Orlando - Next Weekend, so what have I forgotten?
Discussion
Well, the two weeks are over, sadly. Thanks to everyone for the tips, we had a truly fantastic time, I'd move there at the drop of a hat if I were able to.
A few pics and impressions of our holiday.
Following the long and uneventful flight we collected the Chevvy Traverse (huge and perfect for the American roads) and made our way to the Villa.
A quick dip in the pool (those nets are bloody fantasic) before breakfast.
Then a Lumberjack Slam at Denny's, highly recommended and everywhere :drool:
248 Dollars for this beast!!!
Some 'mericuns are a bit odd
Busch Gardens is a pretty good day out and slightly off the beaten track.
Something I'd always wanted to do was an Airboat ride, and I wasn't disappointed, and rather than take the big boat, I'd gone for the 'when in Rome' approach and hired a smaller boat just for us. We saw Alligators, a Bald Eagle, and various other beasts along the way, a cracking day!
A 7 footer, about 5 feet away from my leg!!
Some snappy thing that crawled out of the bushes, and a Turtle
Can you guess where we are yet?
Universal was another great day but it confirmed what I had already feared, it was bloody knackering!
Next up, Kennedy Space Centre, a fantasic day and one that you have to do.
The loo on the Space Shuttle
Do the launch simulator, brilliant!
These buggers are pretty big.
Then we spent a day at Clearwater Beach and had a swim in the Gulf of Mexico, beautiful and well worth the hour or so drive from Orlando.
On to SeaWorld and another great day out. If you go there you have to go on the Manta rollercoaster, awsome!
What shall we do today? Universal again and eat some Cajun Shrimp....
...and then go on this :barf:
Let's try the Atlantic today shall we? Well, it's got to be done hasn't it
Don't forget, you are not allowed to drive the hire car on the beach
We also did Islands of Adventure which was great, Aquatica, which was not my cup of tea but the kids liked it, and loads of other stuff. It really was a holiday of a lifetime and I want to go back next year, should my wallet recover in time, thoroughly recommended.
Oh but one thing, the Americans certainly know how to tease your money away from you, trust me
And be prepared for the security at the airport, there's a lot of it. It took us three hours from arriving at the Airport to leaving it in the hire car!!!
A few pics and impressions of our holiday.
Following the long and uneventful flight we collected the Chevvy Traverse (huge and perfect for the American roads) and made our way to the Villa.
A quick dip in the pool (those nets are bloody fantasic) before breakfast.
Then a Lumberjack Slam at Denny's, highly recommended and everywhere :drool:
248 Dollars for this beast!!!
Some 'mericuns are a bit odd
Busch Gardens is a pretty good day out and slightly off the beaten track.
Something I'd always wanted to do was an Airboat ride, and I wasn't disappointed, and rather than take the big boat, I'd gone for the 'when in Rome' approach and hired a smaller boat just for us. We saw Alligators, a Bald Eagle, and various other beasts along the way, a cracking day!
A 7 footer, about 5 feet away from my leg!!
Some snappy thing that crawled out of the bushes, and a Turtle
Can you guess where we are yet?
Universal was another great day but it confirmed what I had already feared, it was bloody knackering!
Next up, Kennedy Space Centre, a fantasic day and one that you have to do.
The loo on the Space Shuttle
Do the launch simulator, brilliant!
These buggers are pretty big.
Then we spent a day at Clearwater Beach and had a swim in the Gulf of Mexico, beautiful and well worth the hour or so drive from Orlando.
On to SeaWorld and another great day out. If you go there you have to go on the Manta rollercoaster, awsome!
What shall we do today? Universal again and eat some Cajun Shrimp....
...and then go on this :barf:
Let's try the Atlantic today shall we? Well, it's got to be done hasn't it
Don't forget, you are not allowed to drive the hire car on the beach
We also did Islands of Adventure which was great, Aquatica, which was not my cup of tea but the kids liked it, and loads of other stuff. It really was a holiday of a lifetime and I want to go back next year, should my wallet recover in time, thoroughly recommended.
Oh but one thing, the Americans certainly know how to tease your money away from you, trust me
And be prepared for the security at the airport, there's a lot of it. It took us three hours from arriving at the Airport to leaving it in the hire car!!!
Yep, MCO. There was even a seperate bag check 'after' you had collected the bags from the belt, then you go through customs, then you put the bags on another belt and off they went again, you then had to reclaim them from another belt after another security check, bloody nightmare.
I'm still planning on going back next year though
I'm still planning on going back next year though
Steamer said:
Can you (or anyone else thats been recently) give a rough idea of prices?
We bought the unnoficial guide that's been recommended and it was a great help.With regards, to prices, it wasn't as cheap as people often make out, well certainly not the parks and the food. Breakfast for two adults and two kids at Dennys was always about 40 dollars and an evening meal somewhere half decent such as Olive Garden was always around 70 - 80 dollars for the four of us. Sure, there are the 'all you can eat' buffets for 7.99 etc, but I took one look in a Golden Corral doing that deal and it was like a manky service station, but with added queues, no ta.
Clothes certainly are cheap though, I paid 39 dollars for a pair of Levis 501 jeans, and T-Shirts and stuff like that are 10 - 20 dollars for pretty decent stuff.
