GREATER FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. – July 16, 2007 – Greater Fort Lauderdale is inviting their youngest guests to pack their bags and bring the family on an action packed family vacation in Fort Lauderdale. While soaking up the sun, families will find adventures to experience, from connecting with nature, riding on a swamp buggy or fluttering among butterflies to visiting America's first "kidizen" theme park, Wannado City. Greater Fort Lauderdale offers a thrilling and educational vacation experience for the entire family.

The following list provides the top five places to take the family while in Greater Fort Lauderdale:

• Wannado City™: Where kids can be whatever they want to be. Calling all aspiring firefighters, actors, news reporters, chefs, pilots and surgeons. Fort Lauderdale’s Wannado City is America’s first indoor role-playing theme park. It’s a complete city created from the point of view of its kidizens™. Wannado is a realistically designed city that is the size of three football fields and has everything from pint-sized fire and police stations, a hospital and bank to a flight training center, theater and television studio. It’s a place where kids can take on grown-up roles and be what they want to be. With Motorola’s new sponsored M-Lab, kids can be inventive while learning to work as a team. Wannado is designed to inspire kids ages 4 to 11. (www.wannadocity.com)
  
  
• The Everglades: Where the wild things are. Greater Fort Lauderdale is the gateway to the Everglades, where wild beauty makes up almost two-thirds of the destination’s total area. At Billie Swamp Safari, located on the Big Cypress Reservation, visitors are taken on an in-depth educational viewing tour aboard swamp buggies and airboats. Don’t be surprised if you come across any Asian water buffalo, bison, wild hogs, alligators, hawks, eagles or other rare birds, they are common in the area. Families can even go native and stay overnight in a traditional Seminole Chickee hut. (www.semtribe.com/safari)
  
  
• ButterflyWorld: Walk with free-flying butterflies in an enclosed tropical rainforest. This must-see attraction is the largest butterfly aviary in North America. Butterfly World features six free-flight aviaries with live exotic butterflies and birds from around the world. Children of all ages and parents alike will be amazed when seeing the 30-foot-high tropical rainforest aviary, with observation decks, waterfalls, ponds, and tunnels where thousands of colorful butterflies flutter about. The insectarium and Lorikeet feeding aviary are a kid favorite. (www.butterflyworld.com)
  
  
• The Museum of Discovery and Science: Where kids travel to the moon and beyond. At the Museum of Discovery and Science the whole family can spend a day exploring hundreds of interactive exhibits, from hanging out with bats, alligators and turtles to flying like an astronaut and taking a simulated trip to the Moon. For the little ones, make it a play date at the Discovery Center, designed especially for children under seven. Of course, no visit to the museum is complete without experiencing an IMAX® film adventure on the five-story-high screen at Blockbuster® IMAX® 3D Theater. (www.mods.org)
  
  
• Funky Fish Kids Day: A liquid playground …just for kids. Available through many hotels and resorts in Greater Fort Lauderdale, “Funky Fish Kids Day” is a fun and educational way for children to celebrate the destination’s water-driven environments. Snorkeling lessons and expeditions, shallow ocean treasure dives, scuba camp and daily coral reef excursions for kids and parents, are just a few of the available activities offered almost daily. (www.funkyfishkidsday.com)

Greater Fort Lauderdale offers an array of family-friendly activities, attractions and accommodations throughout the destination. Visitors can experience the world-renowned water culture and enjoy its 23 miles of “Blue Wave” beaches named for their high standard of safety and clean water. Parents will also be kept busy, getting pamperd at a posh spa, playing one of the 65 lush golf courses or shopping at boutiques on Las Olas Boulevard or the Colonnade Outlets at Sawgrass Mills. For visitor information, contact the Greater Fort Lauderdale Convention & Visitors Bureau at (800) 22-SUNNY or visit www.sunny.org.

###

07/2007