Orlando in 3 days — what to see?
Orlando — a large city in central Florida, just 75 km from the Atlantic Ocean and numerous beaches. Orlando — entertainment and tourism kingdom!
In the center of Orlando downtown is located Lake Iola or Eola Lake with a fountain in the center. This fountain is a symbol of the city of Orlando.
Lake Eola is surrounded by a park, a wonderful place for walks. Downtown Orlando’s several main streets are lined with restaurants, bars, shops and, of course, nightclubs.
Permanent population of the city of Orlando — 255,000 people, together with the regions 2,100,000 people. More than 60,000,000 tourists come to Orlando every year.
But Orlando is world famous precisely for its amusement parks — a huge Walt Disney World park and an amazing grand «fairy tale for adults» Universal Park.
When planning a trip to entertaining Orlando, you can safely budget a day for each park; entrance to the parks is not cheap at all, so weigh your interests, take into account the age of the children and physical abilities… walking through the vast park areas in decent heat is not easy… but you will understand this only at the exit, since the impressions of what you saw will overcome all difficulties!
The tourist season in Orlando is all year round, it all depends on your preferences, hotter or cooler, noisier or quieter… We got to Orlando at the beginning of September and the weather suited us quite well, the daytime temperature was about 30 degrees stable and sunny. Florida is notorious for being a hurricane state, but the central city of Orlando is the least likely to suffer from such natural disasters.
In Orlando, we decided to stay in an apartment with a kitchen so that we could cook or heat up something simple. Still, it’s expensive for a large family to constantly eat in restaurants. September in Orlando is the period of decline in the high season, and, accordingly, a decline in prices for everything tourist. Vista Cay Resort by Millenium was chosen for deployment for 4 days, offering apartments (apartments) and two-level townhouses for rent. The Vista Cay resort has a natural lake with a jogging path and crocodiles living in the lake, a small fitness center, much-needed Wi-Fi!, free parking for our American «tank» and the pool was open until late in the evening, which made it possible to wonderfully relax and refresh after a long and full day of impressions in amusement parks, which, by the way, are not far from our place of temporary residence 🙂
Since the plan was to stay in Orlando for 3 days, we rented an apartment with a kitchen for vacation in order to be able to organize food at home. Not far from our apartment there was a wonderful Publix supermarket, where we found everything we needed, a good selection of products and ready-made fresh semi-finished products. We didn’t have to look any further for restaurants for breakfast and dinner, we fell in love with our Publix 🙂
I won’t describe the furnishings of our apartment, we were delighted, I’ll post a few photos and once again with a clear conscience I recommend Vista Cay Resort by Milleniumfor your relaxation!
We booked an apartment for ourselves, of course, through our beloved booking.com, it’s not easy to choose, there are a lot of interesting offers with beautiful pictures, so maybe you’ll like something else and better — 30 best hotels in Orlando from booking.com
Orlando or Miami. Why Orlando?
By the way, we didn’t get to the super popular Miami Beach by only 375 km, and we did it deliberately. Of course Miami Beach is a reputable resort! But I’ll try to explain, when you go on vacation with children it’s usually like this: it’s either interesting for the parents or for the children… Orlando is interesting for everyone!
If your children are under 5 years old, then of course you should go to the beach, and you don’t need to split hairs and tear off your arms, work your backs, trying to see and examine something, but if they are older than 5 years old, then you will need additional entertainment and activities, and then you are on your way to Orlando Amusement Parks! And there are plenty of them in Orlando, for all tastes 🙂
Let’s move on to the main part of the story about Orlando
Orlando Amusement Parks
The most interesting, in our subjective opinion 🙂 places to visit in Orlando
— Walt Disney World parks
— Universal Studios Park
— Sea World park
— Gatorland Park, or Gatorland — alligator farm
— John Kennedy Space Center, or Kennedy Space Center and its active Cape Canaveral launch pads, Cape Canaveral
In fact, there are more parks, attractions and other entertainment in Orlando. I will list them for general development and convenience of planning your personal trip:
Aquatica Water Park — water park is one of the ten largest water parks in the world
Wet ‘n Wild Orlando — 25% discount!
