Things To Do In SW Florida

DEAR TRAVEL TROUBLESHOOTER: I was on a one-week cruise from Seattle to Alaska on the Holland America MS Westerdam last year. I came down with COVID two days before the cruise ended. I received excellent care from the medical team on board. When I got home, I saw that I had been charged $750 for the Paxlovid treatment I received. I contacted my insurance company, and a representative said that I needed to submit my medical records from the cruise.

Holland America told me that I needed to fill out a release form and send it to MRecordsRequests@Carnival.com, which I did. I have sent it multiple times and never gotten a response; therefore, I can’t collect the $750 from my insurance company.

Can you help me get my medical records from Holland America?

— David Aronstein, Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts

ANSWER: I’m sorry that your cruise ended with you confined to quarters with COVID. That’s no fun. But I’m happy to hear the Holland America crew took care of you. This care should have extended to your follow-up when you asked for your medical records. read more

There has been a baby zebra boom at Walt Disney World lately. Four foals were born at Disney’s Animal Kingdom theme park and Animal Kingdom lodge in June and July.

This set of Hartmann’s mountain zebras will eventually be seen by the public on the theme park and resort savannah.

In June 13, Penne, a female foal was born to mother Heidi. She weighed in at nearly 100 pounds at birth, Disney says.

Heidi’s first offspring was Asha, born at DAK in 2020. In July, Asha gave birth to a boy, creating a three-generation family seen on the savannah at Disney’s Animal Kingdom Lodge.

Later, Juno gave birth to a girl named Cada, whose sister Cricket was born at the park in 2023.

And on July 16, Aziza gave birth to a male zebra. They’re both still backstage, out of sight of the public. (Aziza also gave birth to Dot at Disney World last year).

“Each of these new arrivals is incredibly special for the Hartmann’s mountain zebra species,” Dr. Mark Penning, Disney Parks vice president for animals, science and environment, wrote on the official Disney Parks Blog. “Currently, these animals are listed as a vulnerable species due to habitat loss and hunting.” read more

With the OK to fly from the Federal Aviation Administration, SpaceX lined up three Falcon 9 rockets this weekend from three launch pads on two coasts and got back to work.

First early Saturday, it managed the first of what were all Starlink missions from Kennedy Space Center. It followed that less than 24 hours later with a launch from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, and finished up less than four hours later with a launch from California.

Starlinks skyward with liftoff of Falcon 9 pic.twitter.com/ACUno6c3Ie

— SpaceX (@SpaceX) July 28, 2024

The Space Coast launch early Sunday came from Canaveral’s Space Launch Complex 40 with a Falcon 9 carrying 23 more Starlink satellites to low-Earth orbit lifting off at 1:09 a.m.

The first-stage booster was making its 14th flight to space making another recovery landing, this time downrange on the droneship A Shortfall of Gravitas.

Falcon 9 first stage lands on the A Shortfall of Gravitas droneship pic.twitter.com/wD4fhHcCpp

— SpaceX (@SpaceX) July 28, 2024 read more

Bill Marchant of Satellite Beach, a customer of state-owned Citizens Property Insurance Corp., was surprised when his agent called him last October with an offer from a private insurance company to take over his policy.

He was paying $3,200 for his current policy with Citizens. The private company, Tampa-based Slide Insurance, was offering to renew Marchant’s policy for $16,000, Marchant wrote on Facebook. Would he be willing to pay 400% more to leave Citizens, his agent asked.

Marchant didn’t just tell his agent no, he wrote in the post. He told him, “HELL NO.”

Marchant was far from the only Citizens policyholder who received a confusingly high renewal offer from Slide last year as part of Citizens’ aggressive effort to reduce its policy count.

As the largest participant in Citizens’ depopulation program, Slide sent hundreds of thousands of letters that Citizens policyholders could have easily overlooked among piles of junk mail. Ignoring those letters — and crucial deadlines to respond — put them in jeopardy of being automatically transferred to Slide, where many faced renewal premiums far higher than what they were paying Citizens. read more

Kamala Harris’ presidential candidacy has gifted the Democratic Party a tropically themed social media buzz.

In a viral video of remarks the vice president made in May last year, Harris recalls her mother saying, “You think you just fell out of a coconut tree?” Harris laughed, then said, ”You exist in the context of all in which you live and what came before you.”

The chairperson of the Biden-now-Harris campaign said in June that Florida is not a battleground state. But for what it’s worth, the state ranks second in the nation in sightings of coconut palms, now a key symbol in the social media trend supporting Harris’ campaign.

That’s according to data from the Global Biodiversity Information Facility, which places Florida just behind Hawaii for the number of reported sightings of coconut palms.

Coconut palms are most common in South Florida. In fact, Palm Beach, where former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home is located, is so named because early settlers claimed coconuts from a shipwreck and planted them to try to launch a commercial coconut industry, according to the town’s website. There’s also Miami neighborhood Coconut Grove, the Broward city of Coconut Creek and shopping centers with names like Coconut Point. read more