopher Dionigi, assistant executive for domestic policy for the federal National Invasive Species Council, which coordinates invasive-species work among 13 central departments and agencies.

NISC estimates that agencies together spend $1.5 billion on invasive species prevention and control each year. The numbers are increasing, with new species such as hairy ants arriving and longer-term pests such as zebra mussels requiring ever more work to keep in check.

Always reaching for higher levels of service and difference, one of the premier luxury resorts in Florida has skyrocketed up Conde Nast Traveler's list of Top 150 U.S. Resorts. Soaring up the impressive list to No. 41, the world-renowned Marco Island Marriott Beach Resort, Golf Club and Spa is a world-class retreat offering beautiful guest accommodations and extraordinary facilities to maintain its elite status among fine Marco Island, Florida hotels.

Listed as No. 70 on last year's report, the Florida resort's spiral upward is a direct result of overall fulfillment responses of devoted Conde Nast Traveler's readers, all of whom are passionate about travel. Through its Reader's Choice Poll, the famous Conde Nast Traveler magazine compiles and publishes its annual ratings, naming the best of the best among resorts, hotels, cruises, airlines, cities and islands worldwide. This year's conclusion of honors to what has come to be known as the "Gold List" among travel ratings reflects the combined opinions of 28,876 readers.

Resorts are scored on activities/facilities, food/dining, location, overall design, rooms and service. Spas are scored for treatments, staff, facilities, number of action rooms and the cost of a basic massage. The Marriott's Marco Island Resort, which boasts three miles of pristine white sand beaches, scored 89.1 on the list.

A tranquil island paradise, this southwest Florida resort's opulent accommodations include sophisticated choices of careful guest rooms and spacious hotel suites that pamper guests with luxurious bedding ensembles and state-of-the-art technology. Combining the excitement of a beach vacation with the delightful harmony of a Balinese-inspired escape, the Marco Island Marriot Beach Resort also features a full-service spa specializing in wellness treatments that pay tribute to the ocean, following Balinese lore that respects the water's mystical elixir of life. Picture-perfect sunsets over sparkling swimming pools and glimmering Gulf of Mexico waters provide an ideal setting for quiet relaxation while exciting water sports, shelling cruises, parasailing and sightseeing adventures are nearby.

An exclusive selection of restaurants and eateries are spotted about the resort offering everything from upscale and trendy steak and seafood menus to American favorites or sushi and appetizers. Beachside dining, a poolside bar and stylish dinner options are all available as the resort focuses on creating an exceptional vacation destination.

The Marco Island Marriott Beach Resort, Golf Club & Spa is a duffer's dream as the hotel's Marco Island, Florida private championship golf course, The Rookery, is an acclaimed championship course nestled in shallow wetlands with native surroundings and many species of birds. Offering guests a relaxing reprieve from the daily stresses of life, this Marco Island resort is a revive destination dedicated to providing the ultimate in vacation travel.

Santa Rosa Beach, FL (July 23, 2008) - The WaterColor Inn and Resort was choosed by the readers of Travel + Leisure as one of the "Top 100 Hotels in the Continental U.S. and Canada" in the magazine's 2008 World's Best Awards survey.This is the third successive year the 60-room, luxury beachfront hotel on Northwest Florida's Gulf Coast has been named to this high - status list.

To meet the criteria for the World's Best Awards, readers of Travel + Leisure and TravelandLeisure.com judged hotels on five criteria:

• rooms/facilities
• location
• services
• restaurants/food and
• value

They were also asked to rate the hotel's appeal for business travelers and families. Beyond 100 points, WaterColor Inn and Resort earned 84.75, ranking higher than other memorable hotels such as the famed Greenbrier and several Ritz-Carltons.

This peculiarity adds to WaterColor's mounting collection of awards and accolades.Forbes.com freshly listed the belongings as one of its 2008 "Ultimate U.S. Vacation Spots," and the Inn was named to Condé Nast Traveler's popular 2008 Gold List, which exposed its reader's choices for "The World's Best Places to Stay."

As Northwest Florida's only AAA Four Diamond hotel, WaterColor has again and again maintained the maximum values of service, providing an matchless number of facilities for guests of all ages and tastes. The 499-acre resort's white sand beach, coastal dune lake, lush parks and woodland trails are a attractive playground for all sorts of vacation activities, from biking, kayaking and canoeing to body boarding and fishing.

WaterColor also boasts a state-of-the-art fitness center, full-service spa, gourmet dining at its much-admired Fish Out of Water restaurant, and a host of kid-gracious activities at its popular Camp WaterColor. In addition, guests enjoy fortunate access to three fashionable golf courses - Camp Creek Golf Club (by Tom Fazio), Shark's Tooth Golf Club (by Greg Norman) and Origins (by Davis Love III).

The resort also offers several pragmatic programs that highlight the natural beauty of Northwest Florida, as well as eco-tours and unique culinary programs like the Foraging the Forgotten Coast Tour, where guests escort a chef to learn how food gets from the farm and sea to their plate by meeting local purveyors and working alongside them to forage for their own meals.

WaterColor also holds special demand for art enthusiasts thanks to the July 2008 opportunity of the Ogden Museum of Southern Art @ WaterColor in the resort's Town Center. This first satellite branch of the famed Ogden Museum of Southern Art in New Orleans showcases altering exhibitions of noted Southern and local artists' works.

In 18 months, when Disney's newest hotel opens, guests will be able to look out their hotel room windows and see zebra, giraffes and antelopes grazing nearby.

Walt Disney World has already begun construction of its 18th resort, a 1,307-room safari lodge close to the Animal Kingdom theme park.

The Animal Kingdom Lodge, an upscale hotel set to open in spring 2001, will be modeled on an African village and will overlook three savannas with more than 200 birds and a variety of grazing animals.

The savannas will total nearly 35 acres, about one quarter the size of the savanna at Animal Kingdom.

Bigger than life might describe the icons celebrating movies, sports and music. They are huge, but in contrast to the enormity of the icons at Disney's All-Star Resorts is the hotel's price structure....... the lowest on Disney property.


While any of these properties are fun, it's the new All-Star Music Resort Family Suites that make it particularly family-friendly. The new Family Suites will sleep a family of six and the added amenities - two full baths and a kitchenette with microwave and refrigerator - satisfy a previously unavailable accommodation for families visiting Disney World.