Florida trip

midlifeflyer

midlifeflyer

Touchdown! Greaser!
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Yeah, I know this topic comes up from time to time and there was one one airports recently. Hopefully this is different and specific enough to justify a new thread.

My wife and I are planning a Florida trip to visit friends and family. Planned stops are in the Jacksonville, Boca Raton/Fort Lauderdale, and Tampa/St Pete areas.

Airport and FBO recommendations wanted. Availability of FBO-arranged lodging and transportation a plus.
 
For Jacksonville I would use saint Augustine,if you want to be in Jacksonville I would use grain field. I have always been treated great at fee fort lauded ale executive. Albert whited in at Pete is a friendly airport in the middle of st pete. For st petes beach you can use Clearwater airport.
 
I have had some pleasant experiences at Tampa Executive. I also like Whited and had a good experience at Fort Lauderdale Executive.
 
Depends where in Jacksonville you want to end up. There are several nice airports in the Jax area. Jacksonville is such a sprawling city that you can easily spend 45 minutes going across town. If you're going downtown or to the beaches area, CRG is convenient. I like Craig Air Center. The catch at CRG is that the two FBOs have relatively high full serve prices, and each operates self serve pumps at much lower prices near the other's location. If you're going to the west side, either Herlong or Cecil are good airports. St. Augustine is a nice airport, but may be very far away from your destination, depending on where that is.

If it's just a fuel stop, then St. Augustine hands down.
 
Gas is VERY expensive here at BCT but we are always happy to have visitors that AREN'T from NJ or NY !
 
KHEG in jax. No frills but great airport
 
42J Keystone Heights fuel today was $4.10, nice FBO, free crew car and plenty of restaurants around.
 
Art VanDelay said:
Gas is VERY expensive here at BCT but we are always happy to have visitors that AREN'T from NJ or NY !
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Actually, I have been into BCT 2 or 3 times (I have family nearby) and found them very accommodating. It's a combination of fuel cost and proximity to another friend that has me thinking elsewhere.
 
Thanks for the replies. It's looking like St Augustine and either FXE or PMP for Boca/Ft Lauderdale. Probably VDF for Tampa.

"Convenience" in this case is measured by proximity to my friends and family rather than to tourist destinations and those seem to be the best choices so far.
 
midlifeflyer said:
Thanks for the replies. It's looking like St Augustine and either FXE or PMP for Boca/Ft Lauderdale. Probably VDF for Tampa.

"Convenience" in this case is measured by proximity to my friends and family rather than to tourist destinations and those seem to be the best choices so far.
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PMP is a nice stop. Much less busy than FXE in my limited experience
 
Ken Ibold said:
If it's just a fuel stop, then St. Augustine hands down.
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Understand that the cheap fuel at SGJ is at the county owned self serve terminal. Beware, the FBO is significantly more, as in $2.45/gallon more!
 
Warrior said:
PMP is a nice stop. Much less busy than FXE in my limited experience
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Sheltair at PMP has treated me well. While we were parked there, some bad weather moved through and they called to get permission to hangar the plane. The area around the airport is nothing to write home about.
 
weilke said:
Sheltair at PMP has treated me well. While we were parked there, some bad weather moved through and they called to get permission to hangar the plane. The area around the airport is nothing to write home about.
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Fortunately my wife is traveling with me so I won't have to write home :D
 
A follow-up...

Our trip was last week. A big thank you to all who made recommendations. We ended up hitting 4 airports.

We flew from our home base at KTTA (Raleigh Executive) to St Augustine (KSGJ) where we parked with Atlantic. They were very nice and took good care of us. Since out next stop was going to be a short flight, we did not refuel there.

The next day, we flew to New Smyrna Beach (KEVB ) where Agate was fantastic!!!! Not only were they friendly and had good fuel prices, but they arranged for a stay at what many told us was the best hotel at New Smyrna Beach - at a good corporate rate and while there was an arts festival in town and rooms were difficult to locate.

After that, it was Sano Aviation at KFXE. Interesting I chose them when they choose to have no comments an Airnav. They were great, arranged a rental car at a better rate than I could get myself, and the fuel prices were excellent. I would use them again without hesitation.

Finally, off the Tampa where we decided to use Zephyrhills (KZPH) rather than Tampa Exec (KVDF). Nice airport, friendly staff, good fuel prices and Enterprise had our rental car ready to go.

For anyone interested, I uploaded a few 3-minute clips of our flights to YouTube - at this point all are approaches and landings - to KSGJ, KEVB and KFXE (pilot error - I didn't recharge for the flight to KZPH). They (and any other clips I might upload later) are collected in a 2015 Florida Trip playlist.
 
midlifeflyer said:
The next day, we flew to New Smyrna Beach (KEVB ) where Agate was fantastic!!!! Not only were they friendly and had good fuel prices, but they arranged for a stay at what many told us was the best hotel at New Smyrna Beach - at a good corporate rate and while there was an arts festival in town and rooms were difficult to locate.
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Yes they are great little FBO. Where did they get you a room? What was the fuel price, I usually fill up at X50 (6 mis S) to help out the family revenue but never really compare...
 
guardrail said:
Yes they are great little FBO. Where did they get you a room? What was the fuel price, I usually fill up at X50 (6 mis S) to help out the family revenue but never really compare...
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$3.95 for full service. They got us reservations at the Hampton Inn on Flagler. One of those new fancier Hamptons that probably should be branded differently (or maybe upscaling the name is the idea).
 
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