Byline: Ed Schmidt Jr.

WHAT'S NEW

The word these days when it comes to hotel development in Florida is luxury. In the Miami area, luxury hotel companies such as Ritz-Carlton, Four Seasons, Trump International, and Mandarin Oriental International are making bold statements with posh properties designed to appeal to the upscale meeting and incentive market. In Central Florida, Ritz-Carlton and JW Marriott made their debuts in in July at the luxurious Grand Lakes Orlando resort complex. A Four Seasons Hotel is expected to open within three years at Celebration, Disney's master-planned town, and Winter Park's venerable Langford Hotel is being torn down and replaced by a Regent International Hotel called the Regent Winter Park Spa & Residences. In Fort Lauderdale, where the legendary Diplomat Hotel re-emerged as the Westin Diplomat Resort and Spa last year, several new properties will enhance the luxury menu, including the St. Regis Resort & Spa and Residences (2004), Starwood's Luxury Collection The Atlantic (2004), and W Fort Lauderdale (2006). Enhancing Fort Lauderdale's upscale personality is next year's scheduled debut at Port Everglades of the Cunard Line's $800 million Queen Mary 2. Even along the Panhandle, where chic beach villages such as Seaside and Rosemary Beach have lent the region incentive appeal, a new resort/residential village called WaterColor, featuring an innovative 60-room hotel with meeting space, has expanded the menu of upscale possibilities in the area.

Other important news for groups visiting Orlando: SeaWorld Orlando opened The Waterfront, a five-acre dining, entertainment, and shopping area; Epcot's Mission: SPACE debuted in October (see On Location, page 70); and Universal Studios introduced Shrek 4-D, a motion simulator ride. In nearby Winter Haven, Cypress Gardens has closed its doors after 60 years.

Miami is enhancing its cultural scene as well with the planned early 2005 opening of its $225 million Performing Arts Center of Greater Miami.

And the big news in Palm Beach is the October opening of the long-awaited, 350,000-square-foot Palm Beach County Convention Center.

ON LOCATION:

Disney has done it again. As a somewhat jaded Orlando resident who has ridden every theme park ride in town and around the globe, I hereby declare that EPCOT's new Mission: SPACE is the best ever. Relying on the principles of centrifuge technology, the ride, complete with G-force sensations, is the closest anyone who's not an astronaut will ever get to the shuttle launch experience.

In an introduction to the ride in October, Disney announced other new projects: the new 86,000-square-foot exhibit hall at Disney's Coronado Springs Resort, set to open in spring 2005; a new 7,500-square-foot banquet facility, set to open in March 2004 at Disney's Palm and Magnolia golf complex; the 2,880-room Pop Century Resort, slated to open this December; the Haunted Mansion Movie Set, which opened in October and can accommodate up to 60 people for sit-down events or 100 reception-style; and the new Plaza Landing, nestled in the shadow of Cinderella Castle, which can accommodate groups of up to 200 for receptions and dessert parties. - Ed Schmidt Jr.

A new jewel in the Northwest Florida's Emerald Coast region is the WaterColor Inn, a casually elegant, luxury boutique hotel in Seagrove Beach that opened in February 2002. It is set on a sweep of Gulf Coast between Grayton Beach State Park and the trendy resort community of Seaside.

Less than an hour from Okaloosa Regional Airport and a half hour from Bay County International Airport, the 60-room inn is ideal for small incentive groups. Architecturally, the inn is a playful salute to a beach house. A cozy lobby with low-slung ceilings and Georgia brick floors flows out to the pool and patio area and to the sand dunes beyond.

All rooms look out onto that stunning vista. The hotel's most spacious quarters are the 700-square-foot rotunda rooms with wrap-around terraces in a the central tower. But at 500 square feet, the smaller rooms can hardly be considered skimpy. Those on the first floor are sheltered by the dunes and feature individual cabanas and outdoor showers encased in brightly striped tents. All other rooms have balconies stocked with Adirondack chairs. Among standard appointments are giant walk-in showers with high inset windows for savoring the seascape, Egyptian cotton sheets, and freshly baked cookies placed near the feather pillows every night at turndown.

