Miami news, Miami local news

Miami-Dade County welcomes its very first Miami casino. Churchill Downs and Calder Race Course broke ground on Wednesday, June 3rd on a 104,000 square-foot facility.

The gambling facility will feature 1,225 slot machines, three restaurants and valet parking. The  Miami casino will open next year right before the Super Bowl which will be played in the nearby LandShark Stadium. Miami-Dade will now join its neighboring Broward County which already features slot machines at tracks and Seminole Indian Miami casinos.

The Art Photo Expo art gallery in Miami on Lincoln Road is perhaps best known for its retrospective of Naomi Campbell, a collection of photographs by renowned, leading photographers, capturing the model’s elegance and glamour over the years. The retrospective was featured in South Florida’s second annual In Fashion Photo exhibition. The photo gallery in Miami opened in December 2008 after the world-famous Art Basel event in Miami. The art gallery in Miami kept up with the major competition with over 250 contemporary photographs for sale by more than 35 of the world’s leading fashion photographers.

The photo gallery in Miami features works by leading international photographers such as Chen Man, Miles Aldridge, Michael Thompson and Arthur Elgort. Viewers are stirred by the whimsical images that seem like life-size photos right out of a fashion magazine. The art gallery in Miami is located at 910 Lincoln Road. For more information, call 305-672-0055 or email info@artphotoexpo.com.

Finnegan’s on the River is ready to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day in Miami with the best themed party in Miami. Guests will be as Irish as they will ever be on Tuesday’s party starting at 4PM at Finnegan’s River. They’ll enjoy beer, live music, a DJ, a bag piper and a green-dyed pool. Enjoy the interior bar, raw sushi bar and a menu with bar classics such as spicy wings and spinach dip with chips.

Special for St. Patrick’s Day, corned beef and cabbage and shepherd’s pie will be added to the menu. For more information, call 305-285-3030.

For other information on Miami events or venues, visit the online Miami Guide. If you will be visiting Miami from somewhere else, take a look at the cheap but high-quality Miami vacation rentals and Miami holiday homes.

Recently, the Travel Channel, the only television network devoted exclusively to travel entertainment, featured a piece on the World’s 21 Sexiest Beaches. The results were made after traveling the world and experiencing the beaches first-hand.

In that list, South Beach made it in as the number 2 sexiest beach, just before Waikiki in Hawaii. South Beach ranked so highly thanks to its continuous energy, exciting nightlife and unique lifestyle. Search South Beach vacation rentals or South Beach hotels within your budget and experience for yourself what makes this beach so special.

Use a Miami guide to point you in the direction of the best Miami attractions once you are there.

Miami Beach is one of the top travel destinations. Now, visitors with disabilities can use special disabled parking permits to park their vehicles. Look up more information on our Guide of Miami Beach. Most Miami hotels and restaurants provide readily accessible ramps for wheelchairs. For decades, the City of Miami Beach has focused a considerable amount of energy on making sure that Miami Beach has accessible beaches on a wheelchair and by all.

These accessible beaches on a wheelchair efforts have proven to be very successful. Accessing the beach by wheel chair is not easy but the City of Miami Beach took care of that by building ramps specially designed to make the beach easily open and available to all.

Hereunder is some information from a Guide of Miami Beach:

Crandon Beach - Cabana Rentals
4000 Crandon Blvd.
Key Biscayne, FL
Voice/TDD
786/336-6982

Haulover Beach
18000 Collins Ave.
N. Miami Beach, FL
Voice/TDD
786/336-6990

10th St. and 72nd St. Beaches
Miami Beach

For more information about ADA services in Miami and Miami Beach please call Miami-Dade County at 305-375-3566 or Miami Beach at 305-673-7080

Today is another new beginning for Miami-Dade’s northbound I-95. Drivers will be introduced to a new traffic system on some of the busiest sections of I-95. Drivers will no longer be able to dive freely into expressway traffic. Now, they must wait for a green light at the entrance ramp to merge in during rush hours. These traffic signals will await motorists at eight different northbound I-95 ramps between NW 62nd Street and the Golden Glades interchange.

This new addition to the driving system is meant to ultimately manage congestion and ease any merging madness on this very busy Florida expressway. This, much like the implementation of the new northbound toll lanes, will require some adjustment. Drivers should pay extra attention when entering I-95 as the new traffic signals create a huge potential for rear-end collisions.

