If you're headed to Florida's northwest region during 2008, be sure to check out all the newest events and attractions in the area. From weddings underwater, to food festivals and hot new hotels, northwest Florida is always dishing up something new.


Dive into New Restaurants and Events in the Pensacola Area

Yes, you can dive with your bride in Pensacola, where underwater weddings off of the retired aircraft carrier USS Oriskany are now available. Say your “I Dos” amid the world’s largest artificial reef with Pensacola Dive Company (850-4-DIVING).

While you can get married anytime of year, reserve April 4-6 for the 2008 Beulah Sausage Festival (850-944-3167), featuring top country music, arts, rides and nearly three tons of sausage. This year’s JazzFest (the first week in April, 850-433-8382) is held in Seville Square and includes headliners like Butch Thompson’s Big Three and The Jazz Guardians, a truly big band (at 18 members).

Stay at The Hilton Pensacola Beach Gulf Front, recently upgraded and boasting a new four-star restaurant. For hip, in-the-know travelers and locals alike, there’s 600 South (850-434-7736), a wine and martini bar in a boutique hotel on Palafox Street. The restaurant offers a perfect mix of downtown spirit within the comfortable, cozy environs of the newly renovated New World Inn. Want your shopping to be just as cool? Head to Scout (850-607-7105), a trendy new shop carrying Max Mara, Tory Burch and Theory, as well as Paul and Joe makeup.

Nightlife beckons. If it’s blues you want, hit the newly opened Blues Café (850-439-9033) situated in downtown on South Alcaniz Street. The café gives local blues groups a stage nearly every night. Two new restaurants give diners a reason to celebrate: Finnegans Wake Irish Pub & Eatery (in the old New Market Steakhouse on West Nine Mile Road, 850-477-6600) offers a spate of Irish standards like bangers and mash and fish and chips. Try a “Mary Anne” house drink or relish a nice stout. And check out downtown’s new HopJacks Pizza Kitchen & Taproom, where a lounge scene meets yummy pizzas.


Attractions and Events in the Small Towns of the Northwest

April in Port St. Joe brings A Taste of the Coast, an art auction and food fest featuring samples from some of the area’s best restaurants as well as music and a spirited competition among art students. Meanwhile, Blountstown’s not-to-be-missed 47-acre living history museum, the Panhandle Pioneer Settlement (850-674-2777), offers regularly scheduled offbeat and kid-friendly programs: try sacred harp singing in February, a peanut boil in September and Sugar Cane Syrup Making Day in November, just in time for the holidays.

Hikers should hustle out to the new five-mile Blountstown Greenway (877-HIKE-FLA), which joins up with the Florida Trail and ends at the Apalachicola River. Now open to bikers and walkers, the greenway calls to nature lovers of all kinds. This year’s Bonifay Kiwanis Club Gospel Sing (850-547-5363)is July 5. This 50-year-old event brings national acts like The Kingsmen and Michael Combs. Bonifay’s Northwest Florida Championship Rodeo (850-547-5363) returns in October with parades, pageants and cowpokes. Around since the 1940s, the rodeo draws a tough crop of competitors who vie for bragging rights in seven rodeo events. Food festival-wise, Apalachicola’s Florida Seafood Festival kicks off with an oyster eating contest and is hosted by King Retsyo, son of Neptune, in late October.


In and Around Panama City and Panama City Beach

There’s lots to do in this region, from new animal attractions to even newer resorts. Gulf World Marine Park’s (850-234-5271) “Reptile Show” slithers with snakes and lizards, while ZooWorld’s (850-230-4839) “Parrots of the World” shows off these skilled birds. On the water, things are speeding up. Shipwreck Island Waterpark (850-234-3333) now has online ticketing to expedite playtime at rides like Tadpole Hole, with its slides, tubes and swings.

The new Ripley’s Believe It or Not! Odditorium (850-230-6113) looks like a capsized luxury cruise liner on the outside. It’s even stranger inside, but it’s Ripley’s Moving Theater that moves visitors at breakneck pace through big screen 4-D movies (so close you’ll think you’re in them).

Relax and unwind at a host of new spas: Serenity at Bay Point at the Marriott Bay Point Resort (850- 236-6000) offers Vichy water massages and oxygenating facials. The Spa at Majestic Beach Resort’s (866-494-3364) “Basalt Stone Massage” will coax the stress right out of you. Edgewater Beach and Golf Resort’s (800-874-8686) new spa and fitness center dips guests in a “Parisian Body Polish.”

The newly opened Shores of Panama (251-626-6495) resort features two-and three-bedroom suites, a game room and a naturalistic pool on the Gulf of Mexico. The shopping complex Pier Park (850-235-1159) continues to add to its roster of coveted stores and services with the recent addition of The Grand 16 theatre. Carillon Beach Resort and Spa’s (850-234-5600) inn boasts both multi-level suites and condominium suites overlooking Lake Carillon. After a 16-mile, $23.5 million beach replenishment, there’s never been a better time to stake out some prime resort space on one of the world’s whitest beaches, now gleaming with fresh sand from below the Gulf of Mexico.

 
Trader Vic’s and Beethoven in Destin and Fort Walton

Plan a trip to the Emerald Coast (Destin/Fort Walton area) and you’ll have your pick of new and notable resorts. The Palms of Destin Resort and Conference Center (850-351-0500) has spacious suites with a Polynesian-inspired spa. Guests at Emerald Grand at HarborWalk Village (850-337-8800) on Destin Harbor can take advantage of the resort’s water taxi and Kid’s Club. See the tiki-tiki environs of the new Trader Vic’s Restaurant (850-351-0900); this retro eatery is a reborn version of the classic Trader Vic’s restaurants popular in the 1960s.

Fort Walton Beach’s Musical Echos event (850-582-1776, set for April 25-27) features Native American flutes. The Philharmonic of Northwest Florida’s (850-218-8705) 2007-08 season finishes in March with Heroic Endings, a concert of Mendelssohn’s Fingal’s Cave and Beethoven’s Symphony No. 3 Heroica. Beethoven also finishes up the Northwest Florida Symphony Orchestra’s season, April 18 at the Mattie Kelly Fine & Performing Arts Center at Okaloosa-Walton College in Niceville. In Destin in April, Sinfonia Gulf Coast (850-267-1478), brings Play: A Video Game Symphony to the stage and hosts Baytowne Pops at The Village at Baytowne Wharf.

In April, Valparaiso’s Heritage Museum of Northwest Florida (850-678-2615) offers Saturday in the Park, a festival of period crafts, pony rides and antique cars.