Orlando - International Drive

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Spent our first week around International Drive so we could see all of the theme parks. This is because we didn’t have a car and the hotel offered free shuttles to the theme parks, so we had to make the most of it while we could.

The first day we woke up at 6am, probably still on UK time so decided that we would get the early bus to Universal Studios. We had some free breakfast (muffins & pastries) at the hotel, then jumped on the bus and walked down city walk (an area of Universal studios resort dedicated, to eating, drinking and clubbing) before reaching the famous and original Universal Studios.

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We then spent the rest of the morning going round the various rides and attractions around the park. Maybe it’s because we were there very early, but there were very few people in the park, and practically no queues anywhere. Standouts for the day included Shrek 4-D, Terminator 3-D, The Revenge of The Mummy and Men In Black - Alien Attack, although the classics such as Back to The Future, Jaws, E.T. and Earthquake are still good.

For lunch Jill fancied a juicy burger, but they were very disappointing, and not as her memory of Florida burgers suggested. Because of the short queues we managed to get through the entire park just after lunch, so decided to pop across to Universals new park, Islands Of Adventure for the Afternoon.

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This is much more adult orientated with bigger rides and rollercoaster’s that Universal Studios doesn’t have. Standouts include Dueling Dragons, Jurassic park Ride and Spiderman. After Jurassic Park some absolute weirdo came up to us, asking how we were, if we were from England, whether he should buy this hat he showed to us and then, "I'm from Kentucky, we have Kentucky fried chicken, do you have that in England?" We quickly darted after that one! Unfortunately we had to cut our day short to get the bus back to the hotel, but knew we would come back another day to see the things we missed.

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We returned back to the hotel for a quick shower and change, before walking to one of the few local restaurants, Steak & Ale for dinner. I had a beast of a steak, their specialty and it was absolutely brilliant, the tastiest I can remember and Jill had a grilled chicken breast with cheese, bacon and mashed potatoes which was almost as good. All round a good first day.

Next day we were up early again and decided to go to sea world. Before we went we went to the village Inn next door for some breaky. Both of us had Eggs, hash browns and pancakes, absolutely stuffed, but the hash browns were amazing, proper grated potato & onion, nectar! Sea World was good mostly watching some sort or sea animal jump in and out of water for a few fish at their trainers beckoned call. Its supposed to be the biggest marine park in the world, but its a bit unfair on an animal that’s used to swimming between 40 - 100 miles per day but lives in a tank no more than 100m across. That’s entertainment, especially when guests are paying over $60 a day. There are a couple of very good rides Kraken & Journey to Atlantis also, but you have to plan your day around the jumping animals. The best for me is still the 2 sea lions, Clyde & Seymore. No lunch, (or even burger or turkey leg brunch as many Americans do), just went to Bennigans for dinner to have Steak (again) with a Guiness bourbon glaze, err No!

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Having booked the bus the day before after arriving at Sea World again, we now went to Busch Gardens in Tampa (an hour away from Orlando to the west). This park is probably the best all round as it has loads of rollercoaster’s to ride and plenty of animals to see either in shows or on the safari. Some of the rollercoaster’s were absolutely class, but the one I was most looking forward to, Sheikra, was closed due to incoming thunder storms when we got to the front of the queue (and I mean the front). We were gutted, but felt even more sorry for the people who were sat on it strapped in ready to go, then just before it went were stopped and had to get off & wait). We waited for a bit, but then had to get the bus early at 5ish to get back to Sea world in Orlando. Once we got back we went and saw the late night sea lion show, which was really funny because it took the piss out of all the other shows like the dolphins and Shamu. Probably the highlight of the first week! After that got some tea, then saw some more animals at Sea World before walking back to the hotel, which included walking through a boggy marsh, Jill wasn’t happy!

