Florida with Colin & Wendy

We were all eagerly looking forward to our 15 day holiday to Florida. It certainly lived up to expectations as a once-in-a-lifetime trip, as I’m sure you can see from the photos below!
After all meeting up and checking in at Gatwick airport it wasn’t long before we started our adventure when we boarded our Virgin Atlantic flight to Orlando. The on board entertainment and helpful stewards made the flight very pleasant.

Upon arrival we collected our 15-seat minibus and headed off to our two villas that were located just 15 minutes from Disneyland. Everyone was pleased with our spacious accommodation and happy not only that everyone had their own rooms, but each villa also had its own swimming pool.

We were lucky to have great weather for the time that we were in the Sunshine State. Though it was raining as we flew into the airport, this was the only bad weather on the whole holiday.

During our stay in Florida we explored theme parks on 9 of the days that we were there, visiting The Magic Kingdom.....Disney’s Hollywood Studios.....Disney Animal Kingdom.....Epcot.....Sea World.....Islands of Adventure......Universal Studios and the highlight of our trip Discovery Cove, where we were all lucky enough to swim with the dolphins!!!! Even those amongst us that couldn’t swim very well were helped to fully partake in the experience. What a truly fantastic and memorably day!

In the parks everyone enjoyed many of the rides.... such as A Small World, Pirates of the Caribbean, and the Haunted House. One of the favourites was the fantastic Harry Potter ride!! We also saw many shows; especially impressive were the brilliant stunt shows. We all got wet on the rides at Animal Kingdom, loved the Safari experience where we saw many animals up close, were entertained by the whales, dolphins and sea lions in Sea World and of course were thrilled to meet Mickey, Minnie and friends in several of the parades.

We had several BBQs around the pool and travelled out to a number of restaurants which included ‘Raglan Road Irish Pub’ where we watched the Irish band and dancers, ‘Black Angus Steak House’, Planet Hollywood and a Chinese buffet.

To top the holiday off we all celebrated Gary’s birthday a day early! (...as we were travelling the next day). We had a really great time in Florida and can’t wait to return next year!