Holiday –part 1 (Orlando)

Hi guys! Well, I’m back to 100% Anna now. Back into the groove of work. It’s quite nice to have nothing to worry about or stress about. No more mad planning and just free weekends! It’s novel. I can get back on track with things that slid to one side this year. Like sprucing up our little home a bit as since we moved in last November we didn’t majorly deck it out with any sort of decorations. I’d like to buy some pictures and things like that to make things a bit more homey. Oh and Alfie is in a definite need of a haircut! He’s a mess.

So, I thought I’d do a recap of our holiday adventures. We spent six days in Orlando and then four days in Colorado Springs. So, here’s how Orlando went:

The taxi picked us up at 4.45am. We were half asleep as you can imagine. But by the time we got to the airport it was breakfast time (5am was breakfast time my tummy was telling me, but I waited). We treated ourselves to a Jamie Oliver breakfast:

Check that bad boy out. Not my usual porridge – but it’s Jamie’s so what can I say! I don’t eat sausage though (worst food in any form) so Ben gladly traded it for his black pudding. Yum.

Anyway, after a very very long flight we arrived in Orlando. Groggy and tired we basically just went to bed (in our amazing three bedroom villa!) It worked out nicely because we’d gone to bed so early (Orlando time) we woke up the next day at like 5.30am and so got started straight away. To save money and time, we decided to buy a load of food from the supermarket and eat breakfast at home before dashing to a theme park (also I’m a bit sad and get very excited with foreign supermarkets so it was a win-win situation).

Obviously I had porridge. American style! (Actually not that different from UK…) And Ben had a crazy array of cereals each day:

Each day we zoomed off to the parks. We went to Universal Studios and Island of Adventures first.

It was brilliant. It was fairly quiet so we got on rides very quickly. We were like kids running around with big smiles on our faces. Obviously we had to go to Jurassic Park (my all-time favourite movie – despite being terrified of velociraptors for the majority of my childhood).

And Harry Potter world as well…

Where we shared a BUTTERBEER!!! Pretty much heaven in a drink. I dare not to think of how bad it is for you but seriously, I need this in my life on a weekly basis:

Divine.

Do you know what else was amazing? The sheer amount of sweets.

Hello candy-coated apples! Of simply every variety. Cue Ben holding Anna back before she spends all their money on teeth-rotting goodies. The chocolate/marshmallow/caramel/peanut butter coated apples are healthy though, right? There’s fruit in there somewhere…

For lunch we decided that it was just too hot to buy something from a vendor and sit outside eating. We went to a great restaurant (twice) on the City Walk: Emeril’s Restaurant.

[Anticlockwise: Rotisserie chicken and Andouille gumbo, BBQ prawns, Salmon with stewed beans and smashed avocado, & roasted trout with artichokes and rocket]

After two days of Universal, we then went to Disney. In complete juxtaposition to Universal it was so busy! We were surprised as it’s supposed to be the quiet season right? But maybe there is no quiet time for Disney…

We went to Hollywood Studios in the morning and then headed to Magical Kingdom for the afternoon. We got there around lunchtime and it was packed. We decided to try finding a restaurant to eat (=cooler). Epic fail.

Now, withhold your judgement please… Throughout the parks I’d been seeing people eat HUGE turkey legs. Now I’m not a massive meat eater but I had begun craving one of these bad boys to an irrational level. I just had to have one.

I’ll spare you the pictures because, people, it wasn’t pretty (good ol’ husband snapping away while I tried not to look like a savage). Despite lacking a lot of feminine grace while gnawing away on the beast, it tasted AMAZING. Out of idle curiosity I later Googled it. 1,200 CALORIES. I was aghast. Ben laughed. But what can you do? No wonder it tasted so damn good.

Disney wasn’t as good as we thought to be honest. A lot of children. A lot of Disney-obsessed people. We enjoyed it, but it didn’t rock our world like Universal.

The next day was spent in Busch Gardens which was EMPTY. We went on everything and even got on the front of the roller coasters quite a lot. It was good fun. Lots of animals as well!

We grabbed lunch while watching some crazy dancing in one of the indoor canteens. On a similar carnivorous note to before I went for ribs with a side of veggies. Ribs are a bit of my devil food. I LOVE them but I try not to eat them too often as they’re usually always coated in that delicious BBQ sauce which probably has about 5 tbs of sugar in it. But hey, it’s holiday, and they were the speciality. Would be rude not to…

[Apologies if I’m offending any vegetarians/vegans – sometimes I just can’t control the beast within]

We did manage some slightly less rich food by eating in the villa (and saving us some money) and trying out some more local restaurants and enjoying their salads.

[Chicken, avocado, lots of fruit and seeds. Yum!]

And between parks and rollercoasters we enjoyed the pool.

Though it was verrrry chilly. But nice and refreshing after all the humidity and heat.

We spent one day away from the main tourist area and looked around Winter Park which is a very beautiful area with nice eating spots and coffee shops. It was nice to take a moment out!

All in all, Orlando was amazing. We went on every ride we wanted to (some twice) and really had a great time. Having the villa was brilliant as we could just come back and have something simple to eat at home or swim in our private pool! It definitely saved us some money as well.

So, part two will be on our adventures in Colorado. Horse riding, bike riding and lots of mountains!

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