Orlando’s Blues, Now Back to School
By Reed Welch
The State of Florida spends 45 millions dollars a year on tourism, that’s not including businesses that spend on ads to attract tourist. Over 650 millions miles is estimated will be traveled during the period of Memorial Day and Labor Day.
45% of Americans will take a summer vacation according to the Research Institute. Those vacationers are expected to visit Disney World and Universal Studios where they will take rides, watch block buster movies, and enjoy using brand name tech devices for cyber fun times.
This summer I became a statistic when we as a family visited Florida and enjoyed the two major parks.
From start to finish I had the great fortune to plan our family vacation to Disney World and Universal Studios.
We looked at flights, rental car, Hotel Accomodation and park tickets (three day hooper) also including meals for 3 nights and four days for a family a four.
I discovered there are no discounts for park tickets, but you can make it up with other reservation with a total of $3500.00 on certain discounts when needed. In order to receive certain discounts you would need to plan two months in advance to take advantage of the discounts offered at that time. I managed to reserve my vacation via travel website.
Arriving in Florida my family and I noticed that the meteorologist on the local channel announced a hurricane warning. The hurricane was coming through the Caribbean Islands and heading our way. I heard rumors before that Florida has a hurricane season from August thru October, but we were assured from one of the locals its just a media hype.
We took the family to Downt
own Disney to start our vacation and enjoyed some of the entertainment with street musicians and vendors in the area.
Disney World was scheduled for the next day, so we wanted to take advantage of the day with an early start to Animal Kingdom. The last time I visited Animal Kingdom as a reporter they just started the safari adventure with limited animals and the theme park was removed.
I was expecting much of the same with some minor upgrades, but surprisingly I was astonished with the maturity of the park from a few years back.
I discovered they added more attractions to the park and a safari that lasted for 25 minutes or more. Its apparent Disney World invested a lot of effort to make this theme park one of the best in world.
We enjoyed many cultures of different countries including a scavenger hunt for the kids throughout the theme park. After 6 hours of Animal Kingdom we decided to visit Magic Kingdom, most children love this park because the characters come to life.
Cinderella’s Castle is big enough for you to see, once you enter the park and the attraction it has on kids is phenomenal. My daughter ran towards the castle as if it was ten feet away, so I explained to her that we needed to experience some of the other attractions that the park has to offer.
We eventually managed to get to the castle and watch a live show with Peter Pan. Around this time it started to rain really hard, so we ran to Monsters, Inc Comedy Show to take cover and decided to enter this interactive show to enjoy it’s pleasant surroundings. Disney World has a good reputation on interactive shows, so I was curious to see how this one would play out.
Our intention was to visit all of the attractions, but it was getting late and we wanted to watch the light show at Cinderella’s Castle and enjoy a parade before closing.
This spectacular event was amazing how they changed the castle to a projection movie with a parade to follow with major characters waving to the kids. I am thinking to myself if Universal Studios can match Disney’s performance tomorrow.
I woke up late from yesterday’s performance and my body would not get out of bed. Excited to get to Universal’s theme park, we drove to the parking lot and walked miles to get to the ticket agent in the hot Florida sun.
Universal remind me of Six Flags Great America in Illinois, nothing to write home about but the rides are really made for teenagers / adults.
I was expecting a little more from Universal Studios, but I managed to have a good time despite the weather. Universal Studios feels and looks like a recreational park that you can visit on a local level but it’s not an international level attraction.
Overall, we did not have a lot of time to visit these parks without feeling pressure because of time constraints and sleepy kids. Seven days with an itinerary is what you really need to appreciate Orlando, especially for first time explores.
Spend the effort to make arrangements with a travel agent and someone who’s been to Disney and Universal to help plan your Florida trip. Family vacation before Labor Day is the perfect get away you need to break the summer monotony.
