Orlando

We jetted off to Orlando on the 22 May with Virgin from Gatwick. Our flight was a day flight and not long after taking off we were served lunch. After a movie or two, it was time for tea. Immigration was not the greatest experience as the lines were very long and we were now tired. Fortunately, we picked a friendly immigration officer who proceeded to make Aaron pledge a legion to the American flag – he was joking of course.

By the time we had collected our fabulous mid-size car – which was enormous by our standards, checked into our hotel we were ready to collapse. After a quick Walmart trip to stock up or fridge, we went to bed.

Our hotel was a 3-star hotel on the I- drive about 10 minutes from Universal Studios. We picked it because it had a 2 bedroom suite with kitchen. The suite needed updating but it was clean and the beds were very comfortable. There were 2 pools and we had a full American breakfast included with our stay.

The weather was unseasonably hot with temperatures reaching 40 degrees daily. This meant we were not able to last at the parks longer than 2 pm before we had to get back to our air-conditioned suite. Some days we were unable to brave the heat and spent our time in the malls. Our favourite was the outlet malls. Most nights were spent eating salads from Walmart as it was just too hot to eat.

Our favourite restaurants was The Cheesecake Factory. Not a day went by without a visit to Starbucks for an ice cold frappuccino.

Our favourite park was Volcano Bay waterpark. We soon learnt that you get there just as they open and head to the back of the park where there are covered gazebos which have fans. We got 2 refillable cups which we had to activate each day for $9.00 each which we shared amongst ourselves. Our hotel had a free shuttle to the parks but only a late return. We used Uber for our return trips and that cost on average £7.00 a trip.