Holidaying in Florida

As a family, our favourite holiday destination has to be Florida, and more specifically Orlando. I visited for the first time with my parents when I was a teenager, then Ram and I had a great holiday there back in 2011. I always knew that I wanted to take my own children there one day, and we've been fortunate enough to have the opportunity to visit as a family twice in the last few years.

In a few weeks time we are lucky enough to be heading out to Orlando again for another fantastic family holiday, and we can't wait. We are returning to the accommodation that we have stayed in for our last two trips, so we are familiar with the area which makes it much less daunting when it comes to leaving the airport in what feels like the middle of the night with two small, grumpy children!

On our first trip to Orlando it was all about Disney World. We spent two weeks exploring the Disney theme parks, and that was pretty much all that we did. The children were small, but we took it slowly with plenty of breaks. We arrived early at the parks and saw as much as we could before they got too busy, then headed back to the villa in the afternoon for a rest. Sometimes we returned to the parks later in the afternoon and sometimes we just relaxed by the pool.

On our second holiday we also did a Disney cruise as part of our trip, so we didn't feel the need to spend all our time at Disney. Instead we visited some of the other tourist attractions in the area and we discovered some really wonderful places to visit. They were cheaper than the Disney parks and also much quieter, and it was so nice not to have to queue for everything! We particularly enjoyed Dinosaur World and Gatorland, and the Kennedy Space Center was another very good day out.

On our upcoming holiday we are going back to Disney, and this time we're also going to be visiting Universal Studios and Islands of Adventure. I'm very much looking forward to visiting the new Diagon Alley attraction at Universal Studios and travelling on the Hogwarts Express between the two parks. The Seven Dwarfs Mine Train ride at Magic Kingdom is also a new attraction since our last visit, completing the Fantasyland expansion, and it looks really good. We'll be there over Halloween, and I'm interested to see how differently it is celebrated in the United States, I think that it's going to be a lot of fun!

I'm hoping to fit in some shopping too. I love visiting the American craft stores and seeing all the different products that they sell, I've already started a list of things to look for. We might even have time to do some clothes shopping too, although that's not always easy with the little ones in tow!

Have you visited Florida? If you are looking for a holiday in Florida, check out the Cosmos website for cheap package holidays and deals.

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