September keeps on going – Florida wrapped up & another Foden wedding!
One day I’ll be able to write a post without mentioning the word ‘America’ however this is not one of them and with Vegas around the corner it may be a while yet.
I left you with the Mobile post that was written a few days into Florida. I’m not going to bore you with a full chronological account of Florida, mainly because it’s all mashed into one drunken blurry mess in my head. Instead, I’ll do my best to describe what’s there and what we made of it.
THE THEME PARKS
Florida is famous for it’s theme parks. Beforehand we had looked into it and opted to buy a Flexiticket that gets us in to most of them in the State, the main exception being Disney but we were happy to fork out for that one. Our first port of call was Universal Studios. The Universal complex is divided up into three parts: Universal Studios which is a park dedicated to Universal and features attractions that take you through films such as E.T., The Mummy, Men In Black, and Jaws but only really feature a couple of thrill rides – the new Simpsons ride is unbelievable. The second part is a dedicated thrill park – Island of Adventure; this park has two of the best rides I have ever been on: Spider-man and Hulk. The final part of the complex is City Walk, essentially bars, clubs, restaurants & shops. Orlando doesn’t really have what we would call a ‘town centre’ for tourists so City Walk (and Downtown Disney) were our main choices for evening entertainment – the Hard Rock Cafe there is amazing.
The company that owns Budweiser, Anheuser-Busch, also own a lot of Florida and we were attracted to three of there theme parks, Sea World, Aquatica and Busch Gardens.
Sea World. I could bang on about this place for weeks. Essentially it’s a marine based theme park with rides and several marine-animal based attractions. Many of these attractions fall into the ‘average’ category – sharks are far less interesting than Jaws makes out, puffins are just a poor man’s penguin and sea lions aren’t even interesting enough to bother with. What Sea World does brilliantly though are the things it’s famous for. I banged on a bit about Sea World in the post below, but no apologies for mentioning it again. Later on in the holiday when we had exhausted the Wet n’ Wild water park we made a dash for Sea World to catch the 5.30pm Believe show one last time – it nearly brought tears to our eyes a second time. It also made me realise that I REALLY want a pool full of Bottlenose Dolphins – the coolest animal on the planet.
Busch Gardens is great and well worth the 75 mile drive for a day visit. Again, mentioned below, but what Sea World and Busch Gardens do really well is mix the fun with the serious stuff. It’s not thrown in your face but they do a lot of great work on the whole conservation side of things. They get criticised for the fact that their Orcas live much shorter lives than wild ones but at the end of the day they are raising a whole load of awareness for what are brilliant and endangered animals. The Sea World and Busch Gardens Conservation Fund is recognised as being one of the leading charities of its kind and the dollars pouring through the gates at Sea World to see Shamu all help the cause.
I guess that leaves Disney. Disney is what put Orlando on the map, it’s iconic and the images of Mickey and the Magic Kingdom are what immediately spring to mind when you think of the place. We were naturally all looking forward to going. I’d been before but I was six years old and the only thing I remember is the unbearable heat and my dad throwing up in the plants after going on Space Mountain. It turns out that my memory is remarkably good, all Disney really has to offer is Space Mountain and heat!
It is a phenomenal place and the thought & attention that has gone into it is obvious; the main parade and fireworks are wonderful however standing next to the likes of Island of Adventure, Busch Gardens and Sea World you’ve got to be honest that Disney looks a bit dated and complacent. Well worth a day out but not worth the hype. Times have moved on since Disney were the ‘be all and end all’ of entertainment. With the likes of Dreamworks throwing us classics like Shreck, Disney’s appeal is somewhat diluted.
FLORIDA’S WEATHER!
Typical Brits, all we can talk about is the weather. The difference with this post though is that Florida has interesting weather; you know when you’re driving along the freeway and there are signs for the evacuation routes that it’s more than just ‘wet leaves on the line’ that Floridians need to worry about. The last major hurricane to bother these people was Charlie in 2004 and a quick check on the NHC website before we left let us know that we’d be lucky not to be involved one way or the other with Hurricane Gustav, Tropical Storm Hanna and a few other systems already establishing themselves in the Atlantic.
We arrived in Orlando amidst the tail end of Gustav and it was raining quite heavily, nothing too bad and we knew that not only had it passed but Florida only got the edge of it anyway. It was a decent enough storm but Cuba got the brunt of it. Of more significance was Hanna, the local forecasters simply couldn’t tell where it was heading for until a couple of days before it made its final approach. The news was that it was missing Orlando entirely but was making its way up the coast and the entire eastern seaboard of America was under a tropical storm warning. This would have been good news but the day Eastern Florida was getting hit was the day we were driving east to Daytona! The storm itself was a couple of hundred miles off the coast but the waves on Daytona Beach were amazing, Daytona hadn’t seen anything like this since Charlie. We were happy because it was a bit extreme but still safe enough to venture out. A couple of hours before this picture was taken the waves were much bigger and on the national news.
Hanna eventually went up to New York where it disrupted much of the US Open tennis before it made its way back over the Atlantic and gave the UK all that rain on 10 September. By this time we had our eyes on Hurricane Ike. Again, this ended up missing us at the cost of most of Cuba and Texas but we did get some brilliant thunderstorms.
All in all we were a little disappointed not to get a bit more. It’s not everyday you’re in a Hurricane area and I for one would happily have sat in a hurricane party for two days with the most violent weather I’d ever see going on around me.
THE TUBING
We’d been warned about this. “They don’t really embrace drinking like you do it.” We’d been told.
