I recently took a trip to Orlando, Florida with my boyfriend to spend two weeks exploring the theme parks. We visited all four Disney parks, both Universal parks and Universal’s Volcano Bay.
After our 9 hour flight we arrived in Orlando mid-afternoon. We took a short and cheap Uber ride and arrived at our accommodation in Lake Buena Vista, which was about 10 minutes’ walk from the entrance to Disney World. We stayed at the Clarion Inn Lake Buena Vista and for what we needed it for it was perfect. We were there during the recent hurricane and the hotel did everything to make sure we were comfortable and informed about the weather. I would recommend Lake Buena Vista to anyone thinking of going to Orlando, as it is close to all of the theme parks, has lots of restaurants and shops and is a short taxi ride from things like the Florida Mall and Discovery Cove.
Next, we went to Disney’s Animal Kingdom, this was my favourite park out of the ones we went to. It is full of exciting rides, shows and food for you to enjoy. We watched a Lion King show which was brilliant and did a safari through the parks wildlife reserve, you can book fast passes for both of these. This park recently opened up a Pandora world from the film Avatar and has two brand new rides. These rides get very high wait times and the queues are mostly outdoors so if you are travelling with young children and visit in the hotter months I would give these rides a miss, unless you can get a Fast Pass for them. You can easily spend a full day at this park and if you’re not too tired by the end of it I would suggest staying to watch Rivers of Light, this is the show on the lake located in the Asia section of the park. This takes place at night and is a light show projected onto the water. Disney puts on a show at all of their parks at night which involves things like fireworks and music so keep this in mind when visiting.
On our third day, we visited Disney’s Hollywood Studios. I loved this park as it has some really great rides such as Rock N Roller Coaster and The Tower of Terror. The crowd levels were much smaller here too. There is something for everyone. There are performers in the streets who interact with the public and if you like Star Wars there is a Storm Trooper parade that goes down the centre of the park every couple of hours. This park has lots of shows on offer too which are amazing and definitely worth watching. I would recommend the Indiana Jones show, even if you didn’t enjoy the films it is a brilliant show and is not what you would expect at all. All the shows in the Disney parks are included in your ticket so you do not have to pay any extra to go and watch them, so when the heat gets unbearable or you have another hour before your next fast pass they are definitely worth checking out.
Our final Disney park was Epcot. Epcot is set out around a large lake called World Showcase and has 11 different countries set out in a circle. This is an amazing park as you can walk from France to England in a matter of minutes and each area is themed so well that you would think you were really there. If you have small children you definitely have to do the Frozen ride, it is quite hard to get a Fast Pass for this ride if you are visiting during a busy period and the queues are quite long if you don’t have one but it is a lovely ride and is definitely worth it for little ones. As you can imagine, there is a variety of food here from all over the world. They also have an event called the Food and Wine festival that was running while we were here so there were even more countries represented, each offering delicious food. We made our way around the world showcase ordering a small dish from each and it was fantastic. One of our Uber drivers told us that Orlando locals like to play a game at Epcot called “Drink around the world” were you buy a shot or small drink from each country around World Showcase. Obviously, it is a game for adults who have some extra dollars as Disney pricing is pretty high, but it still sounds like a good way to spend an afternoon in the park.
The final thing we did was Universals Volcano Bay. This is a very new water park with huge slides and nice little beaches and wave pools. Perfect for a day to relax and cool off from the sun. We didn’t do parks like Sea World or Busch Gardens as we didn’t want to over face ourselves. There is so much to do in Orlando and one visit to each park just isn’t enough.
It was a holiday of a lifetime and I am already planning my next trip as I loved it so much. If the parks aren’t really your thing, there are still plenty of things to do in Orlando such as shopping and eating, and with beaches just a short drive away you have a variety of options.
See our USA multi centre holiday page to visit Orlando and the US.
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AlisonFletcher
Brilliant trip organised by Dave, included Helsinki, Tallin, Vilnius and Riga. (4 different countries) Everything ran smoothly. Dave organised hotels, flights, taxis, ferry and coach. Have used this company a few times and can't recommend highly enough they are fab 😀
Posted 2 days ago -
Sandra
As always, Chris was extremely helpful and knowledgeable. He gave me good advice on my travel plans and booked the holiday on my behalf. I've used eshores a number of times, and will continue to do so.
Posted 5 days ago -
Harrison
We haven’t been on our trip yet but based purely on the experience of booking the trip we are pleased with the result. It started with a bit of a hiccup as we spoke to a member of staff who never came back to us but when we reached back out again we were placed in the hands of Andy who has helped us book a 2 week trip to India including the golden triangle and then a few days on the beach. Andy was very patient with us with our changes to our tailor made holiday, even when we asked him to explore different areas only to revert back to the original plan. He also recommended moving the holiday back one week which created a saving of over £700 which meant we could upgrade the room for our beach stay in Goa. Andy was also available on weekends if we wanted to speak and regularly picked up the phone as opposed to keeping it to purely email dialogue. Hopefully the holiday will be amazing but based on the booking experience I would recommend eShores if you’re looking to book a tailor made holiday
Posted 5 days ago -
Wendy
I spoke to Lynette who was extremely helpful in understanding the trip that myself and my sister in law wanted from Thailand. Myself and my sister in law are both 72years young and we are really looking forward to our trip.
Posted 6 days ago -
Dawn
Excellent service from Matt at eShores. So very helpful and nothing was too much trouble. I booked Mya holiday after all his hard work finding me the perfect holiday that I wanted. Superb service and not pushy all all.
Posted 1 week ago -
Amrik
We have booked two big holidays this year for a group of 8 and a group of 10, Rachel has coordinated our holidays with the utmost excellence, during the consultation we changed countires hotels and even flights but it did not phase Rachel one bit. Exceeds customer expectations by helping advising and supporting throughout the holiday. We are off to Thailand and Dubai in August and then followed by India and Thailand in November, I have rang emailed Rachel many times during the booking and I got very prompt responses even on her days off. Rachel is a credit to EShores and EShores is setting standards regarding customer focus.
Posted 1 week ago -
IainWilliam
I can’t praise Lynette at EShores enough. She has organised my trips perfectly to the point that I wouldn’t use anyone else. She listens to what I want or to the problem I have and comes up with a solution. Nothing is too much trouble. Try them out yourselves and I bet you become a repeater too!
Posted 1 week ago -
Kevin
At short notice, I needed a quote to travel through the USA (July the 20th) I emailed eShores with an idea of what I wanted to do, within a short period of time I had a response from Matthew, After several amendments to my holiday which wasn't any trouble to Matthew, Holiday all booked, now looking forward to travelling through the USA Have to say, the service I had through eShores was fantastic, well done Matthew for working through the changes,
Posted 1 week ago -
Marcus
Dealt with Adam who was great, I went back and forth many times, nothing was a problem for him. We got there in the end and Adam arranged a 3 place holiday to Malaysia and Singapore. We go on 5th August, will if update review when we return. EShores so far brilliant hats of to Adam.
Posted 1 week ago -
Jill
We as a family used eShores last year to go to USA, and they were brilliant, my husband and 1 are going to Italy with them this September and we have just booked again to go back to USA with them next May, very efficient and Matt is lovely to deal with
Posted 1 week ago