The inn's 4,000-square-foot meeting space can accommodate 200. The lawn can be used for al fresco functions, and there's also a 450-person outdoor amphitheater overlooking Western Lake, a rare 220-acre coastal dune lake that can be explored on a private nature cruise.

Recreational amenities include canoes, kayaks and sailboats for rent, five Har-Tru tennis courts, and, for golfers, the Tom Fazio-designed Camp Creek Golf Club, an 18-hole, par-72 championship course six miles east that's accessible via WaterColor's shuttle. www.watercolorflorida.com - Margery Stein

THE PHANTOM PLANNER

*

The airport at Fort Myers is notorious for being slow in transporting baggage from the plane to the carousels. In most cases, it takes at least half an hour. Instead of the typical meet and greet, planners might consider adding a snack station or something else to keep attendees busy while they wait.

*

Vino anyone? The Capital Grille in downtown Miami has a 5,000-bottle wine cellar and a private dining room that seats up to 30 people for a lunch or dinner of classic steakhouse fare.

*

The Ritz-Carlton, Naples, doesn't have an ATM machine on the property, so inform attendees to cash up before they get to the hotel. They can also bring their checkbooks and AMEX cards - the hotel will cash checks or provide AMEX advances of up to $200.

*

The Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex in Titusville offers an Astronaut Appearance program where groups can mingle, ask questions, take photos, and even dine with a past or present space pioneer.

*

Give Kids The World Village, in Kissimmee, is a nonprofit organization providing free vacations for children with life-threatening illnesses. The 52-acre complex has a 106-seat theater. Groups can meet in the morning, have lunch with the children, and do a teambuilding exercise afterwards.

GOING Up

NORTHERN FLORIDA & THE PANHANDLE

New

*

Recently opened at Sandestin Golf and Beach Resort, the new Baytowne Conference Center boasts the largest ballroom in northwest Florida. The conference center has 32,000 square feet of meeting space, bringing total meeting space at the resort to 65,000 square feet, which can accommodate groups of up to 1,600. The 168-unit Grand Sandestin, a luxury condominium/hotel, opened in October. It encompasses 168 new one-, two-, and three-bedroom suites. Groups meeting at the resort have access to room blocks at the Grand Sandestin.

*

The 60-room WaterColor Inn and Resort opened late last year in Seagrove Beach featuring 4,000 square feet of meeting space and access to the Tom Fazio-designed Camp Creek Golf Club (see sidebar, page 71).

*

The 70,000-square-foot Emerald Coast Conference Center opened in April in Fort Walton Beach. It has 35,000 square feet of meeting space with 13 meeting rooms and a 21,5000-square-foot ballroom.

Expansion

*

The Sawgrass Marriott Resort & Beach Club in Ponte Vedra Beach is embarking on a $30 million expansion slated for completion in spring 2004. It will include a new 20,000-square-foot spa and the addition of 19,000 square feet of meeting space, bringing total meeting space to 55,500 square feet.

THE WEST COAST - New

*

In spring 2004 in Tampa, a 12-story, 250-room Hard Rock Hotel & Casino with 12,000 square feet of meeting space and a 90,000-square-foot gaming complex will open.

*

The 266-room Ritz-Carlton, Sarasota opened last November with 18,000 square feet of meeting space.

Renovation

*

The 210-room Adam's Mark Clearwater Beach recently completed a $10 million refurbishment program of all guest rooms.

Expansion

*

The Hyatt Regency Coconut Point in Bonita Springs recently introduced an 11,000-square-foot, Old Florida-style-design beach pavilion located on Big Hickory Island.

CENTRAL FLORIDA - New

*

Disney's Pop Century Resort, a themed property celebrating the fads and fashions of the 20th century, will open its first phase at the end of 2003, with 2,880 rooms.

*

The 500-acre Grande Lakes Orlando, which includes a 584-room Ritz-Carlton Orlando (33,000 square feet of meeting space) and the 1,000-room JW Marriott Orlando (72,000 square feet of meeting space), opened in July. The complex also features an 18-hole championship Greg Norman-designed golf course and 40,000-square-foot spa, both managed by Ritz-Carlton.

*