The main purpose of our trip was to plunge into and enjoy the entertainment of Orlando — this wonderful tourist city! and with a capital letter.
In Orlando, you can’t help but feel that at every crossroads, more and more new experiences await guests.
After leaving Orlando last year, I was left with a strong feeling of being overlooked and under-felt. It’s simply not possible to live peacefully with this 😉 «Fix it!», — we decided, and here she is — almost a week in Orlando ☀
There is no point in describing our every day in detail; I will give our achievements almost as a list with comments and remarks.
A little about accommodation in Orlando. In some things we adore variety, but in some things we show enviable constancy, especially when «do not seek good from good». We checked into the same apartment complex Vista Cay Resort by Millenium for all our 5 days because we liked it, it was conveniently located, there was a wonderful supermarket nearby, in the complex there is a gym and an outdoor swimming pool, what else do you need?!? And I must say, the choice was a good one, and a little later we appreciated it doubly… I’m getting ahead of myself again 🙁
1 day in Orlando — Disney`s Animal Kingdom
On our last trip, we shamelessly ignored Disneyland, but more than 50,000,000 guests come here every year. Walt Disney World Florida includes 5 theme parks and 2 water parks.
This day, as planned, was entirely dedicated to one of the Disney World parks in Orlando — Disney’s Animal Kingdom park. Why exactly Disney’s Animal Park? you ask. Animal Kingdom seemed the most interesting to us: safari with live animals, attractions, themed areas, and finally the new amusement park Pandora: The World of Avatar… it came together… 🙂
There is a lot of information on the Internet about Disney’s Animal Kingdom park, I will describe only the most vivid impressions.
The African Prairie Bus Safari simulates the full experience of traveling through the African wilderness. It was beautiful and great! I wanted to go again and again…
Animal Kingdom has several worthwhile attractions for visitors of different ages, but the coolest in the full sense of the word — Hetty, or Expedition Everest-Legend of the Forbidden Mountain, a roller coaster ride through the Himalayas with a ride into a cave of a snow ape, more than 60 meters high!
This is my first personal experience of riding a roller coaster, and most likely my last, but it was unforgettable and definitely worth it.
As already mentioned, Yetty is not the only one in the Animal Park, there are several other great rides and attractions.
We shouldn’t have left visiting Pandora until the end of our trip to Disney’s Animal; this part of the park opened only in May 2017 and it certainly enjoys increased interest.
After standing for more than an hour at the magical bioluminescent Navi River and walking around Planet Pandora, we no longer dared to try the second interesting attraction — 3D flights on dragons… because we were tired and hungry…
Comments:
If you are interested in visiting the new Pandora: The World of Avatar, it is better to start your visit to Disney’s Animal from this part of the park
If possible, plan your visits to such large parks as Disneyland or Universal on weekdays; on weekends the number of visitors in the parks increases even more
2 day in Orlando — Ferris wheel Orlando Eye + Sea Life + La Nouba show
On the second day, it was decided to slow down a little, especially since tickets were purchased for the evening to the famous circus Cirque du Soleil, whose headquarters are located in Orlando.
The Orlando Eye, Sea Life Aquarium and Madame Tussauds Orlando are located in the same location on International Drive.
The three listed establishments have the same owner, so it is profitable to buy a complex ticket to all of them at once.
We were in a similar Wax Museum in New York, so it was crossed off the list, but we rode on the Wheel and looked at Orlando «bird’s eye view» with pleasure, and the fish in Sea Life were wonderful.
It is noteworthy that one booth of the Eye Ferris Wheel was plastered with Coca-Cola logos and inside there was a free drink for guests as a gift. We were unlucky for one booth, it was occupied in front of us by a cheerful youth group, but maybe it was for the best, our family is not a lemonade lover.
In this location on International Drive there are several restaurants, shops, an Italian cafe with excellent coffee, the Skeleton Museum and, importantly, a multi-tiered free parking lot. The kids are being driven around by a funny little train 🙂 and by all accounts this is a great place to spend a quiet, positive family day out.
Cirque du Soleil is known to be a widely touring circus, but it is in Orlando that it has its own circus building. I won’t write anything about the performance, it’s complete delight! Costumes, music, performances… everything is amazing! The performance looks «in one breath» from the beginning to the end. You have to see this action for yourself…
Next to the circus there is a shopping and entertainment part of the great and mighty Disneyland — Disney Springs.
Disney Springs — these are wonderful cozy streets with flowers and benches, coffee shops, restaurants and live music, more than 100 large and small shops, especially the famous Harley-Davidson® Orlando, The Lego®Store, Coca-Cola Store, Levi’s, Build -a-Dino, Dino Store, Goofy’s Candy and many many more, and the most coveted store in Disney Springs — this is the largest Disney store in the world — World of Disney®.