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Tuesday was a lazy day; we got up late and got the iRide Trolley along to International Drive for a buffet breakfast at Sizzler. Very nice apart from it was very greasy and American streaky bacon isn’t a patch on the juicy bacon we get in England. We then went to Wet n' Wild, Orlando’s water park. Jill spent most of the day sunbathing and dipping in and out of the wave lagoon, where I went on a few water slides, my favourite being the bomb bay. This is basically a capsule with a trap door, that you stand in and wait for the lifeguard to press a button to release the floor from under your feet and you fly down a 76 foot vertical slide.

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After that we attempted to do a bit of shopping for mainly trainers, but all our searching came to no avail, an afternoon wasted basically. We finally had a Mexican on International drive. The waiter was amazed when we said we wanted to share the fajita platter. The portions over here are massive, we just can’t finish our plates, no wonder Americans are so fat!

Wednesday was our first expedition to a Disney park, namely the Magic Kingdom. Although not really any rollercoaster’s, Space Mountain, Thunder Mountain and Splash Mountain are all good and there are plenty of other good rides, including Phillarmagic the best thing there. Its quite to surreal to see all the different parades, presentations, dances and characters about, it’s easy to see why kids love it so much. Its a bit more commercialise theses days, if you want to cuddle pooh, Donald or any of the other characters you have to wait in a queue and if you want your photo took with Mickey you have to go to a special tent where the queue was at least 20 mins, longer than some of the rides! It’s at this point where the photos change from animals to people dressed up in fluffy suits. When we got back on the evening we were struggling for places to eat, so decided to try a local Italian, having no idea how much it would cost us. We went for garlic bread to start with, and I think they brought out a full baguette and then another baguette of normal bread; needless to say, we only managed about 6 slices of bread. I thought the pasta special would be cheap, being a special. How wrong I was when we got the bill and my meal alone was $28. An automatic 15% for a service charge (tip) and it eventually came to just under $70. Don’t get me wrong the food was amazing, but it was a huge chunk out of our budget.

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When we told the manager that the food was lovely, but just to much of it (we both only finished half our plates), he just laughed and said: "Your from England right, in Italy and the rest of Europe the portions are only half the size, but you’ve seen how many fat people are here right, you see how fat Americans are, if the portions aren’t this size there not satisfied, that’s America for you". His words, not mine.

Thursday took a lot of organizing as we went to islands of Adventure in the morning on the free shuttle bus, and then got a normal bus back to the road our hotel was on before catching the later shuttle bus to Disney. In the end it worked out perfectly, but we cut it very fine and the walk from the bus stop back to our hotel turned into 20 mins in 97F (36C) heat. At universal we went on the rides we missed the other day such as the hulk rollercoaster and the log flume, but also went on Jurassic park, Spiderman and dueling dragons again. All this in an hour and a half, not bad! We knew Epcot would only be a half day because we weren’t bother about seeing all the mini countries in world showcase, but there area few rides, such as Soarin’, Mission Space and Test Track that are all mint. At lunch time we took a quick look at mini Britain, not bad, but wasn’t quite realistic as there were no scallies in tracksuits hurling abuse. Had a quick look where my surname came from and they even had my coat of arms. For $40 they would print off my coat of arms, or if I wanted the text, that was $25! $25 for printing off an A4 sheet of text … bargin, or see it for free here: http://www.houseofnames.com/xq/asp.c/qx/moody-coat-arms.htm and http://www.houseofnames.com/xq/asp.c/qx/crowson-coat-arms.htm You cant say this blog isn’t informative!

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Friday, we thought we were checking out so we slept in. However good thing Jill checked, as it was the day after, so we had a late breakfast then got the late bus to Disney at 11am to go to MGM studios. MGM was probably my favourite Disney park, as it has the Indianna Jones stunt show, the extreme car driving stunt show, the rock n’ rollercoaster and the tower of terror. Plenty to do, and took us all the way to 9pm, but I must note don’t bother going to see Narnia it’s the biggest waste of time ever!

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Saturday was our last day at International Drive, it involved getting hash browns for the last time, packing our rucksacks up, checking out and getting a $40 taxi to the villa in Kissimmee, a little further to the south. Now we had done the hectic stuff a week of relaxing and sunbathing!