The youngest points excitedly and says: ‘Look, there’s a turtle!’ We’re in a flat-bottomed pontoon boat on Lake Osceola and the turtle is bobbing along in the water about a metre away from us – it’s thrilling to see this creature in its natural habitat. We’re on an hour-long Winter Park Scenic Boat Tour and […]
Best things to do at SeaWorld Orlando
I’m centimetres away from a group of dolphins, close enough to see the way their smiley mouths turn up at the corners and the nuances of their skin colour. I’m standing at the edge of a pool with my husband and children in the observation area of SeaWorld Orlando’s Dolphin Cove and I’m spellbound. Right […]
How to avoid the queues at Disney World
I can’t believe how much difference a library book made to our recent family holiday to Orlando. I dashed in for some guidebooks before we left and my haul included the Unofficial Guide to Walt Disney World. It’s a brick of a book, 848 pages thick, and I imagined it would give the inside track on […]
Family Days: Getting lost at Walt Disney World
Did J K Rowling get the idea for magical places being ‘unplottable’ after a visit to Disney World? I think she may have done. Despite being armed with maps and guidebooks we managed to lose our way nearly every time we drove to Walt Disney World during our recent two-week trip to Orlando. There are […]
Family Days – share yours
For the Family Days Linky for 9-14 August, click here. This is a weekly Linky to share your posts on family days out with children. I can’t believe we’re going to Florida this summer for a full on theme park family holiday. We usually go to quiet spots in the UK, Spain or Italy. We seek […]
Family Days – share yours
This is a weekly Linky to share your posts on family days out with children. This week we were lucky enough to be at the Kennedy Space Center to see a rocket launch. We sat on the grass behind some retired rockets, which felt surreal. There was a laid-back, friendly crowd of us waiting for lift […]
5 things I learnt at SeaWorld Orlando
My first trip to Florida was to review SeaWorld Orlando’s Antarctica: Empire of the Penguin. It was the company’s biggest ever expansion of a single attraction and I was sent there before it opened in order to write a newspaper feature about it. It felt very odd visiting Florida for the first time with no children […]
BA High Life Chat
I flew with BA to Orlando recently and was surprised by the in-flight entertainment. There was a great selection of films on offer and I enjoyed watching Life of Pi and Argo. I then started searching the options displayed on the seat back screen to see what else there was and came across this screen: […]
Antarctica: Empire of the Penguin preview
I was lucky enough to meet some penguins last week, and I reckon they’re pretty much like friendly small children. I was at SeaWorld Orlando for a tour of their newest attraction, Antarctica: Empire of the Penguin, before it opens on May 24th. I went to see the colony of 247 penguins in their temporary home and Jo was […]
5 things I learnt at Discovery Cove, Orlando
Discovery Cove in Orlando is like no other theme park I’ve ever heard of or been to. It only admits around 1300 guests each day and when you arrive it’s like checking in to an exclusive hotel. Your entrance ticket includes swimming with dolphins and as much as you’d like to eat and drink from the […]
