When you mention Orlando, theme parks such as Disneyland or Universal Studios come to your mind. It is the theme park capital of the world. With the estimated 52 million tourists a year, Orlando and many other areas in the region have been developed a lot to offer a traveller who wants to see something other than a theme park. Orlando is a sprawling city with most attractions lying far to the south of downtown and into adjacent cities like Kissimmee and Lake Buena Vista.

Disney World

Disney World is a mega-scale park, with its own monorail, sections of eight-lane highway, and thousands of acres of rides, amusements, parks, and hotels, making it larger than a good-sized international airport. Disney World is in fact an unfenced 40-sq-mile area. But within this, although several miles apart from each other, are four contained, spotlessly sanitised theme parks: Magic Kingdom, Epcot, Hollywood Studios and Animal Kingdom. You would probably need to spend at least 4-5 days in order to cover each and every theme park in detail.

Within the boundaries of Walt Disney World, there are two water parks mainly for the summer crowds, two shopping districts, golf courses, more than 20 Disney-owned-and-run hotels, countless places to eat, monorail transport systems etc.

Tickets to Disney World are not cheap, retailing at USD $109 – $189 depending on weekdays or weekends, and also during certain peak periods such as the school holidays. There are also additional add-ons such as the Park Hopper option, Water Park and Sports option or Park Hopper Plus option. Do take note that the fireworks may not be on every night, or like when we went during December on a Friday, there was a special ticketed event for the fireworks so our day tickets were only valid till 6pm on that day.

Universal Studios

If you had to choose one theme park, it has to be either Disney World to relive your childhood memories, or Universal Studios for the various rides and the Wizarding World of Harry Potter. However, since my wife is not a fan of thrilling roaster coaster rides and we only had limited time in Orlando, we chose to visit Disney World instead, which is claimed to be the most magical place on earth.

The nine surrounding themed areas of Universal Studios are Minion Land on Illumination Ave, Production Central, New York, San Francisco, London/ Diagon Alley, World Expo, Springfield USA, Woody Woodpecker’s KidZone and Hollywood. Each area features a combination of rides, shows, attractions, character appearances, dining outlets and merchandise stores. The newest area, based on Despicable Me, will be added to the park in Summer 2023.

Downtown Orlando

Since we arrived in Orlando around 10am, we had to settle some administrative stuff such as picking up the rental car and did not want to miss out on a few hours to enjoy Disney World. So for the rest of the day, we checked out downtown Orlando, such as the aquarium, had a game of mini golf and explored the amusement park area with lots of interesting stalls and pop up rides.

Voted “Best in Florida” by Orlando Magazine, the adventure golf courses at Pirate’s Cove (The Original Adventure Golf) is are renowned for their innovative hole designs, lush landscaping, and entertaining pirate theming. Most people usually spend an hour here to play the 18-hole mini golf, which passes through the pirate ship and waterfalls. The landscape was very nice and after flying in from cold Montreal, we were kind of overdressed for this mini golf session in our long sleeve shirt and jeans. Most people were wearing short sleeves and bermudas, under the warm Floridan sunshine.

At Sea Life Orlando Aquarium, you can come close with thousands of marine creatures. Explore Florida’s only 360° ocean tunnel and watch in amazement as sea turtles, sharks, eels, stingrays, and tropical fish swim over, under, and all around you. The pop-up bubbles give kids and the young at heart a unique view of the inside of the habitats and the creatures inside them. There is also an interactive section where visitors can even touch a real sea star or sea anemone at the coastal rock pool touch tank! We decided to visit this aquarium because it can easily be done in 1-2 hours, as compared to a visit to Sea World Orlando which would require more time.

Shopping

Orlando Premium Outlets – International Drive is home to many designers such as Polo, Calvin Klein, Nike, Victoria’s Secret, and Kate Spade. The mall has completed a major renovation recently, resulting in a beautiful outdoor mall with a wide variety of stores. We spent a couple of hours here at the Premium Outlets because we had a rental car that was easy to get to, unlike in New York where we had to take an expensive round-trip shuttle ($40) to the Premium outlets.

In another post, I shall feature some of the possible day trips that can be taken from Orlando, to check out some other towns which are about a 2-3 hours drive away.