I have HOT Tips!!! (Sights & Attractions in Orlando in general)

Member Name: Sandyd

Product:	Sights & Attractions in Orlando in general
Date:	26/02/01 (2974 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Fantasmagorical!!!!

Disadvantages: Long way to fly with kids

Don't go there without reading these tips it really will help you to get the most from your stay. This is my personal assessment of the theme parks and attractions in Orlando,Florida, U.S.A. After a long time of wanting and waiting (personally l have wantedto go to America for 24 years) we were lucky enough to go there in November 2000. It was brilliant on the whole and we all had a great time.
We stayed at the Disney All Star Movies resort and on the whole it was good, with
hindsight l feel that it is quite unnecessary to pay the extra that is involved to do this as it is really immaterial where you stay because it is just a room and you are so exhausted that all you want to do is sleep when you have had a day hitting the parks.
One benefit is that you do not have to pay parking in the Disney theme parks, that
amounts to about $7 (£5ish) a day. Also another tip is to buy a beverage cup from
the café as soon as you arrive, these cost $8.99 (£6.50ish) each, that may seem a lot
but you can go back to the café anytime, day or night to refill it with Cold or Hot
drinks (about a dozen different varieties) for as long as you are there. We bought
two and there were four of us and we just refilled them when two had finished (or
transferred them to other cups in the room , SNEAKY )But to be honest it doesn’t warrant the extra that you pay to stay there.
The food in the resort is quite expensive and not really up to very much. A typical
breakfast of cereal, milk (both individually boxed) would be a couple of pounds for
a really tiny portion.
The other benefit of staying at Disney is that you are quite close to the Disney parks
although not close enough to walk, they do put on very regular bus service which you can get every 10-15 minuites, so l suppose you could get by without a car but then you have an awful lot of queuing at the end of the day when everyone is going back to the accommodation, also you c
annot get to the Universal Studios parks from Disney without transport of your own.
I will give each of the parks a rating out of 5*****
Well to the main parks, they are:-
DISNEY
1. Magic Kingdom
2. Epcot
3. MGM Studios
4. Animal Kingdom
UNIVERSAL
5. Great Escape
6. Islands of Adventure
7. Sea World
DISNEY
In all the Disney parks they have FASTPASS availability where you go to the ride you want to go on and take a ticket which tells you to come back between say, 1.45 and 2.45 and you can more or less walk straight on to the ride at that time. We took full advantage of this although on some of the rides you still had quite a queue, but still not as long as the standby line. Only the major rides have this facility and you can only have one FASTPASS at a time. That means that it you have one that tells you to come back at 2pm and its only 10am you have to queue on the other rides, so pick your rides carefully.
Strollers and lockers are available to hire at very cheap rates and its worth investing
in them.
1. Magic Kingdom
This park is really traditional Disney,
It takes quite a while to get to the actual park as you have to queue to get on either a
Mississippi type riverboat or a monorail, they both have long queues early in the
day and then again to pay or show your pass.
When we were finally in we walked with the crowds. It was hard to fight the emotion of it all, the magic.
It is a very good family park for all ages, even the very young are catered for.
There are rides such as Space mountain which is a indoor, dark roller coaster for the
daring to ‘It’s a Small World’ which is a gentle river ride past thousands of little
singing mechanical figures from all countries of the world (big problem is the
music, it is the same all the way through and gets stuck in your head).
The Electrical Parade in the evening is well worth waiting for a
s are the fireworks that Tinkerbell sets off, but get there early as no-one will give an inch of space, as we found to our cost. There are special designated areas for wheelchairs and we
asked (very politely) if we could sit on the pavement in front of two ladies as we had nowhere to see and they were very rude indeed, so don’t expect any favours from anyone. The food is typically American, Hot Dogs, Chips and burgers and quite expensive. But on the whole l give this park 5*****.
Epcot
This park was surprising in that it was more of a futureworld exhibition than a theme park. Look out for the fountain (like you could miss it) fantastic! I’ll say no more or the surprise will be spoiled. There are not many rides there, the only big ride is Test Track, there you sort of play of the part of a test track dummy and go round a track really fast and do emergency stops, etc., it is good but not for the very young. There are many worlds (about 12) to tour around ranging from England (Harry Ramsdens Fish and Chips, tiny portion) to Mexico. Each have their own traditional specialities, look out for the Sudden drop on a seemingly innocuous water ride in Norway.
You need a couple of days to do everything here but you must wait to see the Illuminations fireworks display in the evening (Tip: wait at the beginning of the
worlds walkway and about 15 minutes before it starts they open another small
section and you get the best view of all). Most of the main areas of Epcot are
futuristic and mostly about learning, really a think for the over 10’s at least.Rating 4****
MGM Studios
This park was good, it had rides to suit most tastes. We were greeted at the car park
by some of the army men from Toy Story which was very odd. The queuing here was not bad, although the Tower of Terror was still a wait of about 20 min even with Fastpass. That ride is not for the fainthearted as you are ushered into a lift by a creepy p
orter and have a bar come down over your knees, try not to sit with big (fat) Americans as the bar will only come to their knees and you will have a gap, like us, of about 5 inches in which to float when the list drops like a stone from the 13th floor again and again. A terrorising experience not to be missed (Tip: When you leave you are given yet another card to get your photo if you don’t get the pic keep the card as a souvenir as it is a ‘Do not disturb’ sign from the creepy hotel). A ride called ‘Rock’n’RollerCoaster’ that had music by Aerosmith and you rode over huge
guitars in a really cool car. There are many movie type attractions including
Hitchcock reconstruction’s and special effects specialists giving demonstrations,
interesting but a bit scary for youngsters.
We were very lucky that our two children were picked out (of the thousands there)
to ride in a beautiful white horse-drawn carriage with Belle of Beauty and the Beast
in her Enchanted Christmas Parade and be a major part of the show, they had to dance with them and set off doves etc. It was truly the best moment of the holiday.
It does not get better than that! Rating:10**********(but l think l may be a little biased).
Animal Kingdom
This park was the first one we visited and it was good fun. There are not any rides
as such but you get to ride on Safari’s and don’t miss It’s a Bugs Life especially the
end when you are asked to stay seated while the insects, earwigs,etc. exit first and
you feel them scrambling and running under your seats. The tree of life is quite
amazing massively big and carved with all the animals you can think of. The shows
are very good fun (Tarzan Rocks was our favourite) and don’t forget to watch out
for Safari Mickey and gang. Suitable for all ages this park we rated 4****

