Tag: featured

Busch Gardens

Orlando has most of the world’s biggest theme parks, including Disney World and Universal Studios, obviously, but if you want to ride the biggest coasters and thrill rides then you have to drive to Busch Gardens in Tampa .

Unfortunately Jen wasn’t feeling great on Friday and we’d already got our tickets to Busch Gardens so she decided to sit this one out and stay in the villa (lounging by the pool and drinking wine I might add!).

Again, the park was pretty empty because of the time of year so Robin, Esp and I managed to spend the whole day getting on and off the biggest rides with virtually no wait. ‘Sheikra’ is a lot like Oblivion at Alton Towers but has TWO very large vertical drops. ‘Kumba’ has lots of tight upside down loops and ‘Montu’ is just massive. You can see for miles from the top and it lasts a couple of minutes with plenty of inverted loops and spirals.

The best ride of the day, though (and the best coaster I’ve ever ridden) is their new ride ‘Cheetah Hunt’. It’s very long (nearly a mile), very smooth and launches you from “zero to cheetah”, which is zero toaround 60mph in under two seconds. It’s not the first ride to use magnets to accelerate you very quickly from a standing start, but it does it three times over the course of the track. At one point you’re coasting along a straight track towards a very large incline and you haven’t got the speed to get up to the top, until something kicks the train forwards at an incredible speed and you sail over the top, losing your stomach in the process. Next to the Tower of Terror it has to be the best ride in Florida!

Busch Gardens is also a zoo/safari park so you get to see lots of cool animals as you walk about.

It was our last day in Orlando where we’ve all had a great time. Robin and Esp have now flown back to England so I hope they enjoyed Orlando as much as we did. We continued our drive on to Crystal River ready for Saturday’s trip to see the Manatees.

 

Typhoon Lagoon

 

After an exhausting day at Disney we decided to take it a little easier today and went to Typhoon Lagoon , the waterpark Jon and I loved last time we were here. They have the worlds first water rollercoaster (you sit in 2-person rubber rings and it goes up as well as down – See Robin’s video above) and fortunately, Esp & Robin were quite happy to keep going round and round – we were the last people to go on it before the park shut and I think that was around our seventh go!

There is also a lazy river, wave pool, high speed chutes… basically everything needed to allow us all to regress back to being about 10 years old.

This evening we grew up a bit and went to Fulton’s Crabhouse in Downtown Disney (you can’t avoid Disney in Orlando and Fulton’s is a really nice seafood restaurant) I’d never had oysters before and it turns out I love them, this could get expensive!

Tomorrow we’re going to Tampa and Busch Gardens and a lot of large ‘coasters…

 

Disney, Disney, Disney!

 

As we only have 6 days to fit in as many parks as possible, Wednesday was “Disney Day” and we decided to ‘hop’ between 3 parks; Hollywood Studios was first, followed by Epcot Center and finishing in Magic Kingdom for the firework display.

In my opinion, Hollywood Studios has the best ride in Orlando, the Tower of Terror! Fortunately Jon already agrees and after one ride, so did Esp and Robin (although it was the first ride we went on and Robin ‘may’ have been regretting that last drink the night before!) With that and the Rock ‘n’ Rollercoaster plus an Indianna Jones stunt show and Star Tours, a Star Wars themed 3D ride, it was lucky the park was empty as we got to try all the rides we wanted to, then back to the Tower of Terror (twice more, yep, big kids!)

We then took a boat ride over to Epcot to have a look round and go on Soarin’, a gentle flight simulation that glides you over lots of American scenery – it sounds a little tame, but it’s quite impressive, not least for the ride structure, with hundreds of people all in rows and hanging from mechanical arms, facing a giant screen several stories high. Follow this with TestTrack (where you take the part of crash test dummies in around a high speed test track) and Spaceship Earth and a wander around a few of the ‘countries’, and we were running out of time, so had to move on

Our final (and by this time, quite exhausted) leg of the Disney-fest was to Magic Kingdom. You can’t do Disney without seeing a parade (well, that’s my excuse for barging small children out of the way to get to the front) and we managed to arrive just minutes before one started which was pretty good timing. The main reason to go to Magic Kingdom last was for the fireworks, but we managed to fit in Pirates of the Carribean and the Haunted Mansion whilst we were waiting, the fireworks in Disney are always fantastic, this year “Wishes” was narrated by Jimminy Cricket and featured a zip-lining Tinkerbell… well why not!

