Sherman's Travel

With the blustering winter in full swing, it’s time to click your heels and go to Florida. For a snow-melting $179/night until January 31, 2010, the luxurious, newly renovated Bay Point Marriott Golf Resort and Spa in Panama City is making you an offer you can’t refuse: up to $100 resort credit per day! Resort credit can be used at any of the onsite restaurants, at the Meadows Golf Course or Nicklaus Design Golf Course, and at the Serenity Spa. In addition, guests receive a complimentary boat ride aboard the First Lady to Shell Island, a secluded natural habitat for marine life between the Gulf of Mexico and St. Andrew’s Bay.

To book, visit www.marriott.com.

About the Hotel: The only Marriott on the Condé Nast Traveler’s 2009 Gold List for U.S. Resorts, the posh Bay Point Marriott was built around a wildlife preserve, right on the shores of Panama City Beach, with gorgeous views of St. Andrew’s Bay. This 316-room resort (including 60 golf villas) features spacious accommodations with flat-panel cable televisions, mini-refrigerators, balconies and porches, seasonal in-room dining, and creative options like blackened grouper and grilled rib eye with herbed maple gastrique on the menus in the resort restaurants.

If you don’t feel like lounging by one of the three palm-tree-lined outdoor pools, indulging in a Serenity Spa day, or perfecting your backswing, you can hit the tennis courts, rent a fishing boat, go parasailing and kayaking, or take a dolphin excursion tour. Pier Park outdoor shopping mall is only a few miles away, housing boutique, one-of-a-kind shops and restaurants.