Saturday, April 20

Browsing: Ft Lauderdale Boat Show

If you’re one of the 110,000 people going to the big Fort Lauderdale boat show starting Oct. 30, or if you’re just going to Lauderdale at any other time, do yourself a favor and stay for a while. Lauderdale, in my opinion, is one of the most relaxed, enjoyable cities on the cruising boat circuit. The fact that it’s also a major boating center, virtually filled with marinas, boatyards and boating service operations, is just extra filling in the cake. There’s a reason that Fort Lauderdale is called the Venice of America. It has 165 miles of canals, often lined…

The ever-growing Fort Lauderdale International Boat Show will run from Wednesday, Oct. 31, through Sunday, Nov. 4, with a lot of improvements from its new owners – and a lot more boats, displayed at seven locations linked by a network of water taxis and shuttle buses. The first thing you’ll find is a new, redesigned entrance on Seabreeze Blvd. a few hundred yards  north of the Bahia Mar Hotel and Marina, where the entrance has been located by generations, and just south of the International Swimming Hall of Fame. “First impressions are crucial,” says Andrew Doole, the show’s general manager,…

With new owners, new docks, new signs to help you get around and more boats than ever before, the Fort Lauderdale International Boat Show will open at a new time this year, starting on Wednesday, Nov. 1 and running through Sunday, Nov. 5. And you need to put on your walking shoes. This year the show will have 1,500 boats at seven different locations, although the main event is still centered at the Bahia Mar Resort and Yachting Center, where the docks will stretch for 1.6 miles along the Waterway. The Lauderdale show, an icon in the industry, was started…

The iconic Fort Lauderdale show just got off to a good start, with blue skies, large crowds, and boats, boats and more boats.  Indeed, at breakfast just before the show opened, Skip Zimbalist, who runs the show as the head of Show Management, said there were more boats than ever before, including eight over 200 feet, while advance ticket sales were up 20 percent from last year. The Lauderdale show, arguably the largest show in the United States, has seven locations with small boats, big boats, superyachts and all the appropriate toys. Zimbalist noted that a $7 million helicopter  landed…