And sleep… next park is in less than 12 hours!

 

Discovery Cove

On Wednesday we got to go back to Discovery Cove in Orlando.

It was a fairly early start again but it’s worth getting there early so you can fit everything in. We started by visiting the aviary and feeding the birds and had a swim round the lazy river. Robin and Esp had bought their underwater camera which is much better than the rubbish disposable one we used last time we went so we got some cool photos on the lazy river.

Before our dolphin swim we spent some time snorkelling in the Grand Reef which has been expanded since the last time we went. It’s full of huge manta rays and thousands of tropical fish, not to mention the sharks and barracudas which are (obviously) behind glass.

We finished with our dolphin swim and another go round the lazy river. The dolphin swim was with two dolphins who showed us some great tricks and posed for some photos with us (to follow, once I get near a scanner). Our second dolphin was Jenny, who actually “proposed” to Jen for me two years ago so it was pretty cool to see her again.

I think it goes without saying that Discovery Cove is one of our favourite places in the world and I think Robin and Esp had a great day too.

Enjoy the photos. Tomorrow, Disney World!

 

 

 

Universal & Islands of Adventure

We’ve only got six days in Orlando, which means we’re having to cram in as much stuff as we can in as few a days as possible, which means I haven’t had time to update the blog. We’re taking lots of photos tough and I’ll add lots more over the next few days.

On Monday we did two theme parks in one day, Universal Studios and Islands of Adventure, which is easier than it sounds because (A) The’re right next two each other and you only have to buy one ticket and (B) we’ve been there before so we know which are the best rides to go on if you haven’t got much time. Also at this time of year there are no queues to get on the rides so we managed to do all the big coasters in IOA and all of the best rides at Universal without any problems.

We also got to visit the new “Wizarding World of Harry Potter”.

I haven’t read any of the books or seen any of the Harry Potter films so I had no idea what most of it was about, but it was still pretty cool to see how they had recreated all the locations and characters from the book. It’s not easy to do two theme parks in one day but when there’s no queues and you already know what the best rides are then you can just run round all day riding all the best ones! We did the same at Disney World yesterday but I’ll post all about that in a couple of days

 

Kennedy Space Centre

We arrived in Orlando yesterday and we’ve been joined by our mates Robin and Esperanza.

Our first day was spent at Kennedy Space Centre, Cape Canaveral . Jen and I have been before but personally I couldn’t wait to get back there and was happy to repeat the tour and see some of the sites again, like the real Saturn V rocket which blasted the Apollo astronauts to the moon and the Rocket Garden (see pics).

This time though we had the added bonus of getting to have lunch with a real astronaut. We got to meet Gerry Carr , who trained for the Apollo missions and eventually got to blast off on a Saturn 1B rocket and spend 84 days aboard Skylab , the precursor to the International Space Station . I’m generally not particularly fussed about meeting ‘celebrities’, but the chance to talk to somebody who’s actually flown into space left me quite starstruck (no pun intended). It really was an amazing honour and he’s a really interesting guy so I’m so pleased we did it.

 

Jet Pack Adventures

 

Today we both got to fly a jet pack.

I’m not sure there’s a lot I can add to that which you can’t see in the photos and video really, other than the fact that it was obviously amazing and Jen was much better at it than me (mainly because she didn’t breath in a lung full of sea water each time she fell in!).

Apparently this is the first place in the world these jet packs have been available for public use and they’ve only been running since June 15th. Unsurprisingly they’ve been booked out every day too. If they ever open up a place like this in England we’re going to be broke, very quickly.

I’ve also added a few photos from this evening. We took a boat over to Sunset Key to eat at an amazing restaurant on the beach called Latitudes. Oh, and yes we did see a man on the way who’d trained cats to tightrope and jump through hoops of fire. I took a photo just in case nobody believed us.

 

Dry Tortugas by Seaplane

 

Today has been one of my favourites so far, we decided to push the boat out (no pun intended) and booked a trip on a seaplane out to the Dry Tortugas , a line of islands off the bottom of Key West. Named after the sea turtles found there (the ‘dry part was added by mariners on their charts to indicate there’s no natural fresh water) the largest island is home to the largest brick built structure in the Western hemisphere, Fort Jefferson .

