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The local area
Weather Probably the best place to start with is the weather. In our experience, you can set your watch by the afternoon downpour in the summer months - starts at 3pm prompt! Usually, this is accompanied by a sea of yellow plastic ponchos in the theme parks.
If you've never been before, don't let it put you off as it dries out within 20-30 mins. To be honest, its a sight to behold and quite welcome as it cools everywhere down - for a while at least.
In short, it is hot and humid, but all shops are air-conditioned, which is an absolute godsend. For more weather information, try these links
Orlando Sentinel - a good source for a lot of local information, both weather and news. |
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Weather.com - a division of the Weather Channel. You can get longer term forecasts from their site. |
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Eating Out
Where to start?? Orlando has every type of dining from curry to cordon bleu. If you have a preference, you can find it. From our experience, these are the best, in terms of bulging waistline and slender wallets! |
The Ponderosa - this has to be the first on the list. The breakfasts...the starter buffet...the dinners...the prices...kids under 5 eat free!
Our personal favourite. Good value food and great service
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Sizzler - in our opinion, not as good as the Ponderosa, but many people swear by it. Try it and see what you think! |
Hard Rock Cafe - a totally amazing place to eat. The food is amazing, if a little pricey by Orlando standards, but the quality , service and music is great. No visit to Orlando is complete without a meal here. |
Planet Hollywood - a great atmosphere, but can get busy at peak times. These's a lot of movie-themed memorabilia and links, but the food is excellent. As with Hard Rock, no visit to Orlando is complete without meal here, but it is also relatively expensive. |
Nascar Cafe - a great NASCAR-themed restaurant. The ribs are amazing, as are the desserts. Once again, you pay a premium for the experience, but its well worth it. As a bonus, its located with Citiwalk, so there is a lot to do besides a meal. |
Pirates Dinner Show - We've never been to a dinner show before, but they are big business in Orlando. There are quite a few, including Dixie Stampede, Medieval Times and Capones.
There's always money off vouchers too, so you can always get a discount or some other freebies.
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Wherever you decide to eat, you will get excellent value and more than you think you could manage. Eating out is great value and there is a great deal of choice.
Instead of linking to lots of different websites, use the google link below. You can change what you're looking for from restaurants to supermarkets, malls etc.
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Shopping
You could spend a whole 2 week stay shopping! I am not exaggerating at all. There are countless malls, ranging in size and quality. |
The Florida Mall - a great mall with a huge variety of stores and its own hotel too. There are also other stores around the area of the mall such as Toys R Us and Target. Well worth a visit or three. |
Mall at Millenia - huge, upmarket and visually stunning. There are a host of stores including Bloomingdales and Macys. It is pricey, but the stores are upmarket e.g. Rolex |
Orlando Premium Outlets - this is the place to head for if you want to find big name brands at good prices. There are many stores here, as well as a food court. The stores range from Reebok to Disney (a good place to go for cheap souvenirs and pins). |
Prime Outlets - this used to be called Belz. There are bags of bargains to be had here. It used to look cheap and cheerful, but there has been a lot of investment recently and remodelling work has taken place. However, it looks like the same bargain stores are still in place! |
Supermarkets - Publix, Walmart & Target are the 3 main players here. All of them have their own strengths. Beer is cheap and food is cheap - beware of paying over the odds for British food (Los Cadburys Fingres). You can easily fill up on essentials for the villa here and could spend the whole 2 weeks without ever having to eat out. |
A quick note about discount vouchers...
You can find discount voucher booklets and magazines everywhere and they are free. If you've never been before, then don't be afraid to use them. You'll find vouchers for everything from money off dining to shooting machine guns! They are readily accepted at the named stores, so you can save even more money - most malls also have discount books for their own mall. All you need to do is ask at the guest services desk. |
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Golf
Florida is a golfer's paradise with both the weather and the sheer number of courses in your favour. We really could stop there, but with so many course to choose from, you would be spoilt for choice. Most courses will happily rent out clubs, so you don't have to worry about taking your own.
Please click on the link below to see the closest golf courses to our villa.
For some more information, try this link to the Golf Orlando website:
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