<p>I live in NJ (D is freshman at Miami) and did not find the driving in Miami any worse than the NY metro area. </p>
<p>Now Boston! Those drivers are CRAZY!!!</p>
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<p>I can’t vouch for stuff on the east side, which is why I was directing people to the south side of the airport. There are some rundown and industrial areas on the east side of the airport. I’m not familiar with La Quinta enough to know whether it’s in a good area. Plus, they may have improved the east side for all I know. I stayed in the Embassy Suites on the east side once. The hotel was fine, but when I open the curtains in my room I had nice view of The Pink Pussycat “gentlemen’s club” not too far away. </p>
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<p>I think so. I’d make it 20 ft to be safe. I saw an alligator get aggressive only once. That was in the Everglades where I saw two idiot hikers moving in close to get a good view of some baby alligators. The mother didn’t like that of course and was hissing at them and opening her jaws to show off her impressive teeth. But somehow they were missing the obvious message.</p>
<p>Palmetto Bugs (aka the biggest cockroaches you have ever seen) are something else. They’re one of the few insects with a personality. Most small cockroaches just scurry away when you turn on the kitchen light. Palmetto bugs will run away too, but it’s more of a game with them. A one-on-one challenge. You can get them in a face-off. They’ll look up at you, fake left, and then go right.</p>
<p>Coureur, that tidbit about freshwater alligators made me remember a scene from the short-lived TV series years ago, ‘Maximum Bob,’ about a Florida judge. The slightly felonious Bob hired a hitman to “facilitate” an end to his marriage. Well, the judge’s house was waterside, the hitman arrived in the back by boat, but a hungry alligator “thwarted” both the hitman and Mrs. Maximum Bob’s little dog.</p>
<p>It’s pretty cheap to get on a puddle jumper from Tampa to Ft. Lauderdale/Miami. Probably the same is true from Orlando - it’s about a 40-45 min flight. If you go that route you could actually make it a day trip to south FL if you wanted. </p>
<p>And yeah, plenty of alligator stories. The pythons are becoming a pretty hot topic too. My home sits on a large pond surrounded by conservation – I pretty much see it all. I’m really fascinated by the wildlife here. But yeah, one definitely needs to be careful.</p>
<p>I will “third” the Rollins recommendations. There is always this stupid info on the net that it is a country club with preppy kids and a drug scene. As a grad, I can tell you that my premed experience was suburb, I had no problems getting into med school with several choices, and still look back with great memories. MANY years later I still exchange Christmas cards with my faculty there. You can get personal letters of rec, from profs who really know you and the kind of work you are capable of doing. There are research opportunities. It is a wonderful LAC, even more wonderful for me as a merit scholar. </p>
<p>My two D’s want the flagship state U experience, so neither decided on Rollins. I would have loved to have lived it vicariously again… that is probably why they wanted a different experience!</p>
<p>Now about the alligators, I have lived here most of my life, and they are as scared of you as you are of them. An encounter with a gator would be unusual unless you were baiting one on. Do we see them sunning themselves along the golf course, yes. Are they gone whenever anyone gets close, long gone. </p>
<p>Flying open-jaw is a great idea (into Orlando and out of Miami).</p>
<p>Rollins was placed as #8 on America’s 25 Douchiest Colleges. Right up there with Harvard and Princeton and such. Definitely worth the visit!</p>
<p>Just tell me it will be warm in FL in Feb. Here in Maine we are freeeeeeezing right now…</p>
<p>At S’s Florida, Rollins College in Winter Park right outside of Orlando, college students wear flipflops year round. :)</p>
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<p>Let’s put it this way, most houses in Miami do not have a furnace.</p>
<p>I have only taken courses at airport hotels, and all seemed standard and nice. I’m better with the funky places in SoB, like Blue Moon, or the French hotel.</p>
<p>I wish you listed your d’s interests. Some colleges, like Lynn, are great in hotel mngt. and business. New College is known for liberal arts. Central FL known for theatre, also hotel mngt.</p>
<p>i took a weekend course at FIT, so I will be curious about your impressions.</p>
<p>Oh, haven’t turned on heat. Last week, temp dropped to 75</p>
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<p>I doubt that you’d find any houses in Miami with a furnace! Some have reverse-cycle A/C, others use space heaters. No such thing as furnaces here! After about a week of cool temps (60’s) we put the A/C back on yesterday evening because it got kind of humid and sticky. </p>
