If you are planning on visiting the state of Florida and/or Orlando then it is worth taking a look at the Orlando Guide on our website. It contains articles and information on places like The Magic Kingdom, Epcot, Universal, Typoon Lagoon and many more places. Or if you prefer you can visit our Orlando Florida forums.
Monday 6 August 2007
Added an RSS feed.
We have added an rss feed of our forums so you get to see the latest posts. Please feel free to come and join us if you like.
Posted by Steve Sewell at 13:11 0 comments
Still working hard on Perfect Florida Villas.
Have not had a lot of time recently to post anything here as I have been so consumed with the villa rental website. It does seem to be taking forever! I know that using a dynamic website design because of the size (hopefully) it will be is the best way to go and we need to have a good database on board but, to someone like me who has just about got to grips with html and css, it throws many new spanners in the works. Luckily my partner (business) Guy is a asp.net guru and this has made it all possible.
There are things that I would never have thought about and used so much time and webspace churning out page after page of html code to achieve what can be done using one page and a database.
We are now in the beta testing phase and hopefully we should be fully live soon.
Check out what we have done so far on the site: www.perfectfloridavillas.com
Posted by Steve Sewell at 13:03 0 comments
Sunday 8 April 2007
Clearwater Beach
We have been visiting this beautiful place for many years and love it just as much as the first time we discovered it. It is a little more comercialised than the beaches further South but has it’s own unique charm.
The first time we visited was through a booking made with a UK travel company called Virgin Holidays that consisted of “2 weeks in Orlando and 1 week at the beach” We initially booked the Holiday Inn on Gulfview blvd, which at that time was just before you got to the old bridge that crossed the inlet where the inland water way met the Gulf. However just a couple of weeks before we were due to fly we got informed that they were moving us to the Sheraton on Sand Key as the Holiday Inn was being refurbished. It turned out we got a good deal. The Sheraton was made famous by the Rev Jim Bakker who resigned as head of the 500,000-member PTL television ministry in March 1987 after saying “he had been blackmailed over his 1980 encounter with Miss Jessica Hahn in a Florida hotel room.”
The hotel is situated over the inlet on a stretch of land called Sand Key. Continuing along this road would lead you to Indian Rocks, Treasure Island, and eventually St. Petersburg. The hotel itself was very nice with it’s own stretch of beach, nice pool and a well stocked Tiki Bar where I had my first aquaintance with a “Mud Slide” and a “Rum Runner”.
Following years on our visits to Florida we never used a tour operator again and started tailor making our holidays. We did stay at Clearwater regularly though, at, The Quality Beach Resort, and Travelodge once as we left it late to book and turned up on spec when the Tampa Bay Buccs was playing at home against the Dallas Cowboys and Clearwater was packed with Cowboy fans!
There are some very nice places to eat here. We like Reno’s, Gondoliers and Leverocks. We also enjoyed the exquisite sunsets that occur here never the same two nights running. Well worth a visit.
Posted by Steve Sewell at 17:09 0 comments
Us at Blizzard Beach
Me with Jay, Dawn, Paige & Ollie. This was the next day after we arrived last year. we decided to go to BB first as it was closing for rehab fo a couple of month. We prefer Typhoon Lagoon so that was the good thing that it would be open throughout our 6 week stay.
Posted by Steve Sewell at 16:24 0 comments
Estero Island Fort Myers Beach
Whenever we get the chance whilst visiting Florida we always head South to Fort Myers. I find the peace and tranquillity there so refreshing after the hustle and bustle of Orlando.
The beaches are less busy and less comercialised than the Central Florida beaches of St. Pete’s or Clearwater. Not that I don’t like those beaches because I do, it just makes a nice change.
Down South it always seems more like the Caribbean, more tropical too with the Coconut and Banana trees. Generally it’s a few degrees warmer than Central Florida too.
