This entry has been written from the view point of someone who has never been to any Disney theme park, not even Disneyland Paris.
It is also my first holiday in the US, and although I have spent two weeks in eastern Canada, I expect that the experience will be very different.
I would also like to point out that this holiday is being spent with my pregnant wife and two children under the age of ten, and so it is very unlikely that we will be experiencing any of the major thrill rides, which to be honest is no loss as far as I am concerned anyway. |
The journey from Sanford to the Welcome centre was about an hour, although having been awake for about 20 hours the progress of time felt a lot longer. The Welcome centre was located just off the highway and close to a collection of hotels and apartments, and the process of getting the information required to finally get to our villa was very quick, partly because we would be expected back the next morning. Finally we had an address, we had booked a 'Disney area villa' which it turns out is exactly that, a villa that can be considered in the area surrounding the Disney parks, ours was out on the 27 in a mixed development call Florida Pines.
By the time we got to the villa we could have been excused for being apathetic about what it was like, to the extent of falling into bed and going to sleep, but we weren't, in fact we were very impressed with the villa and the area it was in. We had booked a three bed villa and found that we got a four bed instead, all the rooms were large and spacious and the villa felt well laid out, then we walked out onto the deck of the pool, to say it was everything we had hoped for was an understatement.
The final act of the first day was to get dinner, proper food, as both kids had had little but sweets, crisps and sugary drinks, so we ventured out again in the car to the nearest restaurant we could find, Appleby's. Appleby's is a change that appears not too dissimilar to TGI's back home, but we soon found out that the hospitality industry in the US is nothing like that in the UK. To start with it was apparent that this restaurant is popular with the British tourist, in a good way, true there is a 'British' fish n chips restaurant around the corner, but fortunately most of the British tourist who come to Orlando are not looking for Britain in the sun. Next the American's do service very well, no miserable teenagers greeting you as though you have ruined their evening. Everyone smiles, and seems genuinely interested in you day, they also go out of their way to ensure that you don't have to wait for anything, each table has a button that pages your waitress and soft drinks are automatically refilled without request or charge. The food is also of a very high standard, and is cheap, with this chain and it's apparent rival Chillies doing a shared starter, and two main courses for $20 (that's about £14).
So after we had fed, it was back to the villa, to bed, and to look forward, with excitement to the fortnight ahead.
Note
This is an early version of the article and may, and probably will change as the rest of the articles written about this holiday are completed. If there are any mistakes you feel I have made please leave a comment and I will try to resolve them in future revisions. |