Things To Do In SW Florida

An economic pinch on the middle class, the cost of theme park experiences and the lure of fresh travel destinations elsewhere contributed to fewer hotel visitors in Central Florida and sluggish attendance at Orlando’s theme parks this summer, experts say.

For the past couple of months, Central Florida’s attractions have been jammed on some days but uncharacteristically uncrowded on other days.

“It’s very mixed, depending on the week,” said Ethan Hershaft, who frequents the parks regularly as the owner of the Orlando Tourist channel on YouTube. “July wasn’t as busy as last year. In my opinion, nothing felt like ‘OK, this is peak season.’ I didn’t really get that feeling this summer.”

Florida resorts, in general, saw attendance surge coming out of the pandemic era, but area hotels’ occupancy rates have dipped every month of 2024 compared with a year ago, according STR’s Destination Report, which monitors U.S. markets.

“Now the market is normalizing, going back to more sustainable, typical rate growth,” said Michael Stathokostopoulos, senior director of hospitality analytics at CoStar Group. read more

A fight and “popping” sounds incited a panic Thursday night at Walt Disney World’s Magic Kingdom, leading to since-dispelled rumors of an active shooter at the theme park.

Calls about an apparent shooter began before 10 p.m. as the park was beginning to close.

According to the incident report released Friday by the Orange County Sheriff’s Office, calls were coming from different locations close to the park entrance, particularly City Hall, the bus stop, the Town Square and the monorail. However, none of the callers said they actually saw a weapon and no gunshot wounds were reported.

Deputies canvassing the Main Street plaza and checking nearby stores found no shell casings or evidence of a bullet striking any park buildings and no witnesses reported seeing anyone having been shot. The popping noises are believed to have come from balloons, which the report said was noticed by deputies interacting with visitors leaving the park.

The pops are believed to have happened just as a fight broke out near the monorail, which deputies reported had “no indications of firearms involved.” The only reported injury handled by the Sheriff’s Office was of “one of the people involved in the original fight,” an agency spokesperson said Friday. No other injuries were reported. read more

A Butch- and Suni-less Boeing Starliner has been given a date to return to Earth by NASA.

Teams with NASA and Boeing gave the green light to undock what will be the uncrewed spacecraft from the International Space Station as early as Sept. 6 at 6:04 p.m., leaving behind NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams, who flew up on board Starliner when it launched from Cape Canaveral on June 5.

The duo arrived to the ISS a day later, but because of thruster issues and helium leaks on Starliner’s propulsion module, NASA opted to play it safe and keep the astronauts on board the station to await a rescue ride home from Boeing’s competitor SpaceX.

If weather is clear for the landing site, Starliner will autonomously undock from the ISS, something it was able to do back in 2022 during the second of its two uncrewed test flights. It then faces a six-hour flight back to Earth with a desert landing target of White Sands Space Harbor in New Mexico at 12:03 a.m. Sept. 7. After the parachute and air-cushioned landing, it will be shipped back to Boeing’s Starliner factory at Kennedy Space Center. read more

By CHRISTOPHER RUGABER

WASHINGTON (AP) — An inflation measure closely tracked by the Federal Reserve remained low last month, extending a trend of cooling price increases that clears the way for the Fed to start cutting its key interest rate next month for the first time in 4 1/2 years.

Prices rose just 0.2% from June to July, the Commerce Department said Friday, up a tick from the previous month’s 0.1% increase. Compared with a year earlier, inflation was unchanged at 2.5%. That’s just modestly above the Fed’s 2% target level.

The slowdown in inflation could upend former President Donald Trump’s efforts to saddle Vice President Kamala Harris with blame for rising prices. Still, despite the near-end of high inflation, many Americans remain unhappy with today’s sharply higher average prices for such necessities as gas, food and housing compared with their pre-pandemic levels.

Excluding volatile food and energy costs, so-called core inflation rose 0.2% from June to July, the same as in the previous month. Measured from a year earlier, core prices increased 2.6%, also unchanged from the previous year. Economists closely watch core prices, which typically provide a better read of future inflation trends. read more

DAYTONA BEACH — Visitors to some of the beaches closest to Orlando will soon have to pay to park in Volusia County’s seaside lots, a significant change for a stretch of coastline that offered thousands of free spaces.

Daily parking at Volusia’s formerly no-cost off-beach lots will be $20 for out-of-towners starting Jan. 1. That change will affect beachside parks in Daytona Beach, Ormond Beach and other popular day-trip destinations for landlocked Orlando-area residents and tourists.

Driving and parking on the beach will cost more, too, going from $20 to $30 for nonresidents starting Oct. 1. Volusia County is unique in Florida in allowing cars to drive on its hard-packed sand. The region’s motorsports tradition started with cars racing on the beach.

Volusia County Commissioner Troy Kent spearheaded the changes, saying county residents already pay property taxes that support beach maintenance and visitors need to chip in, too.

Under the old parking system, the county spent about $17 million in general property tax revenue to subsidize beach operations, he said. read more