After an amazing 30 minute flight out there (neither Jon or I had even been in a seaplane before, and Jon assures me that no one in England would be allowed to fly that low or bank that quickly!) We got the chance to walk round the Fort for about an hour with our pilot giving a guided tour – it does seem that the US Navy bit off a bit more than they could chew with it as despite being stationed out there for 30 years it was never finished: their water filtration system used beach sand (so filled it with salt the first day rendering it permanently undrinkable), they used the local sand and salt water for cement, meaning the walls have huge cracks running down them, the fort itself was built on a coral bed, which partially sank under the weight and, to add insult to injury, the standard Naval uniforms were thick wool suits!

Saying that, the fort is still really impressive and it and the surrounding isands are now a nature reserve for hundreds of thousands of migratory birds as well as being surrounded by living coral reefs with turtles, sharks(!), porpoises and fish.

We spent the last hour and a half of our trip snorkelling in 86 degree water off a beautiful white sand beach, we didn’t swim out to any of the wrecks, although there is apparently still treasure to be found off one, so Jon decided to create his own treasure hunt by throwing my snorkel into the water 20 yards away and then had to spend 10 minutes trying to find it as we weren’t paying enough attention to where it landed… it was a bit like swimming with an over-excited puppy with a tendancy to sink!

Our trip back was even more fun as we took off from water and the pilot kept the door open until the very last moment – hope you enjoy the video 🙂

 

 

 

Key West

We’ve been in Key West for two days now and it’s growing on us.

Our first experience was talking a wander out on our first night and ending up on Duval Street , looking for somewhere to eat. We didn’t see any of the 5* hotels, top restaurants and beautiful marinas and beaches I had expected. Instead, there are lots of tacky T-shirt shops and empty bars and we ended up eating in the Hard Rock Cafe (which was quite nice actually but still… ) It turns out that September is the dead season here. Everywhere is pretty empty and the bars all close at 10pm.

I did say it was growing on us though because today has been much better. We took a trolley tour around Key West which showed us some of the nicer parts, including Ernest Hemmingway’s house , Key West Lighthouse, the southernmost point in the US (which is closer to Cuba than it is to the Florida mainland) and Key West Aquarium. It’s actually a lovely place in the day and there are quite a few sights we’re going to revisit before we leave. After the tour we went to the top of the “Shipwreck Museum” which has a really tall tower on top giving great views of the island.

Tonight, we did a bit of research before going out for dinner and found a really nice ocean-front restaurant in front of one of the marinas here. The Florida Keys are famous for “Key Lime Pie” and I thought it’s be rude not to try it (hence the photo) I can confirm that it’s pretty amazing. Finally. on our way home we were treated to one of Florida’s famous lightning storms which I tried to capture on camera, but it was a bit cloudy.

So, it turns out that Key West is actually as nice as we expected it to be. You just have to walk in the right direction.

 

 

 

Theatre of the Sea

We’ve managed to escape the clutches of tropical storm Lee, although it was fairly close. The rain was so heavy as we left New Orleans that I couldn’t even see the white lines on the road in front of the car and that was just on the outskirts of a storm that was at least 100 miles away. Parts of the gulf coast have had up to 20 inches of rain in the 2 days since we left so it sounds like we got out in time. It sounds like New Orleans has weathered the storm well though, to be honest the locals were barely batting an eyelid at the prospect of a storm that size.

Anyway, on to happier things, after a night in Tampa on Friday and Key Largo last night we’re in Key West now, the most southerly point in the US, and today we took a trip to the Theatre of the Sea .

The main attraction at Theatre of the Sea is the chance to swim with dolphins. However, we’re doing that again in Orlando next week so we opted to take a swim with a sealion called Mimi. Once again we were lucky enough to be the only two people in our group so got to spend more time than normal swimming and posing with Mimi. We were both surprised how much she felt and behaved just like a labrador! Unlike dolphins, Sealions have short hair and they’re more playful. We both had a great time, especially Jen who’s been grinning ever since.

Despite it being a national holiday here and all the hotels being booked up we keep being told how dead the tourism industry in the US is this season. The economy here is in a terrible state and most of their tourism is internal so wherever we go it feels like we’re the only ones here and we’re getting good deals and no queues everywhere, which is nice for us at least.