We were unconcerned by this as making our own fun is part and parcel of most holidays so we thought that ten of us could rock up at a bar and create a bit of fun. I for one was pleasantly surprised by the reception we got. Orlando is fairly spread out, you have freeways that all look the same (every half mile there is a block of shops, each containing a McDonald’s, Denny’s and a gift store) – if you were ever lost and looking for a landmark you would be proper fooked. Anyway, the point being that there’s no obvious centre to head to but the places of interest were City Walk, Downtown Disney, International Drive and Old Town Kissimmee. We’d done a bit of research and knowing that day one is always tough with jet lag we knew we’d need to be entertained so we went to Howl at the Moon on International Drive, it was exactly what we needed with some lively pianists, free shots and some couple looking for a threesome. I really liked it here, it was full of tourists but it had an original feel to it; places such as City Walk and Downtown Disney are just full of chain establishments such as Hard Rock Cafe, Planet Hollywood and Margaritaville. I preferred City Walk to Downtown Disney, DD was really just a place for families to eat in what the Americans called a ‘real Irish pub’ but it was places like this that summed it up – too new, too clean and no mottled drunk Paddy in the corner with a dog; we did manage to find an 80s disco club to have a good boogie. So we only did DD once but gave City Walk a few cracks and had a good drink each time, the only let down here was the Karaoke bar was total pants – it had promised soooo much to be like the Maggioke bar in San Francisco but, again, it was a bit too clean to be effective – trying too hard.
As for Old Town Kissimmee, we liked it down there but it suffered a bit from it being the end of the high season. In many ways you can’t win – if you come in August then you get the bustling nightlife but are forced to stand in two hour queues at the parks; when we were there we thought 20 mins was a long queue but the bars were not bustling during the week.
The fourth option was for a good old American house party in the Villa. We realised when it got dark how few of the villas around us were occupied, this was definitely a good thing because we’d either stay in, make noise and get drunk or we’d go out and make a racket when we got in with some canonballing in the pool.
(1) Howl at the Moon – some Mexicans bought us tequilla! (2)Little Kev and a giant beer! (3) Drunken pool frolics (4) Karaoke in Old Town Kissimmee (5) Dave’s bus (6) Pezza in the 80s club with a bloke in a wheelchair.
The picture of Dave’s bus brings back some memories – this bloke basically chauffeured us around Orlando when we were drunk; he was a legend giving us discounts, undercutting his bosses and picking up beer. He’d drop us off at 3am and we’d get him out of bed to pick us up again at 2pm. Getting a bus was a bit of trial and error if we’re being honest. The first night we had at City Walk Stu phoned the bloke who the Holiday Home Company had recommended, he had dropped the girls off earlier in the night (the boys were a few hours ahead) and then picked us up again some 5 hours later – during that time we’d had a few drinks but amazingly John the Driver managed to drink loads more than us. I have never been as terrified in all my life and certainly not been in a car with anybody as smashed as him driving. We left the freeway a number of times and all in all glad to be home with a zero death count.
All in all the tubing was good in Florida – far better than I’d anticipated.
That leaves us with:
DAYTONA BEACH: THE WEDDING
Since booking the holiday Dunc & Mel decided to follow the latest craze and get married in America whilst we were out there. Instead of sticking to Orlando they opted for Daytona Beach (and Hurricane Hanna). We drove up on the Friday and could feel the wind picking up the closer we got to Daytona but it was only once we had reached the coast that we could really get it in our hair. This was just about the strongest winds we’d get in the UK and yet the storm was still hundreds of miles away. Even the next day the surge was still there and the waves were impressive despite the sun firmly taking over.
With the wedding on the Saturday afternoon it was only right to have Daytona Stag & Hen dos. We gathered info off the hotel about where to go and the boys & girls headed in their respective directions with strict instructions as to boundaries and territory. Imagine our surprise therefore when the girls turned up in the strip club on our patch??? They seemed to be enjoying it more so we got out of there as quick as we could and went back to our Irish bar. It was a great night and probably the night in which most of us got the most drunk we’d been all holiday.
After the storm on Friday it was glorious on Sunday and the wedding had been set up on a picturesque part of the beach. There was an area reserved for us to have some champagne before we went to a restaurant we’d scouted out for what was undoubtedly the best meal of the holiday (much better than Charley’s steakhouse in Orlando – best steakhouse in America my arse!). All in all it was a great success.
All of my Florida pictures can be found through this link.
That pretty much brings us back home. No rest for the wicked though as this weekend was:
THE FODENS’ UK WEDDING
We were happy enough with how long the California Wedding was strung out (rehearsal dinner, wedding, post wedding, day after wedding – all of it to a 5-star standard). This weekend it was England’s turn. I’ve been to ‘UK Receptions’ before and they usually involve a function room and a buffet. Everybody has a drink, exchanges stories, wishes the couple well and leaves having had a good night. This one went a bit further! The Fodens had commandeered a friends farm and erected some marquees. they filled these marquees with booze, a hog roast and a band. The entire evening was a giggle and you know it’s a good night when the band comment on how good it is – you can bet that when they usually do this sort of stuff it’s ABBA and Nolan Sisters all the way.
Sunday was a bad hangover day but we managed to drag ourselves to the church for the blessing and a reception in Graham & Trish’s garden.
Finally after four stag nights, three wedding receptions, two weddings, one rehearsal dinner and a brunch over a period of four months, the Foden wedding celebrations have finally come to an end!
The full set from the weekend is here.
That’ll do for now – there’s loads more I would have loved to put in but it would have just been too long and even more dull. I’ll make sure that for Vegas everything is in order and I can update the blog more regularly (even though last time I was in Vegas the blog went to pot due to Vegas being too good to put down).
See you soon.
xxx
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