UNIVERSAL STUDIOS

We got our tickets fo
r these parks by going to a timeshare information session. It
took about 2 hours at 7.30 one morning and you just have to keep saying “lovely,
but not at the present time”. You get breakfast and they take your children off to a games area so they can have your undivided attention, but it’s easy to say no. You go and we saved about $250 on our tickets which were about $400 for all three of the following parks.
GREAT ESCAPE
This park was quite a way from our accommodation (about ½ an hours drive). We
had some difficulty finding it because some ‘Tourist Information Kind folks’ sent us
in the opposite direction, l think they must have been having a bad day. Anyway
once write down the name of your car parking lot it could be Kong or something like
that, as all the car parks look the same. Then you have escalator walkways to follow,
its quite a way and at the end you split into two to go to this park or the islands of
adventure. This park has loads of rides for every age from Barney the Bear and Dug
stage show for the very young and Men in Black ride which you have to kill all the
aliens with your blaster guns that are onboard and get the highest score. Another
good one was the ET ride, Twister was also cool. Basically the place was very good
for all ages and they had something to suit everyone.
ISLANDS OF ADVENTURE
This new park was the best park in Orlando . You had the ‘Duelling Dragons’
rollercoaster which was actually two coasters (Fire and Ice) running simultaneously and at times only missing one another by about 1 foot. Also there was a 100ft log flume (Jurassic Park) you go all through these Jungle areas nice and quite peaceful like and then into a huge building with lots of dinosaurs in suddenly theres a T.Rex opening its huge jaws in front of you and you are still quaking from that when you
suddenly drop the 100ft to make a humun
geous splash. We had a great time here.
My husband and older daughter (10) liked the Hulk ride best a massive looping
rollercoaster (a bit like our Nemesis times 3). The Spiderman ride is well worth the
queue it is a simulator (sort of) and just really good fun. There is a whole area called Seuss land and it has all the characters and a show with the Grinch. It was a really hot day but in this land you actually had snow in the sun it was amazing. This is the
best park of all 5*****plus!!!!
Seaworld
This place gives you another day ticket free that has to be used within 7 days (they
take your photo and print it on the ticket) so is well worth going to early in your stay.
It had dolphin, whale and sealion shows. They were as you would imagine them to
be but so very clever how they train the animals l just do not know. My daughter
decided to sit in the splash zone so if you are going to do this its well worth taking a
towel with you. They have two main rides, Kracken, which is another huge
rollercoaster and Journey to Atlantis which is a very good log flume with a couple of
surprises, one of which is that if you don’t get wet when you drop you get sprayed
with water anyway. We went on these about 10 times each. The food was ok, Fried
chicken and Biscuits was favourite and you could even buy food to feed the dolphins, it was dear and you only got four fish for about $3 (£2) and you had to be very careful that the food was not your fingers. This park was a firm favourite with all of us. Rated 5*****

To sum up the Orlando main attractions have much more than this to offer, there are 4 or 5 water parks that we didn’t visit and many Theme Dinner Shows like Camelot and Arabian Nights they are quite expensive and we were too exhausted to go to them. You must take
rest days otherwise you will only last about one week. Go there and live the magic.
I would go back in the
twinkling of an eye. In fact if you have a large suitcase
suitable for a fairly small adult l can curl up in a really small ball and show you
around, what do you think?…………

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