Pictures coming soon (I hope)
We had a blast in Orlando, without spending a huge amount of money. We stayed at the Days Inn Lakeside , for about $30.00 per night. I loved the hotel - it's about 3 blocks from International Drive, so it was close to everything we wanted to see, but because it backs up to a small lake (not a major road), it was relatively quiet. Click here to see a map. The hotel also had a tiki bar - with a bartender named Christian who kept us enthralled with stories of his life.
I won’t tell his tales here, but if you make it to the hotel, make sure you spend some time at the bar. Many of the hotel guests were workman on local construction jobs, so we got to meet real Floridians - not just tourists. As inexpensive as the hotel was, we were still nailed for about 3 bucks a beer so I think the bar tab was actually higher than the room bill. The next question for us was - Disney or Universal? Since I’d never been to either before, we decided to try both - my priorities were the Animal Kingdom and Universal Studios, while my friend said that we really should visit the Magic Kingdom, where the Disney thing started (at least on the East Coast). Universal was running a few nice promotions - you could visit their park and get a second visit free. They also offered multi-park passes at a healthy discount. (Universal, Sea World, Wet and Wild with an option of Busch Gardens Tampa Bay). Disney, on the other hand, offers multi-day passes with a minimum of 4 park admissions which didn’t work for us, because we only wanted to visit two places. I loved Universal Studios so much that we went back and spent a second full day there. The lines weren’t too bad and they do a good job of entertaining you while you wait - most rides had special tv programs on while you waited. The food and souvenir prices weren’t outrageous, and it was nice to be able to walk back to your car at the end of the day without having to catch a tram or bus. Universal felt more adult to me, I guess. They’re building a new theme park and resort complex for 99, and I’m looking forward to a visit already. Disney’s Animal Kingdom was our next project. There have been mixed reviews on the web, but I found it wonderful. We went early, and headed right to the safari ride, so our wait was only ½ hour. One of the trucks broke down, so our 20 minute ride turned into about an hour, but we didn’t mind, because the scenery was wonderful, and there were plenty of animals to watch. Wonder how Disney makes them do that, anyway?We visited the park on a Saturday, so it was pretty crowded. Some of the walkways should be a little wider - I felt sorry for people in wheelchairs or with strollers. Although there aren’t a lot of rides, there’s plenty to see - the Tree of Life is impressive, there’s a colony of gorillas to watch, and plenty of shows (the bird show was my favorite). We almost missed the show "It’s A Bug’s Life " because I didn’t want to stand in a long line, but I’m glad I was talked into it because it was worth the wait. Saturday night - what do two wild women do for entertainment? We debated between Disney and downtown Orlando, and chose Church Street Station. Bad choice, I’m afraid. The concept is that you pay one cover charge (I think our discounted rate was $15.10 each) and you can get into three different clubs.There is supposed to be a country-western club, a Dixieland club, and an oldies club, but on the night we went, the Oldies club featured big band sounds. The bands were OK, but the country bar didn’t have much of a dance floor, and the other two clubs catered to an older crowd (and I’m almost 40, so you can imagine what older means to me). Add to that $5.00 to park and drinks at $5.00 a pop, and we spent quite a bit of money for a just OK time. Sunday was another Disney day, and we went to the Magic Kingdom. I was really looking forward to this because of my mountain fixation since they have Space Mountain, Splash Mountain , and Thunder Mountain Railroad, all of which I rode. We wanted to flash at Splash Mountain, but we lost our nerve, unlike some people. My friend had been to the Magic Kingdom many years before, and she reported that it hadn’t changed very much. Some of the rides showed their age - they were all a lot of fun, but not as sophisticated as more modern rides. I found the animations rather corny (the pirates in Pirates of the Caribbean, for example).Food prices were reasonable (less than Virginia’s Kings Dominion, at least). We had burgers in Futureland (reminded me of the Jetsons), and they were pretty good (of course, we were starving). One thing I quickly learned to hate was the Main Street Parade. The first time you hear the "Disney Song" and watch the floats go by is nice, but by the sixth rendition, I was ready to attack the characters! There was no way to escape the parade - surrounding streets are blocked off, so you’re stuck wherever you are for what felt like hours (actually, I think it was about 40 minutes long). On Sunday night, we went to one of the murder mystery dinner theatres "Sleuths'. In this one, the audience doesn’t really participate much - the actors put on a skit, after which each table is permitted to ask a question about the crime. Then each person decides "Who did it", and those who guess correctly get a small prize. It was fun, but the food was terrible (and I’m NOT a picky eater). Speaking of food, the restaurants in Orlando are very reasonable. There’s lots of coupon offers in the various tourist guides that you’ll collect. We ate at the Sizzler our first night, because we had a coupon (and it was close to the hotel). It seems that everyone visiting Orlando must eat there at least once, because the bartender guessed immediately where we’d eaten when we showed up for after dinner drinks. The scenery at Sizzler is nice too - they had a couple of extremely attractive waiters, (Russian, I think) . Sorry guys, I didn’t notice the waitresses. All told, the entire trip cost me about $500.00, even with the bar tab. A very reasonable price for an escape from the cold and I plan on repeating it soon.