NavanTravel

What a start to my recent trip of a lifetime to Orlando. Ticking off one of my all time bucket list things to do - fly in Business Class! Courtesy of British Airways we connected from Dublin in London Heathrow, which was a real treat not only in the air but on the ground too, having the facilities of the business class lounges in both Dublin and London Gatwick.  I had to pinch myself when I sat in by business class seat on my 9 and a half hour flight to Orlando but for once I didn’t mind the length of the flight!

Universal: Where to stay & What to do

We stayed our first 3 nights at the 4* Loews Portofino Hotel located on the grounds of Universal Studios.  The grounds of the Hotel are an exact replica of the town of Portofino in Italy.  To get from our Hotel to the parks you take a free water taxi which takes approx. 5 minutes.

Our first full day was spent exploring Universal Studios and Islands of Adventure with our VIP guides who showed us all there is to see including screaming from great heights as we tried out some of the amazing thrill seeking rides! My favourite ride was the Amazing Adventures of Spiderman, bringing me right back to my youth!  It is a 3D interactive virtual reality ride where we joined Spiderman on his famous web!  Having the VIP passes meant we could skip all of the queues and walk straight onto each ride which was brilliant! If your budget stretches to it, I would highly recommend investing! After a very tiresome but enjoyable day we headed back to our Hotel and refreshed for dinner that night where we dined in the Sports Bar in Universal City Walk.

The next day we visited the brand new Volcano Bay Water Park located beside Universal Studios.  The park is quite compact with plenty of slides but not as big and spread out as other water parks I’ve been to.  As it only opened in May of this year it was extremely busy with a lot of queuing time for the bigger slides especially in the afternoon so if you are interested in visiting I would recommend to go early in the morning when its quieter and cooler.  We enjoyed a relaxing day by the pool in between the lazy river and black hole / kamikaze water slides! 

That night visited the Rosen Inn Shingle Creek Resort located just off International Drive.  I was very impressed with this Hotel.  It’s away from the madness yet within easy reach of International Drive. If you are not interested in theme parks and are looking for a nice Hotel to chill, relax and play golf then this Hotel is perfect. After a tour of the Hotel we were treated to a gorgeous meal before heading back to City Walk where we checked out the bars and experienced live Karaoke in City Walk’s Rising Star!!

 

 

 

Our next port of call was Downtown Tampa which is approx 1 1/2 hours drive from International Drive.  En route to our Hotel we stopped off in The Florida Aquarium where we spent a couple of hours with our tour guide looking at all the amazing fish. 

Tampa - Florida's Gulf Coast!

On arrival in Tampa we checked in to the Marriott Tampa Waterside Hotel which is located along the water’s edge in Downtown Tampa.  A very nice 4 star Hotel with 48 floors!  My room on the 24th floor took all of 5 seconds on the super fast lift!

Located in downtown Tampa with easy access to the city.  We dined that night in The Columbia Restaurant which is the oldest restaurant in Florida.  Owned by the Gonzmart Family we enjoyed typical Spanish cuisine while watching a live Flamenco Show.

The next day our guide brought us to Top Golf which was great fun!  If you can imagine a putting green with a difference!  Each golf ball is micro-chipped so it calculated the distances it travelled and the further it went the more points you scored! Great fun for all the family.  I would definitely recommend a visit to Top Golf while staying in Tampa.

We had time for a quick visit to Tampa’s Lowry Park Zoo where we seen some lovely wild life before dining that night in Whiskey Joe’s restaurant which is located on the beach in Tampa and approx 20 minutes drive from downtown Tampa.  A lively beach side bar / restaurant where we got to taste real alligator bites!  To me, it tasted very like chicken!

Before heading to the airport we had one final very important stop to me made – The Shopping Outlets where we shopped 'til we dropped for our last few hours. The prices were similar to prices in Ireland but there were some good bargains when you spent over a certain amount in the likes of Tommy Hilfiger and Gap.

Homeward Bound

Our homeward flight took us from Tampa via Philadelphia which was a short 2 hour 20 minute duration before connecting to Dublin. As the wind was wiht us all the way to Dublin we made it in just 5 hours and 40 minutes.  A very relaxing flight onboard American Airlines business class boeing 777 with lie flat beds. We landed back in Dublin after a tiresome yet awesome trip in Florida!

The last time I visited Orlando was 11 years ago and while the city hasn’t changed much the theme parks have with the addition of new rides (Harry Potter, Reveng of the Mummy & Despicable Me Minion Mayhem.  Volcano Bay Water Park has replaced the one loved Wet n Wild.

If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact me and I will be happy to assist you on arranging your holiday to the Sunshine State!