Florida Holiday Review
Submitted by: Michelle - Leeds
Date: October 2003
After 8 months of saving and planning me and 3 others finally arrived in Orlando, Florida for 2 weeks of non-stop action. The flight had been brilliant. We flew direct from Manchester with Mytravel Airways on an Airbus A330 and arrived half an hour earlier than expected. We flew economy but we all had seatback TV's which constantly showed films, comedies, music videos etc. throughout the 9 hour flight plus we had the added advantage of a birds eye view camera where you could see what was going on below and in front of the aircraft.
Our first bit of action was our limousine transfer to our hotel - what a luxury! Our transfer to Parc Corniche on International Drive took an hour but it could have lasted all day for all we cared, we were quite happy watching Shrek and drinking champagne!
On arrival at our hotel, the Parc Corniche we immediately upgraded to a two bedroomed suite, at only £10 per room per night extra it was definitely worth it. A two bedroomed suite consisted of two en-suite bedrooms each with king sized beds, 2 bathrooms and a kitchen/dining/living area with air conditioning throughout. We chose the Parc Corniche as they offer free breakfast and a free scheduled shuttle bus to about 4 of the parks, not to mention plenty of facilities in the room such as cable TV, microwave, fridge, dishwasher, safety deposit facility and telephone. For the golfers a championship golf course opens next door in spring 2004.
After our 9 hour flight we were ready to drop but decided to try and find somewhere to eat so we ventured out to the local Bennigans which is an American/Irish restaurant and serves massive portions of food and beer. Purchasing a starter as well as a main course is not recommended! On International Drive you can find whatever type of food you fancy whether it is Chinese, Thai, Mexican, Italian, Indian - the list goes on. One thing I highly recommend is a breakfast at Ponderosa, you can eat all you like for only $4. On an evening I would also recommend trying the restaurants and bars on Universal's City Walk. City Walk comes to life at around 5.30pm every day and consists of restaurants, nightclubs, shops, a 20 screen cinema complex and the world's largest Hard Rock Cafe.
With so much to do and so little time we hit the parks from day one. Theme park ticket packages can be very confusing, we purchased a 5 park Orlando Flexticket before we travelled which gives you unlimited access to Universal Studios, Islands of Adventure, City Walk, Wet'n' Wild, Busch Gardens and Seaworld. I would definitely recommended families with children to purchase a Disney hopper plus ticket as well, as most of the Disney parks are aimed at children under 12, we only visited a couple of our favourite Disney parks - Epcot and Disney MGM. You need a full day and night for Epcot as the park has two halves: Future World focuses on science, technology and the environment, while World Showcase contains 11 different countries! At 9pm every evening all the countries celebrate together with a massive firework display which lasts for 30 minutes which is well worth staying for.
During our second week we ventured out of Orlando to visit the resort of Clearwater, Busch Gardens in Tampa and the Kennedy Space Centre. The journey to Clearwater takes about 2 hours but our coach picked us up early in the morning and dropped us back at about 7pm so you still get a good day there. Included in the excursion is an hour's boat ride on the 'Screamer', where dolphins swim and dive in the wake of the boat - you get extremely wet especially if you are sat at the back of the boat but this is the best place to sit to see the dolphins. A buffet lunch is included at a prestigious beachfront hotel and then it's back to the glorious white sand beach for some sunbathing!
Kennedy Space Centre has plenty to keep you occupied, the unlimited access tour takes in the IMAX theatre, viewing platform and the Saturn centre where you can feel "lift off", you can even eat lunch with a chunk of real moon rock. Before you travel you can check details of launches and landings that are scheduled during your stay at www.kennedyspacecenter.com.
We chose not to hire a car for the whole two weeks as the hotel provided scheduled transportation to most of the parks we wanted to visit, although we did hire a car through our Airtours Representative half way through the holiday for three days to reach places which were a bit more difficult to get to. At an average cost of only $13 for a full tank of fuel - car hire is a good option in Florida as taxi's can be very expensive.
This was my second visit to Florida and loved it just as much as the first time. Once you've been you'll just keep wanting to go back!
Note from Global Holidays:
We can offer a fantastic selection of holidays to Florida at amazing prices. Please call us on 0870 1999 038 for our latest offers or search and book online on our web site. To search just click holidays to Florida.
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