Orlando: A rocket, an alligator, and Disney overload

A little bit of background

Our Orlando wanderings happened by chance when my husband had a last minute opportunity to attend a week-long tech conference in the city in 2008, paid for by his company. He wanted me to go with him and, in a move very unlike me, we organised for my parents to look after our kids (who were 10 and 8 at the time) so I could go. It felt like a big step for us as it was the first time both of us had been away on our own since we'd had children. We literally flew out only a couple of weeks after setting things in motion so I hadn't planned what we'd do in Orlando, other than organise a tour out to Cape Canaveral. We also had a few hours to kill in Los Angeles on the way back, given us a second albeit brief experience of the city.

Reflections on my Orlando experience and what it meant to me are at the end of this post.

Travelling to Orlando

Brisbane to Orlando is no easy trek, involving three flights, first from Brisbane to Sydney, then Sydney to Los Angeles, then a third leg to Orlando. Our Qantas flight from Sydney was late leaving so we literally had to run to the American Airlines Orlando flight, charging through LAX with the aircraft doors firmly shut behind us as the last people to board before take off. We arrived in Orlando tired and hungry and minus one of our bags, but fortunately it arrived arrived later that evening. As I write this post in 2023, the only experience I have had with delayed luggage was on that trip.

Our Orlando hotel and a rocket launch

The exhaustion of the flight was forgotten as we stood with the other guests on the edge of the hotel golf course not long after we arrived, watching a space shuttle launch from Cape Canaveral. This was on a Friday in early June. The photo below doesn't look like much but it was still super cool to be on the ground for the launch even if we weren't out at the launch site.

The hotel where the conference was held was the Rosen Shingle Creek, a massive event centre with meeting rooms, shops, and restaurants and the aforementioned golf course. We'd never stayed anywhere as posh before and we felt a bit out of place. The hotel and surrounds were just as I imagined a Floridian place to be: beige tones, manicured lawns, and lots of obligatory palm trees. We were there at the start of summer, but it was hot and humid, very much like Brisbane.

The conference itself was really well-organised and a useful professional development opportunity for my husband. There was a free shuttle bus for conference guests to use over the first three days which made it easy for me to get around Orlando. The conference and tourist area of Orlando is out of the city centre and it's massive. This area is spread out along International Drive. Orlando is a crazy kind of place, seemingly only in existence to feed the Disney obsession and cater for a gazillion conferences. Conference venues, shops and Disney is pretty much all you get if you hang out in the tourist areas that are based along and around International Drive.

Fly me to the moon

We had the weekend to do touristy things before the conference started, but my husband's number one priority was to visit the Kennedy Space Center. There was one bonus to missing out on tickets to be out there for the launch (which of course you have to purchase months on advance) and that was the complex was fairly empty post-launch. We opted for a tour as the complex is around 90km from Orlando. It wasn't really a tour that we did, just transport out to the Kennedy Space Center Astronaut Hall of Fame and the NASA complex itself. Just as well, as the tour guide was kind of annoying.

Travel tip: It would be better to hire a car for the day to experience NASA than do a tour if you have the time and are happy to drive on the righthand side of the road. The tour was worth the money for the ease of being collected and dropped back to Orlando but we would have preferred the flexibility of doing things on our own.

I'm not much into the whole space travel thing, but the Hall of Fame was interesting, with lots of bits of spacecraft and astronaut suits on display. It is a nice monument to the people who have pioneered space travel, especially those who have lost their lives doing so.

The NASA complex is really impressive, even if you're not into space travel. It's something you should definitely do if you're in Orlando, even if a palette cleanser from all the theme park madness. There is one ride at the complex - a flight simulator. Rides terrify me so I approached this one with my usual anxiety. It was actually fun and super cool to experience the feeling of a shuttle launch.

No photos are allowed on the ride, but the one below is from the park website, so you get the idea.

I was super impressed with the organisation of activities at the complex. There were still loads of people to shuttle around even though the crowds were smaller than usual. The bus system that transports visitors to each part of the complex is efficient. The complex is massive, comprising the main area where the flight simulator and other interesting bits are located (so a museum-type of thing) and then the various working sites across the park to which visitors have access. The top lefthand picture below is what you can see of the launch site from the viewing platform. The bottom righthand picture is of the contraption used to move the massive craft around. Awesome, hey?

Sunday shopping

Sunday was spent wandering along International Drive after we finally figured out how to get there in a taxi. I was struck by how hard it was to make locals understand what we were saying on this our second trip to the US (the first being to LA in 1996). I spoke to another Australian tourist the next day who said the same thing. Perhaps something to do with how fast Australians speak? I don't know, but we asked for directions a few times and it was weird to be speaking English to other English speakers and not be understood. Anyway, eventually we found a massive strip mall and bought some new clothes. This was at a time when we didn't have a lot of the stores in Australia and the exchange rate was good. Ah, the good old days!

Solo wanderings

After the weekend I was on my own as the conference was underway. On Monday I did a shopping tour, something that is totally unlike me, but it was an easy thing to do on my own. I was the only person on the tour! The 'tour' turned out to be a guy in a mini van dropping me at a an outlet mall (I can't recall the name of it) then picking me up later to take me to The Florida Mall, the largest at the time in the state. It was total shopping overload for me and I was had it by the end of the day. The overstimulation of massive shopping centres will do that to me. The van driver was super friendly, though, and I enjoyed listening to him to talk about living in Orlando. He also told me that lots of British tourists have the shopping tour as part of their holiday packages but often don't turn up. What I remember most about him is that each time he picked me up he was eating something humongous and drinking a massive cup of soft drink. I'd forgotten how super-sized things are in America.

