Year-End Getaway to Sunshine State

Orlando is a great family getaway destination. It has a lot to offer as entertainment to all age groups. The best advantage, I think, is that its location is within driving distance from other places of interest, like Fort Lauderdale, Cape Canaveral, Daytona, Tampa, Palm Beach, and Miami. Well that is what we did. We had rented a car and drove to most of these places. Theme parks, Universal Studio, water parks, and outlet shopping malls are some of the major attractions of Orlando.

Quick Tips:

We went to Orlando on December 24 just to escape form the freezing weather of New York City. We did not carry enough warm clothes with us. The day we got off of the plane, the temperature was around 60°F – 65°F. It was pretty cold and it remained like that throughout the week. Mornings and evenings were in the 50s°F. I got sick throughout, coughing and sneezing. So the major tip, if you are planning to go down there in the winter, better carry a few warm clothes.

Theme park tickets are pretty expensive. All the hotels have an arrangement for timeshare seminars in the morning that usually last for about a minimum of 3 hours. They say it would be 2 hours, which is usually not true. But if you have enough time to spend in Orlando, and you wanna save money on theme parks, you can attend these seminars and get about 50% discount on the tickets. We attended one and got a 1 day, 4 theme parks hopper ticket for per person. You also get free breakfast.

If you guys love shopping, go to Orlando Premium Outlet mall. They have all of the brand name stores, with very reasonable prices.

Best Way To Get Around:

We rented a car form Hertz, and I feel it is the best way to get around the place. You can be anywhere, at anytime. There are so many places to visit, and a car would definitely make it easy to hop around. Our car had a GPS navigation system and it was more fun. We didn’t really have to worry about getting lost. Only thing that is annoying were the tollbooths. Any major highway you take, you need to pay toll. And they are pretty expensive. I was driving down to Miami, via the Florida Turnpike, and I paid one way. And there was gas which was pretty expensive.

Hotels provide transportation to go to the theme parks and major attractions. Usually they are free of charge, but they run within a time interval. I also saw local buses running along International Drive, but I am not sure how frequent they are. Obviously there are cabs.

Orlando Grand Plaza Hotel is located right at the International Drive, which is a most happening place. I had this hotel in my package deal so I don’t know how much it was per night. With the name it sounds really fancy, but in fact it is not. But it is not bad either. They have nice and clean rooms and bathrooms. There is a restaurant, which usually opens late at night and early in the morning for breakfast. They have two swimming pools, one semi-indoor pool with hot water and second one is outdoors.

The room is equipped with a small refrigerator, ironing board, iron, hairdryer, color TV with basic cable, phone, safe locker, Internet access, and pay-per-game video game.

The hotel has two desktop computers with free Internet access in its lobby. Usually they are already taken, and you will have to wait couple of minutes to get your hands on those keyboards. So, if you have a laptop with wireless card then you can just sit, relax, and enjoy the net in the lobby. Unfortunately, the wireless signal is not available in the room.

They have information booths in the lobby for the tickets and information about the theme parks and sightseeing. Obviously, you will find information on timeshare seminars to get discounted tickets to the theme parks. BTW, you don’t really have to buy any timeshare to get the discount. Just spend a couple of hours with them, enjoy the hearty breakfast, and listen to their blah, blah. Just listen from one ear and let it go out the other, unless you are really interested in buying one.

Along international drive, there are so many things to do. Mini golf courses, Wet Land, Skull Mountain, Universal Studios Orlando is just a mile and a half walk, restaurants, bars, hotels, diners, shops, arcades, etc.

For me, Cirque Du Soleil La Nouba was one of the best acrobatic shows I have ever seen in my life. They were just phenomenal. We had the best seats just two rows from the stage. We made the reservation a month ahead since the tickets are usually sold out before the show. We paid around $82 per person, which was really nothing for such a great show. Everyone would love this show, with 2 hours of ultimate entertainment.

The show started with some clowns, which were not that funny to me. I thought for a while, "Am I wasting my time watching these clowns?" Then there was more: cycles show, aerial cradle, high wire, balancing on chairs, and flying trapeze—just amazing. But my favorites were German wheel, diabolos, aerial ballet in silk, and power track/trampoline. They were magnificent and amazing. Four Asian (probably Chinese) kids, about 5 to 6 years, were flawless showing their amazing tricks with their diabolos and performing acrobats at the same time. The power track/trampoline was breathtaking. People were flying everywhere. FYKI, do not try to take pictures while you were in the theatre. I did that and tried to take couple of pictures which I hardly managed to take any good ones other than the one I had posted here, a lady came looking for my sweet Sony DCS T1. If they find you doing that, they might confiscate your camera as they would announce before the show starts. I got lucky. BE WARE! you might not be as lucky as I am.

