This morning we board our Prevost motorcoach for a relaxing vacation to sunny Florida. Our route takes us through South Carolina and Georgia heading to Florida’s “First Coast” region, our destination for the night. Dinner is included this evening. (D)

This morning we tour St. Augustine, the oldest permanent settlement in the United States. On our tour we’ll see Flagler University, City Gates, Lion Bridge, Anastasia Island, and drive by the Fountain of Youth. Now we’re off to the Kennedy Space Center, where we take a guided bus tour of the facility and take in the show at the incredible IMAX Theater. The theater’s huge 5-1/2 story, 70-foot wide screen makes the film both spectacular and unforgettable.

Ahead of us this morning is a scenic drive southward through rolling citrus orchards and past some of Florida’s many lakes. In Fort Lauderdale, the riverboat Jungle Queen will take us on a cruise up the intercoastal waterway. See why this city is aptly nick-named the “Venice of America.” Overnight accommodations await us in Miami. Dinner is included this evening. (D)

We begin the day with a visit to Vizcaya Museum and Garden. This is an elaborate 72-room Italian Renaissance- style villa with an extraordinary collection of European furnishings and art. After lunch we enjoy a spectacular drive across the Florida Keys. We spend two nights in Key West.

Today we begin our exploration of the island with a guided tour of Key West, noted for its 19th Century gingerbread houses and its Cuban foods and dialects that became a part of the culture when cigar-making was the island’s chief in dustry. We visit the Ernest Hemmingway House & Museum, a beautiful estate where the author wrote some of his most celebrated works. The home is preserved with many of his original furnishings and famous sixtoed cats. You’ll have some free time to enjoy this tropical city before our included dinner. (D)

Today we return to the mainland of Florida, where we follow Highway 41 across a portion of the Everglades. We visit Gator Park, an alligator adventure in the heart of the Everglades National Park. At the wildlife show watch alligator wrestling, and see the great power and agility of the gators. We take a unique airboat swamp tour in what’s often called “the eighth wonder of the world,” spotting alligators as we travel. Then we turn north along the coast to Fort Myers.

This morning we tour the winter home of inventor Thomas Edison. This house, built in Maine, was brought by ship to Florida in 1885. The museum, also located here, contains a rare and beautiful collection of antique phonographs as well as an exhibit depicting the history of electric light. Today in Sarasota we visit the Ringling residence, a million-dollar Venetian Gothic mansion patterned after the Doge’s Palace in Venice, Italy. The Art Museum is an Italian-style villa created by local craftsmen from shiploads of columns, doorways, roof sculptures and marble collected in Italy by John Ringling. It has one of the best collections of Baroque art in the western hemisphere. The Museum of the Circus has a collection of circus wagons, calliopes, costumes, handbills and posters covering the history of the circus from Roman times to the present. From here we drive across Tampa Bay on the Sunshine Skyway Bridge through St. Petersburg to Tampa for our overnight. (D)

As we travel through Florida to Ocala, we see the World Equestrian Center. This worldclass facility is the largest equestrian center in the U.S. Later this afternoon, we arrive at beautiful Amelia Island, our home for the night. Dinner is included this evening. (D)

You’ll have time this morning to take a walk along the beach before we depart for home. We have completed the Florida Circle with lots of fond memories, arriving home early evening.