I've just remembered a couple of worthwhile tips about the car rental. I don't know if this applies to all of the rental companies but Hertz gave us a car with Satnav (well worth the extra 50 dollars), and probably even more useful was the Sunpass on the numberplate (2.50 dollars per day), meaning that we didn't have to stop at any toll booths, that was excellent 
Deva Link said:
Adenauer said:
We had the Hertz Neverlost system and I found it worked fine, each to their own I suppose
Mind you, I didn't have a bloody clue where I was going anyway
It would always get you there, I presume, but I've been to Orlando maybe 20 times and I know my way around pretty well. I have the fairly crap Mercedes sat nav here so I'm used to ignoring it. The main issue with the Hertz one is that the mapping was very out of date and there's a lot of new roads in Orlando - it tried to take us 40 miles to go to a shopping centre 5 miles away. Mind you, I didn't have a bloody clue where I was going anyway
I've got a feeling the routes were biased to avoid taking left (across the traffic) turns - at least it seemed like that.
Stop arguing on my thread, benders.
We got back from Florida on Sunday. But rather than just doing the usual, we rented a Villa with a boat in Cape Coral, and we bloody loved it. Spent lazy days on the boat on the Gulf of Mexico being entertained by Dolphins jumping out of the water right next to the boat. Took it over to Sanibel and Captiva islands, bloody beautiful stuff.
We also did Miami for a few days, the Everglades, and Universal in Orlando. But as far as a beautiful part of Florida goes, The Sanibel and Cape Coral area takes some beating, it was bloody awesome.
Is it wrong that 2 days after returning I am now looking at rental Villas on Sanibel for next year?
We got back from Florida on Sunday. But rather than just doing the usual, we rented a Villa with a boat in Cape Coral, and we bloody loved it. Spent lazy days on the boat on the Gulf of Mexico being entertained by Dolphins jumping out of the water right next to the boat. Took it over to Sanibel and Captiva islands, bloody beautiful stuff.
We also did Miami for a few days, the Everglades, and Universal in Orlando. But as far as a beautiful part of Florida goes, The Sanibel and Cape Coral area takes some beating, it was bloody awesome.
Is it wrong that 2 days after returning I am now looking at rental Villas on Sanibel for next year?
cat220 said:
A villa with a boat really appeals. If you don't mind me asking, who did you rent that from?
There are loads of places to rent them from. We rented the villa and the boat seperately. Just make sure that the Villa has its own dock and isn't too far from the sea, we found out the hard way that if it is, it takes ages to get to the sea on the boat. eg.
For Villas and boats
http://www.vacationhit.com/
For Villas which include a boat (most of them)
http://ospreyvillas.com/rentals
Goa'uld said:
We're still to pick somewhere for our Gulf Coast part of the trip....nothing like leaving it last minute! Sanibel area is high on the list - when you were there was there any major works going? Heard from someone that was over a month or so back that there was going to be dredging round the Sanibel area but that it would prob be finished now?
Nothing major at all, just one small dredger working a small spot between Sanibel and Captiva, I wouldn't even call it disruptive, you hardly notice it 
Goa'uld]denauer said:
A little taster for you, Goa'uld
From a very wet and grey Scotland - thanks for that! Will look at the pics to remind myself what a blue sky looks like so that I'm not startled when we land over there!
Can you fly straight into Fort Myers? We did, and it was a complete doddle From a very wet and grey Scotland - thanks for that! Will look at the pics to remind myself what a blue sky looks like so that I'm not startled when we land over there!
Goa'uld said:
Adenauer said:
Can you fly straight into Fort Myers? We did, and it was a complete doddle
We're flying into Orlando - 8 crazy park fuelled nights there, then 5 on the Gulf Coast [we are taking way too long to pick somewhere!], then 3 in Miami and fly home to the cold and the wet again. Will have a mahoosive SUV for the whole thing, the worse the MPG the better was put on my request.Would you say the beaches and stuff to do on Sanibel would keep us occupied or would it be better to be on the 'mainland' a bit more like Fort Myers beach or Sarasota etc?
When you drive from Orlando to Cape Coral or the others on the Gulf, don't go cross country unless you have the time to spare, we did that on the way to Orlando and it was a long old slog. Better to take the Motorway from Orlando towards Tampa and then down. Still a boring drive but at least you can get going.
From the Cape to Miami is also a bloody long slog. We drove down on the 41 (the Timiami Trail) but there are loads of roadworks going on along that road, added nearly an hour to our trip), so you'd be better off going along the Alligator Alley Motorway, boring, but a doddle.
If you haven't booked anywhere in Miami, we stayed here, which I would recommend, Miami Grand Beach Hotel, directly on South Beach. We had a nice suite with sea view.
The hotel
The view in reception
The view from the room
I'm not much of a food snob so I tend to breakfast in Perkins, not really high brow enough if you're a powerfully built company director, but it hits the spot with me and doesn't cost and arm and a leg. A breakfast for 4 of us leaving us all feeling like Homer Simpson is no more than about 50 dollars, tops.
I am however a bit of a hobby cook so tended to do the evening meals, or BBQ at the Villa myself in the evenings.
Dinner in the Art Deco area of Miami on the other hand, set me back one testicle, an eye, three fingers, and a kidney, because I only had 200 dollars left in cash in my pocket at the time
I am however a bit of a hobby cook so tended to do the evening meals, or BBQ at the Villa myself in the evenings.
Dinner in the Art Deco area of Miami on the other hand, set me back one testicle, an eye, three fingers, and a kidney, because I only had 200 dollars left in cash in my pocket at the time
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