Our 2 Weeks in Florida - Disney
We took our two boys age 7 and 10 to Disney Florida during the Easter holidays in 2009.
The hotel we chose was the Animal Kingdom Lodge. We’d read that it was unnecessary to stay somewhere quite so nice as you only sleep there but we only planned to ‘do Disney’ once and wanted to experience it at it’s best.
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| Animl Kingdom Lodge Florida |
The hotel was absolutely brilliant. When your spending all day in the parks it’s fantastic to be able to come back to a tranquil, relaxing hotel where all you have to do is revive yourself, treat yourself to a massage in the spa, pop to the pool and get ready for the next days excitement. From the minute you step inside you’re in a different world. The food was excellent, breakfasts were our favourite, there was just so much to choose from and you can have as much as you can eat. We chose a room that overlooked the animals. It was wonderful to see giraffes, gazelles, pelicans and giant buffalo just strolling past your balcony!
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| Florida Wildlife at Animal Kingdom Lodge |
The park we had to visit first was Disney’s Magic Kingdom, that’s the one with the Cinderalla castle. Walking into the park and seeing the castle was just magical, our holiday had started! We headed straight for the rides, Splash Mountain was so much fun and Buzz Lightyears Spin was excellent. You can eat in Cinderella’s castle and at certain times they have character dining. The food is apparently fab but expensive. We didn’t eat here – mainly because we have two boys who aren’t interested in Cinderella, but also because it was fully booked. One guy we met at the desk had to book his table 5 months in advance. We did however eat at the Liberty Tree Tavern, they also do character dining and if you pre-book a table at the front of the restaurant and time it right you can have perfect seats for watching the Electric Light Parade.
Day two and we were off to SeaWorld where a major highlight was to feed and stroke the Dolphins, they were beautiful and took quite a liking to my eldest son, they stayed by him even tho he had no fish left to feed them.
We also saw the Shamu show which I found very emotional – it was incredible.
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| Florida Sea World |
We ate at the Sharks Underwater Grill. We had booked a table right by the glass but something went wrong and we didn’t get it. We were very disappointed but polite, the staff were so shocked that we didn’t get cross they opened up another section of the restaurant especially for us and we had the best viewing seat in the house – It’s a very strange feeling to be eating your meal while a shark swims past giving you the eye!
On day three we went to Animal Kingdom. There are loads of brilliantly fun rides here. We heard the screams coming from Expedition Everest and decided to give it a go. There’s one point, right at the top, where you have no idea what’s going to happen next - it’s brilliant, we all screamed – it’s part of the fun! The Kali River Rapids, the Tree of Life, the Safari and the Dinosaur ride were all fantastic. We ate at the Yak and Yeti and would highly recommend it. We did get totally soaked on the rapids and had to buy the boys new t-shirts as the weather wasn’t quite warm enough to dry them out! We worked out that a good route would be to get a fast-pass for the Expedition Everest ride, then go on the Kilamanjaro Safari and the Pangani Forest, the timing should then be perfect to go straight onto the Everest Ride!
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| Animal Kingdom Florida |
We went back to Animal Kingdom later in the holiday – we booked a table at the Rainforest Café for breakfast. It’s literally right outside the entrance to the park so you can get here early have a relaxing, very filling breakfast and then go straight in to the park – brilliant.
Next stop was Hollywood Studios.The two rides we enjoyed most here were The Tower of Terror, our 7 year-old wasn’t at all scared! and the Studio Backlot Tour. I had a veggie burger at Rosie’s Al-American Café – it was delicious and a great little find. The best part of the whole day had to be the evening showing of Fantasmic. It was absolutely brilliant, all the characters were there and the effects are amazing. We booked an evening meal at Brown Derby which meant we got priority seating at this show so we could just walk in without queuing and got perfect seats.
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| Tower of Terror Florida |
A great day out.
On day six we went to Downtown Disney. There are lots of shops, places to eat and an indoor theme park here. We queued for ages to go on Aladins Carpet Ride – it was dreadful and I really wouldn’t recommend it. I’ve loved all the rides so far but this one left me feeling terribly nauseaus. We weren’t thrilled by Downtown Disney but we did have delicious ice-creams at Ghirardelli’s and there was one great shop near the entrance where you can design your own t-shirt and get it printed which was a fun activity. Also, the lego shop was pretty impressive and they had huge models outside and a big lego built loch-ness-monster in the water.
I keep meaning to mention that the Disney characters are around all of the Disney parks and are available for pictures and autographs. This was a big part of our holiday as the boys really wanted to meet all the characters and fill up their autograph books – the mission was completed by the end of the holiday.
Next we headed off to Epcot and even more amazing things to see and do. We loved Ellen’s Energy Adventure, Spaceship Earth and Mission Space. Soarin was incredible and Living with the Land was very calm and informative. This is the park where you stroll round a huge lake and on the way you go thru Mexico, Norway, China, Germany, Italy, America, Japan, Morocco, France, UK, and Canada! In each of the countries there are traditional buildings, attractions, costumes, shops and food. There’s also an evening firework display here which was excellent. You need to get near the waters edge at least one hour before the show is due to start in order to get a good view – we thought that in between Mexico and Canada was a great place to stand.
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| Epcot Florida |
Day eight was a hot day so we headed off for the Islands of Adventure – it’s good to go on a hot day because you can get very wet here. Dudley Do-Rights Ripsaw Falls and Popeye and Bluto’s Bilge-Rat Barges are two of the rides where you will get soaked but it’s worth it they are just so much fun. The Jurassic Park section was brilliant and we thought the 3D Spider-Man ride at Super Hero Island was excellent. Both my boys love Dr Seuss so we spent a lot of time at this section of the park, it was just like being in one of his books and you get to meet all the characters – the boys just loved it here. We ate in Mythos which is set in a dormant volcano – the interior was fab and the food even better!
The Universal Studios brochure was waiting to be used so that was our next stop. The Jaws ride here was good fun, we’d heard that it was terrifying so we sat the boys in-between us and told them it was only pretend. In fact they weren’t at all scared, you can see the workings under the water so instead they were quite fascinated with how it all worked! The Simpsons ride in 3D was fantastic. It was a great park to walk round but there wasn’t enough here to fill a whole day so we headed back into Islands of Adventure which was walking distance away and re-did some of our favourite rides.
We spent the last few days of the holidays revisiting our favourite parks and only spent half a day chilling out at the hotel. The Florida Holiday flew by and we’ve promised ourselves we’ll go again when the boys are both teenagers.
For Holidays to Florida or Flights to Orlando why not visit Total Florida.
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| Total Florida 0207 428 6080 |
