Orlando, Florida

We drove all the way from Jacksonville to Orlando with no stopping (Omri slept thw whole way), and got to this amazing 5 star hotel (Waldorf Astoria Orlando). The good thing is that now it is "off-season", just right before Labor Day weekend, so we got a really good deal for this hotel, the bad thing is that we have to tip a lot of people... It is very quiet around here and we hope it will continue to be quiet. The pools are a-m-a-z-i-n-g! The only place we have been to in the last three years that resembles Hawaii (from the hotel perspective).

Orlando is quite big with SO many parks that it is quite confusing, like Disney World has 4 parks, than there is Sea World that is NOT part of Disney, and there is Universal Studio which itself divided into two different parks. And then there are some more parks around.

We hope the parks will be fun, we are heading to Universal Studio (Island of Adventure) to meet Harry Potter and his friends! And also planning to go to Disney World Magic Kingdom since it is a "classic".

P.S

Pictures will come later as we are tired...

Today we mainly drove around, went to some outlets and got to see a bit of Orlando outside the tourist area. In the outlets (which were crowded and disgusting) we hardly bought anything and hardly heard any English – Si, Espanola is the Language in all those places. Locals, however, do obviously speak English but hardly have a southern accent. Yup folks, we are out of the south. Orlando radio is great and resembles the Boston one in the type of music. There are also many retired people around here, and the houses and palm trees even resemble nice neighborhoods in Israel (like Poleg or Zihron). Ok, maybe it’s a little more beautiful than that, but you really get a sunshine feel, though much different from the south. Another sign that we are out of the south is that people don’t pay that much attention to Omri as they did in the south – where he was a star. People still love him though, especially because he stares at them and sometimes waves “hello” (or hola).

Today we went to Universal Studios Island of Adventures. The theme park has 6 lands dedicated to a different theme: Super Hero land (Spiderman, Hulk…), Toonland (Popeye…), Jurassic Park, Lost Continent (Sinbad…), Seuss land (Dr Seuss) and Harry Potter. Each land is built beautifully with so much attention to every detail you really feel like you’re a part of the movie, whether it is a ride, path you walk and even restaurant.

Harry Potter is definitely the most beautiful land where you really feel as if you took the train into the wizarding world (even all workers have British accent). The main ride takes place in Hogwarts Castle, first you walk at the castle where Dumbledore actually talks to you (3D hologram projection) and so do the three kids (Harry, Ron and Hermione), and then you take the ride which is awesome!

Yuval rode all the scary rides in the park (and said they weren’t scary), and Ravit rode Harry Potter (which was scary but fun) and Spiderman (which was fun). Omri was a good boy although he couldn’t go on any ride, because the kids zone was for older kids. But Ravit did enjoy the kids zone and went on Dr. Sues train, which was her highlight of the day.

It was a fun, but exhausting day because of the heat, so we decided to take a vacation the next day in our cool hotel, you don’t always get sun in this season in Florida, and you definitely don’t get such a cool hotel everywhere. At night we went to a great Italian restaurant in the hotel, until Omri got really tired and we all got a good night sleep.

Today we are resting at the pool and sleeping late. Ravit also got a nice Massage. The hotel is awesome. Right around sunset Omri was drinking his bottle in his stroller, Ravit was next to him with legs in the Jacuzzi, and Yuval was taking a swim at the pool, and it was a perfect sunset. We were also alone at the pool, which made it one of the most magical moments of the trip, which was so amazing. It suddenly hit us that it would be over soon, and that there is a holiday, and we have to sell the car and start dealing with all the arrangements, but we didn’t want to let it stop us from enjoying the moment. That’s what this trip is all about, thinking one or two days ahead, taking one step at a time.

Today we decided to go to the Disney World Magic Kingdom, after we got an advice from locals that we should see the classic Magic Kingdom, and that it’s nothing like Disneyland – Well, it’s exactly like Disneyland, and less than Eurodisney. It’s pretty old and hasn’t changed a lot in about 20 years. However, it brought many fun childhood memories and Omrikush was able to go on a few rides (like Peter Pan and Snow Wight), and there was a nice 3D movie we enjoyed watching (in turns of course). The fireworks at the end of the day were spectacular and the Ice cream at the end of the day was delicious.