— huge Orlando water park with slides, waterfalls, drops and artificial waves
Legoland
— the name speaks for itself
Gatorland
— a huge crocodile farm where more than a hundred crocodiles live in the wild
The new water park Volcano Bay is expected to open in Orlando in the near future. The new super modern water park Volcano Bay opens on the territory of the Universal Resort and promises visitors dizzying slides, waterfalls, many pools with waves and rivers, a variety of water attractions and entertainment for all ages, as well as for a complete relaxation equipped with stylized Polynesian beaches and occupying the central place of the park, the giant Krakatau volcano, more than 60 meters high.
Uh… We look forward to the opening of Volcano Bay!
As I already said when planning your trip, you can safely budget a day for each of the amusement parks you have chosen, and that won’t be enough, but still 😉
So! Our selection of things to do in Orlando for 3 days
1 day. Sea World Park why Sea World Park is the first? everything is banal, we wanted to sleep in the first day in Orlando and go to Universal from early morning until closing, so it’s not that Sea World Park is the first, just Universal Studios the second 😉
2 day. Universal Studios Park — Universal Studiosas already mentioned «from opening to closing». Why Universal Studios and not Walt Disney World? because «you can’t embrace the immensity», because it was our dream, because our family — fans of Universal Studios films, and because they decided that Walt Disney World is more childish… Most likely we are wrong, but it was decided
3 day. Blue Spring National Park why Blue Spring? because that day was the birthday of one of our family members, the birthday boy wanted to go to nature, so Blue Spring Nature Park was chosen
Some notes from our lasting impressions of the Orlando parks we saw.
Sea World Park Orlando amusement park
Sea World Park — a park where you can have fun all day with your whole family.
There are enclosures with rare and not so rare animals, water attractions for all ages and courage, many family restaurants and, of course, a variety of shops with souvenirs and pleasant little things.
Tickets to the Sea World Park were bought online at a discount to avoid standing in line. No need to print tickets! A purchase confirmation with a barcode will be sent to your e-mail, which is read at the entrance to the park.
Here are some photos of Sea World Park to spark curiosity 😉
And of course children’s delight — water attractions of Sea World park!
And the most impressive attraction — Kraken water slides! True, in the end the Kraken turned out to be just a warm-up for the Universal coaster, but more on that later.
But we never saw the famous Orca Show of Sea World park 🙂 What is called «you need to sleep less» :(:( eh, but we’re on vacation!
We’ll have to come back!
Universal Studios Park Orlando amusement park
Universal Studios Park — the main goal, may the rest of the numerous sights of America forgive me, and the main dream of our trip! Even now I don’t remember where we learned about him and why we know so much.
The main warning learned on the Internet even before going to Universal Park: «if you want to have a relatively calm walk around the Harry Potter pavilion, come to the park right before the opening and go straight there», we learned it well and followed this advice , what we wish for everyone.
I won’t give the details of our unforgettable day at Universal, let it be more interesting for everyone, I’ll just say that we even forgot about food, in the evening leaving the park we were on the verge of cannibalism, everyone was saved by the presence of a choice of restaurants concentrated at the entrance/exit to the park.
Of course I post photos, but you have to see Universal Park for yourself!
I’ll briefly list what we managed to see: both Harry Potter pavilions (I’ll let it slip, the Hogwarts Express runs between them), by the way, you can ride the Hogwarts Express as many times as you like during the validity of your ticket to the park, at Hogwarts School you We’re waiting for a surprise (this time I won’t say which one), we were absolutely delighted :),
Jurassic Park attraction — Jurassic Park rightfully competes with Harry Potter in our personal ranking, but is still in second place,
as well as attractions King Kong/Skull Island: Reign of Kong,
Transformers/Transformers 3D,
Terminator, Men in Black/MIB Men in Black, Spider Man, Marvel Super Hero island, Shrek/Shrek 4D, my favorite Minions/Despicable Me Minion Mayhem and many, many more- there are a lot of different things we did and didn’t manage to do, and it’s not realistic in 1 day.