Normally we stay at Pointe Estero or the Gullwing (Sister Hotel) next door. We head down to the local Publix supermarket and buy some nice steaks and some shrimp along with some salad and potatoes for baking. Then after a glorious day in the sun we strike up one of the grills available for guests use and barbecue the steak and shrimp. Dawn, meanwhile, prepares the salad and potatoes and once the meat is cooked I take the meat up to the condo via the elevator (It seems strange stood in the elevator with a plate of hot meat in one hand and the cooking utensils in the other lol). We consume the food on the balcony watching the beautiful sunsetting over the Gulf.
My idea of Heaven!!
Posted by Steve Sewell at 16:23 0 comments
New Orlando Water park from Sea World to open in 2008
It was long rumoured that Sea World was going to build a water park and now it has happened. In 2008 they will unveil “Aquatica”. It will be situated near Sea World and Discovery Cove. Here is the press release.
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Plenty of wide, sand beaches, refreshing lagoons and cool shade from towering oaks and exotic trees create the ultimate water park for guest comfort. Personal cabanas dot the shoreline for those who desire a private retreat. The entire park is designed to limit wait times and provide easy access to rides, attractions and even restaurants. Those who don’t want to leave the comfort of their lounge chair can even enjoy beachside waiter service. All of this allows more time for carefree family fun.
Aquatica will be the natural complement to a full day’s adventure at SeaWorld Orlando, and create a trio of SeaWorld parks in Central Florida that collectively provide experiences found nowhere else in the world.
“In a destination famous for immersing families in fun, the SeaWorld parks offer the ultimate in family togetherness, connecting guests to the sea — and with each other — in three immersive, interactive, but very different, ways,” said Joe Couceiro, corporate vice president of marketing.
Guests amazed by the wonders of the sea at SeaWorld. They can then visit Aquatica to indulge in the playfulness of the sea, as they zoom, float and splash through amazing animal habitats. For the ultimate in immersion, the company’s Discovery Cove park offers a completely different experience: an exclusive tropical paradise, with limited attendance, where guests have up-close encounters with Atlantic bottlenose dolphins, rays and tropical fish. Whether making wondrous connections, having carefree fun, or enjoying up-close animal encounters, the SeaWorld parks offer guests an unmatched Orlando family vacation.
Natural, exotic, untamed, fun … SeaWorld’s new water park, Aquatica, has an attitude all its own. Offering fun as endless as the sea itself, it’s not what you would expect from a water park, unless that park is created by SeaWorld.
The park’s signature attraction plunges riders in clear tubes through a crystal-blue lagoon with black-and-white Commerson’s dolphins. Guests feel as if they are flying beneath the sea among these beautiful animals. While similar in coloration to SeaWorld’s icon, Shamu, these dolphins are also distinctly different. In addition to being much smaller, they are also fast, agile swimmers - making them the perfect inhabitants for this lively park.
Aquatica’s attractions offer equal emphasis on high-energy thrill rides and immersive swimming experiences. A colorful mix of racing tunnels, raft rides and rivers offer crashing surf and high-speed thrills, while pools, lagoons and lazy rivers invite guests to enjoy slower pace.
Many of the park’s attractions even offer dual experiences within the same ride. Two immense wave lagoons create the world’s only side-by-side wave pools that can be operated independently or together. Though side-by-side, each lagoon offers a very different experience: one with crashing waves and 5-foot swells, the other with a gently rolling surf. Nine different wave patterns can be created throughout the two pools, with the ability to generate one immense wave, or even “dueling” waves.
Winding rivers throughout Aquatica also offer two different journeys from serene to extreme. One river carries guests through gentle waterfalls, past exotic birds and into an undersea grotto with thousands of colorful fish. An adjacent river offers pure thrill, jetting riders through rolling rapids, rushing geysers and racing waters.
Colorful eight-lane racing slides, triple-drop raft rides, double inner tubes, and a 6-story family ride round out the mix of thrills.
Even the littlest swimmers will enjoy one-of-a-kind attractions at Aquatica. One of the world’s largest interactive water play areas includes a colorful rain fortress that towers 60 feet above a 15,000-square-foot pool. The entire family can zoom together on slides and blast water cannons. In a separate children’s pool, even those Aquatica guests not old enough to walk can still slide down tubes with Mom and Dad in specially built rafts.
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Posted by Steve Sewell at 16:17 0 comments