<p>AnudduhMom, it might be chilly in February but if you’re used to Maine temps, you’ll likely be comfortable in shorts and flip flops! :). Oh, and I wanted to add my recommendation to look at Rollins as long as you’re in the general area. It’s a gorgeous campus and Winter Park is lovely!</p>
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<p>I know, but I stated it less certainly, because I knew that on CC as soon as I posted that no one had a furnace, someone would immediately reply “Wait a minute! I live in Miami and I have a furnace.”</p>
<p>bookworm in #30, my D has been focused on Marine Biology since age 7. We pared down her college list thanks to lots of wonderful suggestions on the “B+ Student Parents’ Thread”.</p>
<p>Wow, you guys, Rollins looks absolutely WONDERFUL. However – D just does not want to apply to any more schools and she feels completely done with her list of potential colleges. </p>
<p>(Hmmm… I wonder if Rollins will take a student who looks a little jowly and has permanent frostbite in her toes…)</p>
<p>SVMMom:
I know, right? They never let you merge. I’m always shouting at my driver’s side window “Please let me in. I’m from MAINE.” And my GPS always gets me lost there.</p>
<p>Marine biology–now i get it.</p>
<p>You’ll be so close to Rollins, maybe a look-see? i don’t know about their majors, just what the campus looks like.</p>
<p>Sometime we should have a Fl get together</p>
<p>One of the reasons my son chose Rollins was for the Marine Bio program. He is only a freshman but is quite excited with the program offered. His second choice was UMiami. Overall he liked the feel of the school and the location over Miami. However, UMiami does have an excellent program. Your D should consider looking at Rollins after comparing the other Florida schools Marine Bio programs. We found it very helpful talking to the professors at each of the schools he was considering and he even sat in on some classes. He is planning on double majoring and all the professors he spoke with at Rollins were extremely accessible to him when making his choice.</p>
<p>Sweet Tea – Did your son do what mine did – returned to Rollins early to take a one-week intercession course? My S is a junior, and every year has taken an intercession course. I wish I had had that option when I was in college. Those intercession courses are wonderful way to dive into a subject that otherwise one may not have had the chance to explore.</p>
<p>NSM - He did not take an intercession course but plans to the following years. I agree that those courses provide a wonderful chance to learn something new. He is getting bored at home so I think he wishes he had signed up. Plus he is ready to get back to friends and independence in Florida. He is interested in the Maymester which we heard will be offered again this year.</p>
<p>The only problem with Maymester is that students have to pay extra for it, and students also have less time to work and find summer jobs. Students don’t have to pay extra for the Jan. intercession.</p>
<p>I’m glad that my S loves Rollins so much that he thinks of it as “home,” but at the same time, it would be nice if he remembered to refer to our home as “home” even though he doesn’t plan to move back here after he finishes Rollins. He wants to head to a big city…</p>
<p>We just returned from a visit to Orlando. I don’t know if you’ve booked a hotel in Orlando but we stayed at a brand new Hilton near the Convention Center, a short drive from the airport. It’s a beautiful hotel with heated pools outside with a lazy river including intertubes and a really cool water slide. There were quite a few Penn State folks at our hotel and they indicated it was a welcome relief to the weather they left behind at home.</p>
<p>There are a couple of really nice areas with fun restaurants that you may be interested in that we really enjoyed. Pointe Orlando on International Drive is a group of shops and restaurants. We also had fun at CityWalk outside of Universal Studios where there is a big movie theatre and a bunch of restaurants. We ate at Margaritaville and listened to the live music…lots of fun.</p>
<p>We flew into Tampa and drove to Orlando because of cheaper flights, an easy drive. I like the Tampa and Orlando areas much better than Miami personally.</p>
<p>I just made plans to fly into Tampa and out of Ft Lauderdale on Southwest Airlines so we would reduce our drive times while looking at colleges/taking Spring Break in Florida in March…I also used the Expedia website to look at airfares, it wasn’t any more expensive to fly one-way in and out of different cities than to buy round trip fares. You can look at Tampa/St Pete, and Miami/Fort Lauderdale, and look at doing the trip in either order to get the best prices. I took forever looking at the options, but ended up with decent flights at good prices. Good luck!</p>