Hey Lazerboy,
Welcome to the thread and the hobby first of all. In regards to your question regarding samplers or taster packs, I would tell you that either way you could find good cigars. If you were to go into a shop and have the proprietor help you find some similar cigars, you'd probably come out with 15 to 20 cigars that you'd have a great time trying. Then again, Cigars International, Famous Smoke Shop, Thompson Cigars and Holt's Cigars (I'll link to them further down) have some good samplers. CI has a deal called the herf n' go combo, which is a travel humidor which holds about five cigars plus five cigars to go in it from a list of samplers for 35 bucks, which I consider to be a great deal. I'll link you to a few samplers at CI which have intrigued me as palette expanding.
I'll leave the recommendations to the other guys, since I've only had a few of the Oliva Maduros, but you'd do well to try some of the other styles from Oliva and others. If you have the money, pick up a few Padron 1964 Anniversary series Maduros, they changed my life.
www.famous-smoke.com
www.thompsoncigar.com
www.holts.com
www.cigarsinternational.com
Samplers:
Herf 'n Go Combo (I recommend the Best of Pepin Garcia 1 as a good mix)
Monster Maduro Sampler (great for checking out the differences in maduro wrappers)
Don Pepin Garcia Mega Sampler
I don't necessarily recommend CI for everything, but their samplers are pretty good IMO.
Humidors:
Cheap Humidors Cigar Humidor Cigar Accessories CheapHumidors.com
Also check out the humidor sections on the major retailers.
I'm also going to give you something that you'll regret:
http://www.cigarbid.com
Bottom line is that I think you can get the herf 'n go plus a 20 cigar sampler for maybe a little over a hundred bucks and be all set for vacation at least. Enjoy!
Cheers,
Zach
Edit: I knew one of the other regulars would beat me to it! Of course that's the one option I neglected. Check out the vibrant cigar scene in Miami!