There are restaurants everywhere and near each attraction there are themed shops and stalls with nice souvenirs.
New to Universal — Shrek attraction, recently opened. Only our older children decided to do it; the youngest (10 years old) was simply not allowed due to his height. The elders came out a little shaky, but happy and undefeated 🙂
We also bought tickets to Universal online. There is no need to print tickets; a confirmation with a barcode is sent to your cell phone, which is read at the entrance to the park.
You can also buy tickets for 2 or 3 days, it will be cheaper. That’s what we didn’t do and then remembered, we didn’t splurge on VIP tickets, when it is possible to go to any attraction in the park without a queue. We didn’t feel this in the morning, but by lunchtime lines began to accumulate almost everywhere.
Blue Spring State Park national park
Blue Spring Park is located just 55 km from Orlando and is known as the wintering place for rare animals, Manatees or Manatees, who swim to bask in the warm waters of the St. Johns River, which flows through Blue Spring Park. Florida Manatees can grow over 5 meters in length and are now critically endangered and protected, with hunting prohibited.
In Blue Spring Park there is a lot of entertainment for visitors: boat rentals, canoes, snorkeling, fishing in permitted areas, swimming, walking, you can come to nature just for a picnic.
We chose a two-hour boat trip on the St. Johns River in hopes of seeing a live manatee or crocodile, and of course getting a closer look at Florida nature.
Atlantic beaches near Orlando
Orlando, of course, is not located on the ocean coast, but not far from it. Therefore, those who like to swim in salty water can quite comfortably organize a day on the ocean. Atlantic beaches closest to Orlando — Dayton Beach and Coco Beach.
The distance from Orlando to Daytone Beach is only 88 not very tiring kilometers; Cocoa Beach is also not far from Orlando — 89 km, or 1 hour of driving.
Orlando in 4 days — shopping in Orlando
Now a little for those who like to go shopping. And here Orlando will not leave you without good offers.
If you have more than 3 days in Orlando, I recommend devoting one day to shopping. Orlando has large shopping centers and outlets, especially interesting:
Miami
You can also make a one-day excursion and get to the extremely popular Miami Beach, especially since the distance from the center of Orlando to the center of Miami is 379 km, it is quite possible to stay there a full day and return back by nightfall, or for complete comfort, spend the night there, on the very the southern tip of Florida and the entire East Coast of the USA — famous Miami Beach. Take a walk along its beaches and visit a couple of nightclubs 🙂
Miami also hosts numerous entertainment events all year round, various museums and exhibitions, theaters, and concerts.
In addition, I would like to say that very soon SunRail high-speed trains will begin their regular flights from Orlando to Miami, the final checks and tests are already underway.
And it will also be possible to travel quickly and comfortably by high-speed train from the city of Washington, through Orlando to Miami, and of course back, we are waiting 8230;
Return road… unfortunately… 🙁
Our way back is prosaic and not of great interest, which is called «from airport to airport».
We easily, with the help of Uber, got to the airport in Orlando, from there on a direct American Airlines flight from Orlando to New York and then with a 4-hour wait for our already favorite AirFrance from New York to Paris.
A bit of specifics and math, a 15 mile (about 24 km) trip from our favorite hotel Vista Cay Resort by Milleniumto Orlando International Airport using Uber Max cost us $17.
I can’t help but note our last impression from Florida: Orlando airport looks more like a tropical hotel than the airport we are used to seeing.
It should be noted that when flying from America to Europe, doctors recommend the opposite, to fall asleep on the plane and, if possible, sleep, the plane arrives in the morning, and if you get at least a little sleep — This will be the most comfortable transition for the body from one temporary mode to another. Having lived poorly until the evening of this day, go to bed at the time usual for your time zone and in the morning of the next day your body will wake up quite alert and at ease».
Well, that’s it, our journey is over, I hope the story was interesting and useful!
