Orlando, Florida. Ultimate Family Trip?

You may think that travel is about expanding ones mind through seeing new cultures, people, and places. Our childrens’ horizons and attitudes are enriched by exposure to the unfamiliar. If so, the idea of returning to the same holiday destination year after year seems like a wasted opportunity. That being said, I have a hint of jealousy for people who have found a place so inspiring that they would prefer to forsake the rest of the world for it. The theme parks of Orlando are just such a place for many families, so we joined the 100,000 daily visitors during August for a tour of duty to see what we were missing.

There are any number of practical reasons to visit Florida. The summer weather is beautiful, the language is English, the food gets eaten, the shopping is cheap, and its easy to hire a car and travel around. But the reason millions of tourists go is that there is so much activity thrown at them, that they are never at a loss for what to do. The sheer size, range and number of amusement parks is bewildering. Disney itself is comprised of four or five separate parks – really the world comes to Orlando relieving visitors of any need to visit anywhere else. And Disney is marvellous.

Over a seemingly frantic 16 days, we used our multi-park passes to visit eight separate theme parks, separated by breaks to cool off for entire days in phenomenal water splash parks. No matter how cynical the parents, its difficult to act miserable in Disney, even though I personally tried quite hard. The happy excitement of the children keeps everyone jolly even through the exhaustion and long queues.  However in an effort to thwart my determination to stay miserable, the management of queues is very efficient with various fast-pass and express type options ensuring that more time is spent having fun than waiting to have fun.

The Disney parades are widely copied but never beaten. Each park has its own character-filled extravaganza, continuously updated with the most recent Disney productions, but including the old favourites. The crowds line the streets early but there is space to see without feeling the need to do that. The subsequent fireworks and lights shows in the evening, are more spectacular than anything we had seen before.

But that’s just the Magic Kingdom. There still the Animal Kingdom – possibly the best African safari outside Africa, which manages to combine education with Entertainment. Epcot – a little tired but still a valiant attempt to summarise the world in a single day through sections on each country. Disney Studios where we could see how the movies are made. And the water parks spread around the estate for some much needed cooling off, splashing, and even scuba diving with sharks for toddlers.

Its not all about Disney. The range of shows and exhibits at Sea World was both awe-inspiring and educational. Equally the incredible selection of amusements to both play and watch at Universal Studios made this another busy few days. For the Harry Potter fans in our party, Universal was the bigger draw. The creation of Hogwarts and the village of Hogsmead covered in snow is a triumph. Details of the snow-covered buildings in Hogsmead, particularly the crooked chimneys of English villages defied rational belief.

Further afield is Busch Gardens, although after Disney’s Animal Kingdom that seemed a rather pointless day out for us. Legoland however was fantastic, the recreations of scenes and cities out of Lego outshone anything that their European counterparts offer, and the distractions of the better known parks seems to keep Legoland quiet and much more manageable than the larger venues. Again the education option exists, with workshops from basic lego building to advanced programming and robotics.

Our most inspiring day was a visit to the Kennedy Space Centre at Cape Canaveral. Here the aim really is to educate visitors about NASAs space programme – what it has done, what it’s doing now, and what it will do. The presentation was outstanding, from the sheer scale of the rockets and the buildings housing them, to the accessible and practical nature of explaining them. This was cutting edge scientific thought that both adults and children could take part in.

Would we recommend Orlando to friends? Definitely. The success of any family holiday is how happy the family is. Quite obviously, happy trips are made by being occupied, miserable trips are made from boredom and bickering. 2 weeks of non-stop fun is going to work. 

Would we go back? Probably not just yet. There's just a bit too much of the rest of the world out there first. But its still a great trip.

Marbella, an easy family holiday

It’s well known that there are a lot of wealthy people on the Costa Del Sol, and somewhere amongst them, the worlds most successful concrete salesmen live  a glamorous high life of fast cars, flash villas, and fun. They sold a lot of concrete. It coats the ground from the sea towards the mountains, and stretches skywards in a quest to occupy all three dimensions. Huge concrete highways connect the concrete airport in Marbella to the concrete hotels and resorts along the coast in a topography where concrete salesmen outnumber conservationists.

Cross the highway, and a different Spain opens up. Whilst the continuation of concrete suggests this is not exactly the “real” Spain, it is still real enough to have proper tapas for 5 people and get change from EUR50, then slip next door for crunchy Churros dipped in thick warm chocolate. English is barely spoken this side of the road, a world away from the holiday-makers across the road taking conference calls from the sun-loungers. As ever in a Spanish-speaking country, the combination of children and something kickable allows a game of football to initiate. Whilst more children join, more beer is drunk… and there goes another afternoon in the sunshine.

Flights and accommodation are plentiful and inexpensive, and activities for children boundless, making this part of Spain a reliable recipe for a pleasantly easy, if unadventurous, family holiday. And the beach itself, whilst only a thin strip between the concrete and the sea, is sandy and virtually deserted during our visit over Easter. The distant views of the romantic mountains of Morocco in the distance across the sea add a stunning backdrop to a lazy day.

We stayed in one of hundreds of very similar concrete timeshare resorts sandwiched between the concrete highway and the sea, chosen mainly because the apartment easily accommodated our family of five with two good bedrooms and a sofa bed in the living room.  The resort facilities included the standard set of indoor and outdoor swimming pools, restaurants and bars, a little football area and a kids club. Even with all that however, the most fun is to be had on the beach. The sea was just about warm enough over Easter for a swim, the sand was just firm enough for us to create our own fortifications, and the space enough to run around.

Despite our general idleness on this trip, we did one day set off with a plan and caught the bus along the concrete highway to Marbella, and its jolly pretty old town full of Orange Trees and shady passageways. A statue of the King commemorating the restoration of the monarchy reminds us that this modern European country was a dictatorship in our lifetimes.  Despite my fascinating lecture on twentieth century Spanish history, the children decide that getting ice-cream would be a more interesting option at this point. Both of the overpriced restaurants recommended by the resort are closed, so we follow a group of hungry looking builders into a café and order by pointing at neighbouring tables – and ate like – well – hungry builders.

But the holiday is mainly a good value week of quality time with children. We swim, we read, we play football, we colour in princess pictures, we eavesdrop on conference calls taken by the pool. We buy fresh food in the market across the road, and serve up on the balcony of the apartment having leisurely late evening meals all together. We talk to each other, often without shouting. The ipads and phones stayed locked in the safe forgotten about. And at the end of the week, we follow the concrete strip back to the airport and home, having properly unwound ourselves.