The best thing about my shopping day was M&Ms World. I've since been to the M&Ms Worlds in London, New York, and Las Vegas, My first M&Ms experience was a sensory overload. Who knew you could make M&Ms into just about anything! Way to do merchandising on a supercharged level.

The store was closed in 2019 and moved to Disney Springs shopping mall.

I opted to go to the EPCOT Centre on Tuesday, using the conference shuttle to get part of the way and then a Disney park train for the rest. The EPCOT Centre was recommended to me by a colleague. I remember mentioning to her that I was going to Orlando and looking for something other than Disneyland and Universal Studios to visit as I'd been to those places on our 1996 trip to LA. EPCOT is my kind of theme park: not many rides, but an amazing world showcase to explore. The park is divided into the rides part on a smaller scale to the Disneyland 'worlds' and then a little bridge over to the showcase section.

I mostly wandered around the Future World section of the park and did two rides: Spaceship Earth and Soarin' Around the World. This was 2008 and at the time, the Soarin' ride seemed awesome to me. It's a 180-degree 25 metre IMAX digital projection dome that makes you feel as if you're in a hand glider, but sitting upright. It's very un-scary, more like a tranquil glide around the world, soaring above spectacular scenery. Totally my jam.

Not my photos - all taken from the EPCOT website.

The best part of EPCOT for me was the World Showcase. There's a showcase of 11 countries, all kind of joined up like a massive world village. Each showcase has buildings and structures, food places, and shops that are designed to recreate as close as possible the country they represent. The detail is quite impressive. I wandered around (in the heat!) for most of the day and had a wonderful time in each 'world'. I had a quiche lunch in the Parisian showcase.

I spent a bit of time in the France, United Kingdom, Norway, China and Moroccan showcases, staying to watch the acrobatics show in front of the China pavilion and checking out the mini terracotta warriors display. You almost feel like you're actually in the country!

That said, there are plenty of visual cues to remind you that you're in a Disney theme park, even on the World Showcase side. It's definitely less Disney-ish than Disneyland itself, though.

The next day I explored Downtown Disney while I had access to the free shuttle bus to get me there and back, adding to my Disney overload. Downtown Disney is a cluster of shops and restaurants on a constructed lake with a replica paddle steamer. I poked around for ages in the massive Disney shop and had lunch at the Earl of Sandwich. (What a cool name for a café!) We went back in the evening after the conference activities finished for the day and checked out the Planet Hollywood restaurant, not for dinner but for a glimpse of one of the costumes from my favourite sci-fi film, The fifth element (bottom righthand shot).

Saving the best for last, I booked myself on last-minute spot on an air boat ride tour on my final day in Orlando. It was actually a really cool thing to do! The tour was a small group thing. We travelled in a mini van from Orlando to a swampy kind of place outside of the city and had the chance to channel our inner David Caruso a la CSI Miami and speed along the river. When I say speed, I mean the boat went WAY faster than I was expecting. You can see my hair in the photos below kind of plastered to my head after the ride. Fun, though! The best bit was seeing an alligator up close. We stopped to watch it get up and walk into the river.

Final wanderings

On our last evening, we caught a bus into the city centre as we wanted to see what was beyond the tourist strip and all the theme parks. Nothing much, I can report, and actually lots of low-coast housing close to the centre that was quite depressing. That's the bit the tourists don't see, the poverty away from Disney kitsch. It made me feel sad.

Later, we took the International Drive bus to an outlet mall for final shopping and dinner. The bus at the time was $1 for unlimited travel up what is effectively the Orlando version of the Las Vegas Strip. We missed the bus on the way back and decided to walk. It was a long way to the hotel but nice in the cool of the evening.

LA layover: Second visit to La-La Land

The trip home starting on Saturday included an 8-hour layover in LA. This was our second visit to LA, having spent a 3-day stopover in the city on our way to London way back in 1996. It felt less daunting this time as that earlier trip was our first foray into the world beyond Australia.

We decided to take a local bus down to the Santa Monica Pier as it's relatively close to the airport. It was easy to catch the bus to and from the airport, and a friendly guy we sat next to on the bus told us where to get off. The hardest part is getting out of LAX!

It was early on a Saturday evening at the Pier and the place was crowded. It was kind of cool to go there after having seen the pier in so many films and TV shows. We wandered around for bit and had dinner in the one restaurant where we could get a table without a reservation, just soaking up the atmosphere of such an iconic place.

For more on my Santa Monica Pier wanderings, check out my 2016 post. You might also like to read about my 2012 visit to LA.

Our Orlando experience

I have to admit, Orlando is not somewhere I would choose to visit and never would have ended up there had it not been for the work opportunity. It feels very touristy, like Anaheim, and kind of manufactured and inauthentic. It's certainly a sensory overload experience with all the theme parks and conference centres. Actually, the whole place feels like you're in a giant theme park.

I had lots of iconic experiences on that trip, but Orlando isn't really my scene. A place built on theme parks and shopping doesn't have appeal for me. I'm still grateful for the opportunity to experience Orlando and to help me realise what I do want from my world wanderings.