At the end, our 82 bucks paid off. It was worth paying so much for such a great show.

The Kennedy Space Center was one of my favorites during my vacation to Orlando. There are many sightseeing package tours available to Kennedy Space Center from Orlando. It took us an hour to drive down there.

We got there and bought basic tour tickets for $35 per person, that included tours to International Space Station Center, LC 39 Observation Gantry, and the Apollo/Saturn V Center, except the tour to Hall of Fame. There are a couple of IMAX theatres in every center. Watching the space shuttle launch pads from the tower was thrilling. You see a beautiful view of Cape Canaveral coastline and launch pads lined up along the coast.

Tour buses runs ever 15 minutes from each center, and are usually fun. Space center documentation is played on the TVs in the bus that provide facts and information about the space center and shuttle. Facts about the space shuttle were very fascinating and amazing. Can you believe a space shuttle launch platform alone weighs more than 8 million pounds? Space shuttle with the platform is transported to the launch pad by a crawler, which weighs about 12 million pounds (crawler alone) and moves at a speed of 1 mile per hour. The nearest launch pad from the vehicle assembly building is about 3.4 miles.

You might also be lucky to see the nest of a bald head eagle, one of the most endangered species in the world, during the tour. There are just a handful of these birds left in the world.

It was getting chilly and cold by the end of the day. We drove back to Orlando, tired and exhausted but, with a memory of one of the most fascinating inventions ever—that is definitely a "Giant Step for Mankind".

Daytona USA is about 60 miles from International Drive in Orlando, Florida. We drove down there in 1 hour. It was Christmas day and the town was literally abandoned, we only saw a handful of people, and most of the shops and restaurants were closed. We headed straight to the beach first because it was pretty chilly and windy, and we wanted to enjoy the beach before it got colder.

As we reached the beach, we parked our car and started walking to the beach. We were shocked to see that people were allowed to drive their cars in the sand. We didn’t waste our time, went back to our car, and headed to the beach. It was cool driving in the beach at 10 miles per hour with other cars following behind. Daytona beach was pretty clean with blue sea behind. We spent about an hour at the beach and headed back to the NASCAR stadium.

On the way we decided to eat, but unfortunately most of the restaurants were closed. Finally we came to a small Chinese takeout place at the International Speedway Boulevard. There were no customers and we felt like we are doing a big favor going in there to eat. Well, food was pretty okay, better than nothing. We ordered Lo Mein and seafood from the lunch special that came with a soda and a soup. It was very cheap. I believe that was the cheapest lunch we had in our entire trip.

Just a mile from the Chinese place was the one and only NASCAR Daytona USA. It was one of the main attractions of the town. We went there and as usual the stadium was closed and so was the NASCAR museum and store. We thought it is going to be a waste of time and money. But the cool thing was that there were some of those NASCAR vehicles lined outside the NASCAR building. Those cars were just amazing. We could actually take a look inside one of those. We spent some time taking pictures, and headed back to Orlando.

It is a nice place to visit, but I think it is not a good idea to be there during the winter season. There is nothing out there unless you want to enjoy driving in the beach, otherwise there is, as they say, NADA! ZIP!

While in Orlando, we decided to drive down to Miami Beach for a day. We got up early, had breakfast buffet at Ponderosa for just $2.99 per person, headed to Miami at around 8am. Drive to Miami was tiring and heavy traffic was getting into my nerves. I was feeling sleepy throughout the traffic congestion. Then finally we reached Miami at around 1pm. By the way, if you’re also planning on drive down to Miami from Orlando, be prepared to pay $14 toll on the turnpike. It’s ridiculous.

Weather was much warmer and sunny in Miami. We decided to have our lunch at a Japanese restaurant. Lunch wasn't that great so I didn't even bothered to remember the name of the restaurant. After the lunch we walked along the shore for a while and then headed right to the crowded Miami Beach. I could not wait to take a plunge into the blue ocean. We spent couple of ours at the beach and then headed to bay side seaport at downtown Miami. We took a downtown Miami cruise that cost us $20 per head. It was really worth it. Sun was setting and the view form the cruise was brilliant. We loved the sunset very much, but if you prefer to see more thing in the day light then its recommended to take the cruise in the day time. There are lot of places and things to see such as mansions of celebrities in the star island.

After the cruise, we did some shopping at the seaport and then drove back to Orlando. Well, it was a heck of a day but a very memorable one even though we didn't really do much.