Things To Do In SW Florida

By TOM KRISHER

DETROIT (AP) — The U.S. government’s highway safety agency says Tesla is telling drivers in public statements that its vehicles can drive themselves, conflicting with owners manuals and briefings with the agency saying the electric vehicles need human supervision.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is asking the company to “revisit its communications” to make sure messages are consistent with user instructions.

The request came in a May email to the company from Gregory Magno, a division chief with the agency’s Office of Defects Investigation. It was attached to a letter seeking information on a probe into crashes involving Tesla’s “Full Self-Driving” system in low-visibility conditions. The letter was posted Friday on the agency’s website.

The agency began the investigation in October after getting reports of four crashes involving “Full Self-Driving” when Teslas encountered sun glare, fog and airborne dust. An Arizona pedestrian was killed in one of the crashes. read more

Less than a week after reaching an agreement to sell itself to a lending group, Tupperware Brands told the state it will terminate operations at its Orlando headquarters and lay off 145 employees by the end of the year.

In a notice filed Nov. 5 with the Florida Department of Commerce, the company said it will permanently close its facility at 19401 S. Orange Blossom Trail with layoffs going into effect Dec. 31.

The notice stated that some employees may be needed for a longer period to “provide transition or wind down services” and none are represented by a union.

Tupperware, known for its plastic food storage containers, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy Sept. 17 amid growing struggles to revitalize its brand. At the time, it reported more than $1.2 billion in total debts and $679.5 million in total assets, according to the bankruptcy petition.

The group set to buy Tupperware includes Alden Global Capital — owner of the Orlando Sentinel’s parent company Tribune Publishing — and Stonehill Capital Management Partners. The group said last week it will acquire some assets of the company and is expected to possibly extend “offers of employment to certain of the company’s employees” but details were “not known at this time.” read more

PortMiami saw a record 8.2 million cruise passenger movements in the last fiscal year, which solidified its place as the “cruise capital of the world” besting the record numbers Port Canaveral released last month.

The port announced it had 8,233,056 multiday cruise travelers from Oct. 1, 2023-Sept. 30, 2024, which topped the 7,592,535 multiday passengers tallied at Port Canaveral keeping the two ports 1-2 in the world for cruise traffic. Port Everglades came in third in the state announcing it had 4,010,919 during the same time period.

Port Canaveral has only topped PortMiami once for cruise traffic, and that was in 2022, the first full year back from the COVID pandemic as it became a popular drive-in market for cruise travel. Both Miami and Fort Lauderdale’s customer bases rely more on air travel to the ports.

All three ports, though, are seeing record traffic with more and bigger ships calling on the Florida as the Caribbean remains the No. 1 destination for cruise travel.

For Miami, it landed the world’s largest cruise ship with the debut of Royal Caribbean’s Icon of the Seas that began sailing in January. That helped pad the nearly 13% growth year over year as the port had just shy of 7.3 million passengers in fiscal 2023. read more

The Kalmia Condominiums in Clearwater wasn’t Ronni Drimmer’s dream retirement destination.

She bought a two-bedroom unit there for her mother in 2001 but ended up moving in when her mom died 18 months later.

“It’s not a fancy place,” Drimmer, 72, said. “There’s a swimming pool. There’s a clubhouse that looks like it’s in the year 1950. That’s pretty much it.”

The maintenance fees were cheap and the buildings had been kept in decent shape. That was enough to satisfy Drimmer and the nearly 300 other residents at her 55-plus community, many of them snowbirds and retirees living off Social Security.

For decades, seniors seeking a slice of the Sunshine State on a budget have flocked to condos like this one. But skyrocketing insurance rates and regulations passed after 2021′s deadly Surfside building collapse that dictate how much condo associations must save and spend on repairs have spiked costs and upended the real estate market.

Even though inspectors found no structural issues at Drimmer’s building, monthly maintenance fees for its 70 owners could climb by more than a third next year. That’s on top of an estimated 21% increase for insurance and a $500,000 special assessment to replace the roof. read more

SeaWorld Orlando and Universal Orlando’s parent companies reported decreases in attendance and revenue at their theme parks during their financial third quarters. Drastic weather conditions and the anticipation of Epic Universe were given as reasons.

Orlando-based United Parks & Resorts, which operates SeaWorld and 12 other attractions worldwide, said its third-quarter revenue was $545.9 million, a dip of 0.4% from the year-earlier period.

The company said it had 7 million theme park visitors in the three-month period that ended in October. That was a decrease of 1.4% from last year.

Officials said that hurricane season was a culprit.

“Third-quarter results were impacted by both a negative calendar shift and meaningfully worse weather, including Hurricane Debby in August and Hurricane Helene in September,” United CEO Marc Swanson said.

“October results were significantly impacted by Hurricane Milton, which resulted in 14 operating-day closures in our Florida market and an extended impact at our Tampa parks as that market recovered from the impact of the storm,” Swanson said. read more