Theme Park Fun

Universal Studios Orlando turned out to be my favourite theme park of the Florida holiday. Familiar film sets, TV references, Springfield from The Simpsons and a great evening at CityWalk made it a standout day.

Animal Kingdom was our second Disney park of the holiday and, surprisingly, the one I enjoyed the most. More organic, more immersive and far less chaotic than Magic Kingdom, it felt like a very different side of Disney.

Despite not being the world’s biggest Disney fan, we found ourselves spending a day at Magic Kingdom in Orlando. There were crowds, thunderstorms, roller coasters, and an embarrassingly enthusiastic teenager — plus some ill-advised family T-shirts.

For our Florida holiday we based ourselves in Davenport, staying in a spacious villa with a pool, games room and more space than we knew what to do with. Close enough to the parks but far enough away to relax, it turned out to be the perfect base for our Central Florida adventures.

With no new road trips planned, it felt like the right time to finally upload one of our most unlikely holidays — a two-week Florida stay built around Orlando’s theme parks, a very posh villa, and a surprising amount of real Florida away from the oversized mice and neon chaos.

Neither of us are overly enthusiastic about theme parks but you can't come all this way to Pigeon Forge and not take in the iconic queen of Country, Dolly Parton's theme park, Dollywood

Gotta say i'm impressed with my Wuss of a son ! Despite the pre ride nerves and panic he loved the big rides he went on and had it not been for inhumanely long queues we would of ridden them several times.