Things to Do in Margate

With a fleet that ranges from the low-key Cessna 172 to the turbocharged Piper Saratoga, the FAA-licensed pilots of Beach Aviation take to the skies for short jaunts and longer, privately chartered flights. Scenic tours depart in Central Florida from Kissimmee Airport or in South Florida from Boca Raton Airport and cruise the wild, blue yonder along the tourist destinations, the natural habitat, and other picturesque scenery. Beach Aviation's seasoned airmen also run instructional courses for aspiring pilots, teaching them the art of ascending, descending, and dodging territorial weather balloons.

A former professional boxer, Howard Davis, Jr. lays claim to some staggering accomplishments. He won the New York Golden Gloves while still an amateur, made it into the 1976 Olympics where he earned a gold medal and was awarded the Val Barker Trophy for all-around style, and worked as the striking coach for such iconic MMA fighters as Chuck "The Iceman" Liddell and Thiago Silva. In 2010, he turned his love of the sport into a venue to promote young fighters by creating Fight Time Promotions along with his wife, Karla. Anchored by a professional series that organizes five cards per year, Fight Time showcases some of Florida's most promising MMA and kickboxing talents. It also features an amateur division for young fighters, who work toward a professional career by perfecting hand-to-hand techniques that can impress in the cage.

At the center of Playtown Cafe’s child-size indoor town, servers escort gourmet sandwiches, wraps, and flatbreads to parents and kids seated at café tables. As their parents continue to munch and mingle, children frolic in and out of small storefronts painted in bright colors, pretending to run a bakery, create masterpieces in an art gallery, and shoplift from La Boutique. Youngsters dress up as superheroes and princesses in the boutique; play air hockey, arcade games, and dual Nintendo Wiis inside the garage; and manipulate a train set in the building zone, which is designed to resemble an unfinished house.

To burn off boundless stores of energy, kids can cross the play-city’s traffic-free road to cavort in a turf-floored indoor park, where staffers monitor them as they scale climbing walls, cross blue climbing bars, and shoot down wavy orange slides. Playtown’s staffers show an additional commitment to safety as they oversee a separate play area and ball pit designed just for toddlers, which is free of boogie monsters.

Having watched his grandfather and father work in the boating industry his whole life, Brad Reeves found it natural to follow in their wake. In 2011, he expanded the family business, acquiring a fleet of new Bennington pontoon boats to open Reeves Coastal Cruises, a boat-rental company. Each boat is equipped with a Yamaha motor, GPS, and a CD player, and he sends groups of up to 10 sailing the shimmering waters of south Florida with cruise packages featuring four- and eight-hour rentals, as well as two-hour sunset rentals. His wife and business partner, Jennifer, hosts the Florida Insider Fishing Report on Sun Sports and is an NBC 6 Miami meteorologist. She applies this unique expertise of the region to their business and ensuring a memorable experience for their customers. Today, with their twin daughters helping out dockside, they continue a family tradition of getting others together for a fun and safe day on the water, outfitting each vessel with safety equipment, a full tank of gas, and spray-on seagull repellant.

Festival of Souls immerses guests in horror-film-worthy scenes across two fearsome attractions that span 58,000 total square feet. Fiendish denizens lurk in the shadowy corridors of Demon Mansion, waiting to chill the spines of voyagers bold enough to plumb its hellish depths. After evading ghouls in the haunted house, guests turn the tables on their bewitched agitators in the Zombie Paintball Safari, during which guests wield paintball guns, climb board a hayride, and enter a 50,000-square-foot Quarantine Zone teeming with the undead. As the blood-splattered, grotesque corpses stagger into view, guests repel them with a volley of paint-filled orbs and unsolicited cosmetic advice.