Disney Springs is worth a walk in the evening, when the heat of the day subsides and the lights turn on… sit in one of the cute street restaurants with a glass of beer, listen to jazz or blues in one of the Disney Springs nightclubs.
3 day in Orlando — Universal park
And again Universal, and again impressions and delights… Harry Potter, Jurassic Park… all this has already been written about before with photographs and descriptions.
And again we did not regret going to Universal Park, we tried to get around even more attractions and entertainment, slides, water rafting … We walked around the Wizarding World of Harry Potter in more detail, visited absolutely all of its interesting places, including Gringotts Bank 😉
What else to write about Universal Park ?! would go to it and walk… 🙂
4 day in Orlando — Volcano Bay water park
Volcano Bay water park — Universal’s third park, opened only in May of this year, and the sixth water park in the city of Orlando.
Probably all water parks are similar: automatic lockers, umbrellas and sun loungers on the shore… In the center of Volcano Bay rises a stylized volcano, and at the foot lies a lake with a large wave surrounded by Polynesian beaches, two lazy rivers and … slides slides slides… The children went around almost everything, including the creepiest — falling in a pipe from a dizzying height.
Visit Volcano Bay — it’s fun for the whole day. Drinks and snacks can be bought in numerous shops and open-air restaurants, where people go, of course, while wearing a bathing suit. You can bring something with you and lock it in your clothes locker.
We were unlucky with the sun that day, but this is not at all important with such Florida air temperatures in early September.
5 day in Orlando — Gatorland + shooting range
The fifth day of our Journey across America traditionally fell on the birthday of one of our family members.
The birthday boy wished for his birthday long before the trip «close» meeting Florida alligators. Therefore, a family trip on a hovercraft through the wild swamps of the reserve was pre-booked for this day.
But two days before, the organizer tried to reschedule, and then canceled our skiing due to the danger of increased wind, the money was returned to the account in full immediately. It was probably at this moment that our fears turned into confidence: our second family trip to America was coming to an end, but it was unlikely that we would fly back on the planned route, from Miami, as it was written on our tickets… Irma was approaching Florida, and us,… Well, I’m getting ahead of myself again…
Not wanting to spoil the holiday and upset the birthday boy, after quickly searching the Internet, Gatorland was chosen, which is only 13 km from our Vista Cay Resort by Millenium, fortunately you don’t have to look for alligators in Florida for a long time 😉
Gatorland — a cute, family-friendly park with an alligator theme. Firstly, the alligator pools are of completely different sizes, from babies to giants.
Secondly, Zip-Line with flights to our lakes teeming with these creepy amphibians. Several shows with spectators and, of course, alligators. An excursion train, boardwalks over the water, water joys, a bistro cafe with alligator nuggets, and even the distribution of sausages for feeding the animals.
We spent a wonderful half day in this calm, unfussy, homely park.
As compensation for the lack of swamps and boats, our birthday boy wanted to visit the shooting range, where we went immediately after Gatorland.
I must say, guns in America — This is culture, everything is simpler and less bureaucratic. When we arrived at the shooting range, the employee only inquired: Is the customer familiar with weapons? and Do we need an instructor? Having received positive and negative answers, respectively, he gave our boys headphones, targets and an AR-15 combat rifle with cartridges, and took them away to the shooting hall.
The rest, non-shooters and non-gun lovers, watched the action through the window behind them. There were several shooters in the hall, each in his own corridor, mostly dads with their sons and even daughters, it was a day off 😉
Having exchanged several targets in an hour, a rifle for a Glock 43 pistol, our happy and beaming boys tumbled out into the street.
It was decided to end the birthday in our apartment with congratulations, gifts instead of gifts of their photographs, eating festive sushi and delicious cheesecake.
I would especially like to praise the excellent sushi from the restaurant where I ordered last year. For $100, the five of us ate sushi like pigs, and we eat quite a lot in company 😉
So ended our Fifth day in Orlando, and Ninth day in Florida, the next day it was planned to run a car to Miami International Airport, drop off the car and fly across the ocean, but Life, or rather nature, made its own adjustments…
You can also read Disney’s Animal Kingdom, Sea Life and the Ferris Wheel, Universal park and Volcano Bay, Gatorland and much more, on my other website florida4travel.com:
- Disney`s Animal Kingdom theme park
- Eye Orlando Ferris Wheel
- Sea Life Orlando Aquarium oceanarium
- Madame Tussauds Orlando
- Disney Springs in Orlando
- Orlando Water Parks
- Wild Florida Florida Wildlife Park
- Gatorland
