Things To Do In SW Florida

Blue Origin has had only one working New Shepard rocket booster since a 2022 explosion took out one of the two it had been using. A replacement booster along with a new crew-capable capsule is set to debut as early as Monday.

Slated to fly on the NS-27 mission, the new booster topped with the capsule named the RSS Kármán Line is targeting liftoff at 9 a.m. EDT from the company’s west Texas launch site.

The name Kármán Line is a reference to the 62-mile altitude (100 km) that is the internationally recognized altitude for having made it into space. New Shepard flights are suborbital missions with the booster lifting the capsule up past this altitude for short trips that take less than 12 minutes from launch to landing.

NS-27 will be the 27th flight of all New Shepard capsules, of which this is the third one constructed, but only the second designed to take humans into space. This mission won’t fly any crew though for its debut flight.

The other crew-capable capsule has flown humans to space eight times including company founder Jeff Bezos on its debut human spaceflight in 2021 as well as the likes of Star Trek’s William Shatner, NFL Hall of Famer and “Good Morning America” co-host Michael Strahan and Laura Shepard Churchley, daughter of Alan Shepard, the first American in space for whom the rocket is named. read more

The Orlando area’s most discerning visitors have a new option for their next vacation stay — one that promises the royal treatment for as many as 48 guests.

The Reunion Castle is the largest property available on Magical Vacation Homes with 15 bedrooms, 19 bathrooms, and 23,000 square feet. It’s located in Kissimmee’s high-end Reunion Resort.

“The market need is there and there are clients out there, be it corporate, large families, groups of friends, or high net worth VIPs that want the features in a place like this,” said owner Stuart Chandler. “The keys to what they want are luxury, security, and privacy.”

There is a castle theme, but it’s not over the top.

“We have some theming. We have the princess room and we have the knights room for boys and girls for the young and the young at heart,” Chandler told GrowthSpotter. “But the overall concept was to put a Ritz Carlton grade property inside a castle and everything that we put inside this property had to be castle-worthy.” read more

Spirit Airlines indicated Friday that it is still focused on recasting the terms of its debt obligations with bondholders, but did not address a nationally published report that it has been discussing a Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing with creditors.

The Wall Street Journal reported late Thursday that the low-cost carrier, which is headquartered in Dania Beach and is the busiest passenger airline at Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport, has been conducting talks with bondholders over the terms of a bankruptcy filing. The newspaper, citing unidentified sources, said that if a filing occurred, it “would not be imminent.”

Bloomberg, meanwhile, reported that talks have hit snags in the airline’s quest for new financing. Also citing unidentified sources, the news service said unresolved terms include the assets that bondholders could claim and the amount of financing to be provided.

Contacted Friday afternoon, the company referred the South Florida Sun Sentinel to a statement made in August by CEO and President Ted Christie during an industry analyst financial call. read more

The world’s next largest cruise ship can float. Royal Caribbean’s Star of the Seas, which will debut out of Port Canaveral next summer, managed the feat during a construction milestone last weekend.

The sister ship to the current title holder Icon of the Seas, which debuted out of Miami this past January, was in dry dock until shipbuilders at the Meyer Turku shipyard in Turku, Finland, flooded the holding area with 92 million gallons of water during a nine-hour endeavor.

Construction will continue with the ship now afloat at the yard at the outfitting pier before venturing out for sea trials and eventual transatlantic crossing ahead of an August 2025 debut from its Orlando-area homeport.

“Float out really marks the beginning of the next phase, where the fun really begins,” said Jennifer Goswami, Royal Caribbean’s director of product development. “This is when you’ll see the interior come to life.”

Shipyard and cruise line employees marked the occasion 19 months into the ship’s construction, the second of four announced Icon-class vessels that will each be incrementally larger than their sister ships. Icon of the Seas comes in at 248,663 gross tons, which was about 15,000 more than the six existing Oasis-class vessels, five of which had previously held the title for world’s largest cruise ship. read more

In a recent monthly newsletter, IRA expert Ed Slott discussed the options surviving spouses have when they inherit an IRA. The options can be confusing. You need to choose carefully to maximize your income. Even if you decide initially to maintain the account as an inherited IRA, you always have the option to roll the account over to your own IRA at any time.

What are the advantages of rolling over an IRA inherited from your spouse to your own IRA? There are three main ones:

—Immediate access to the funds in the IRA

—Postponement of required minimum distributions (RMDs) if you are younger than the deceased spouse

—Growth potential of the IRA if you can postpone RMDs

There are situations in which a rollover is not the best option. In the following situations, postponing a rollover may be advantageous.

—You are younger than 59.5.  If you need the proceeds from the IRA when you are younger than 59.5, you will face a 10% early withdrawal penalty. So, rather than rolling the account into your own IRA, you can maintain the account as an inherited IRA initially, and use the rollover option when you have reached 59.5. If you select that option, you can withdraw any amount without penalty, and because of your age, you will not be required to take any required minimum distributions (RMDs) until you reach 73. read more