The Holiday Of A Lifetime In Orlando

This time last week we were just getting back home from the holiday of a lifetime in Orlando, Florida. We had an amazing time and it’s hopefully a trip that we’ll all remember for the rest of our lives. I certainly took enough photos to remind us of it!

The husband and I went on some fab, far flung holidays pre-kids and travelling is one of our favourite things. It’s what gets us through those long, boring days at work! We’re both big Disney fans and have been daydreaming about a family holiday to Florida since before we even had a family.

After a lot of saving and planning we headed off to America at the end of July. We chose to book everything ourselves rather than a package deal – I blogged recently about booking your own holiday if you want to see my tips on doing the same.

The flight to Orlando is between 8-9 hours and we were quite apprehensive on how Little H would cope. We’ve only done 2 & a half hours to Spain with her previously. In the end there was no need to worry, she was a little star. We had packed her Trunki full of goodies, and she spent most of the time playing with her toys and watching films.

I’ll write some separate posts about Disney, Universal and Orlando in general otherwise this will end up a very long blog post, but here’s a brief account of what we got up to and some photos…

Disney world

The main thing we wanted to do was visit Disney World. We visited all of the Disney Parks – Magic Kingdom, Epcot, Hollywood Studios and Animal Kingdom, as well as Blizzard Beach.

One of Little H’s main aims was to meet all of her favourite characters and we definitely managed that! It was lovely seeing her little face when she met the Princesses and Mickey & Minnie, she was totally star struck.

There was a lot of walking and queuing, all in 35 degree heat or more, but Little H was a trooper and there wasn’t actually too much moaning from her.

We only managed to see the fireworks twice – once at the Magic Kingdom and once at Epcot, Little H was just way too shattered to stay up until 10pm. And so were we if I’m honest!

We went on all the rides that we wanted to – we persuaded Little H to go on Splash Mountain and Big Thunder mountain at Magic Kingdom but she was not keen at all. Though saying that she had no fear when it came to the water slides at Blizzard Beach – we had to persuade her that she was much too small to go on this ridiculously high one:

Universal

We were quite surprised that Universal was by far the busiest park out of them all. The queues were much longer than at any of the Disney Parks.

It was nice to have a change from Disney though and see attractions from other favourite films and shows such as Harry Potter, Despicable Me and The Simpsons.

I want to write a blog post for the Potter fans amongst you, so will keep the details about our visit to The Wizarding World of Harry Potter a secret for now.

Shopping

It goes without saying that we spent a lot of money at Disney, Little H was well and truly spoiled. We also visited The Florida Mall – easily the biggest shopping mall that I have ever seen. If it’s not at The Florida Mall it doesn’t exist.

We also stopped at some of the outlets, though they were very busy and as it was all outside it was far too hot to do much shopping. You know it’s hot when I say it’s too hot to shop! There were some fantastic bargains though and I’m still kicking myself for not getting a Michael Kors bag for just over £100!

Eating

Although we had a villa with a fully equipped kitchen we ate out almost every night. I don’t know about you but I definitely don’t want to be cooking and washing up on holiday.

We ate at the parks most lunchtimes, but for dinner we went to some restaurants near to where we were staying. The portions weren’t as big as I remember them being a few years back, but there was still much more than you get at home. Prices were very reasonable and we found that the kids meals cost next to nothing. That plus the continuous free drink refills meant that we didn’t spend anywhere near as much on food as we expected.

 

We really liked Orlando, everyone was so happy and friendly everywhere we went. The weather was fantastic, mid 30s every day and it only rained a few times. I will never get bored of looking up and seeing palm trees and blue skies!

In all we had an absolutely fantastic holiday, definitely the holiday of a lifetime. We did everything that we wanted to do and Little H had great fun. We definitely want to return when she’s bigger to see more of Florida such as the Kennedy Space Centre and Miami.

Unfortunately we’re back to rubbish English weather, grumpy people and work now – we’re already trying to decide where to go next year!

If you liked this post look out for more Disney and Universal posts coming over the next few weeks!

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