There are many guide books available that describe in pretty good detail the attractions in the different parks. This article aims to provide first time visitors with a brief guide to some of the things you won’t necessarily find in the guide books, but may help you make the most of your holiday, not just in the Disney parks.
Car Parking
If you are not staying in one of the resort hotels you will probably be driving to the parks. All of the parks make a charge for parking (in September 2007 it was about $10 per car). The car parks are huge and each area is given a memorable character or symbol to help you remember where your hire car is, however, there are likely to be many many cars of the same make/model as yours. We found it useful to sick something to distinguish our car on the aerial. Also, if you have young kids in buggies – don’t get them straight into the buggy after leaving the car as you are likely to have to board a motorised train (or ‘wally trolley’ as our kids called them) to take you to the park entrance. Kids cannot ride in their buggies on the mini trains. I will post another article soon on common ‘scams’ to be wary of when booking a hire car in advance for Orlando. For a few dollars extra some of the parks offer a valet parking service, or even parking in a preferential area that is closer to the park entrance.
Getting Into the Park & Park Tickets
We bought our tickets from a web site in advance before we left the UK. It’s best to make sure you actually get the tickets sent to you direct, and not vouchers that have to be exchanged when you get to Orlando. Sometimes you can get good ‘2 days for 1’, or a child ticket free when you buy an adult one sort of deals, and it is worth shopping around a little bit. The prices don’t seem to vary that much between the different web sites and the prices weren’t vastly different from those on the door at the parks, but it’s one thing less to do when you arrive and just want to get on with the fun. If you have pre-bought actual tickets you don’t have to go to the ticket office or anything – you can just use them straight away. It is definitely worth getting multi-day, multi-park tickets, but do allow for a day or two away from the parks to go shopping or just ‘chill’.
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Posted by Jackie Hewett on Thu 19th April 2007 at 09:55 PM, Filed in USA Florida
One of the best things we did in Florida during our trip October 2006 was to book lunch with an astronaut at Nasa’s Kennedy Space Centre.
We had no idea how ‘intimate’ it would be (in terms of numbers of attendees), what to expect regarding the format or who we were going to see. We’d booked through a rep in our hotel, but if you book through their web site it lists the astronauts scheduled for about a month ahead (but it is subject to change). The lunch wasn’t expensive – something like an extra $20 per head (on top of the Max access tour we had decided to do anyway) and we figured we’d be buying lunch anyway so why not give it a go?
The ‘Brady Bunch’ with Al Worden in the middle
We were given strict instructions about not going on the bus tour in the morning as we wouldn’t be back in time for the lunch which was to start at 12.15 sharp. There were about 70 people waiting in the lobby on the day we went. We filed into a large function room with the obligatory round tables and a video showing. We were free to choose our own seats so we took a table near the ‘front’ and helped ourselves from the buffet. The food was not gourmet, but fine, with a reasonable choice of hot and cold dishes and soft drinks. But of course we hadn’t come for that.
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