Drivers that are not used to red lights on an interstate ramp may not stop and end up rear-ending drivers ahead of them that obey that traffic signal. Florida Highway Patrols hope that, like the new I-95 toll lanes, people will come to understand the purpose of the traffic signals and adjust after some initial chaos and confusion. A trooper will be set up at every traffic signaled ramp to enforce the new regulation. Violators may face penalties including a $160 ticket and three points on their license. Ramp backups will be monitored by sensors under the ramps and expressway lanes as well as surveillance cameras. When ramps get too backed-up the sensors will signal to speed up entries. If you are traveling to Miami and you plan to rent a car, these traffic signals may not be foreign to you.

There are several like these that already exist in other parts of the country. If you want to avoid them, maybe you should look into Miami Beach vacation rentals and Florida vacation rentals which are within walking distance to many of Miami’s attractions.

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In the past, there has been a direct correlation between cold weather in the rest of country and the influx of visitors in Miami. A cold front in the middle of this week affected most of the northern part of the country. Still, hoteliers in Miami are not celebrating just yet. Apparently, the economic crisis is affecting bookings.

Typically, the colder it gets in other places, the more last-minute bookings seen in Miami. The Miami tourism season started weakly with several big discounts for Miami hotel rooms resulting more advantageous for vacationers and a less for the actual industry. In October and November, Miami hotels records showed weak numbers and declining revenues for the first time since 2002. The cities of Miami and Miami Beach are focusing efforts on their marketing campaign to lure vacationers back to the magical city. Most of the city’s marketing efforts were implemented in the summer during the low season. Officials don’t want to take risks and act preemptively. Tourists are jumping at all Miami package deals and looking into Miami holiday rentals in order to vacation within a tighter budget.

Tourism in Miami and Fort Lauderdale was not strong enough to get either of the two South Florida destinations onto the list of the Top 10 US Destinations being booked for 2009.

According to a survey conducted by travel leaders, both cities are competing to be ranked 11th. Orlando, the former number 1 top ranked destination, slipped to number 2 under Las Vegas.

Orlando holidays are still extremely popular among domestic and international travelers while tourism in Miami, despite a small hiccup, is still strongly booking for 2009. Europeans are taking advantage of the present strength of the Euro to get great deals for Miami hotels and Miami Beach vacation rentals. Hotels and lodging in Miami Beach are offering large discounts to attract visitors. Visit our online guide of Miami to prepare for a fulfilling vacation in Miami.

The internet is a very convenient invention but it also comes with nuisances such as fraud. A large number of fraud attempts take place on the internet and have made their way into travel news.

Vacationers, beware! It should be easy to identify and avoid fraud if you carefully abide by travel tips.

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Miami Beach vacation rentals ads are posted on free classified vacation rental websites such as craigslist, backpage or kijiji. Travel news has taught us that owners post ads on a daily basis to rent their vacation rentals or sometimes their alleged vacation rental.

The drawback to these free sites is that the ads are not checked or verified by anybody. This does not mean that renters should not browse those websites but that they should just be extra careful and follow travel tips when booking. Caution should be exercised and following are a few travel tips to help you do that.

Renters should:

• Look at the quality of the ad.
• Research and search travel news to find out whether the vacation rental is offered by an individual or a company. A company is less risky because it can easily be checked.
• Make sure that a local phone number is posted on the ad
• Call the owner or agent and ask a ton of questions. Try to assess how accurately he/she responds.
• Send emails
• Be cautious if you cannot speak with the owner because he “lost” his voice
• Make sure that you sign a real contract indicating what is it that you have reserved
• You may request proof of ownership
• Do not send cash! You may transfer money by wire transfer to a company if it can be checked out and if it has a track record of a reputable Miami Beach vacation rental agency.
• Always check with the Better Business Bureau and travel news.

The Better Business Bureau is a service that was created to help consumers get to know the companies they are doing business with.

Most American companies are part of this huge database. Consumers may file complaints against companies and the BBB compiles a report that gives the business a grade as good as A+ or below.

The better the grade, the more trust and confidence you can feel in the company. The website is very easy to use. Simply enter the name of the company and its location and a report will be run.

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One of the strongly recommended travel tips that all vacationers should do is search for relevant travel information before selecting a vacation rental company. The current economic crisis may introduce more vacation rental scammers to the market and more negligent owners hoping to rent their property for incremental revenues.

Miami Beach vacationers come to the magic city to relax and unwind in a friendly environment and take advantage of the variety of things to do in Miami. Most vacationers can do just that by making sure they following commonly stated travel tips.

The last thing vacationers are looking for is a fight with an unscrupulous manager or homeowners. Do your research and get travel information beforehand. It is better than ruining your vacation and posting a complaint afterwards.