Hello again!
So I have started a Travel Series here on my blog, to share my experiences of travelling to different countries, my opinions and how the trip affected me. I wanted to do this as a series as I have a lot to say about different places I have been and I want to spread it out for each individual place.
To kick off this series I am going to write about my favourite trip thus far, which was to Orlando, Florida. This was my first time going to the USA and it truly was amazing, I am so grateful to have had the chance to go and I will always cherish the memories I made there.
So I went to Orlando on 25th June 2016 for two weeks, we travelled with Virgin Airlines and the plane was an Airbus which was a double decker plane (I had never even seen one before so I found it really cool). The plane ride was approximately 8-10 hours long, this was the longest plane ride I have been on so far! I don’t particularly like long plane rides as there isn’t that much you can do and I’m one of those people who can’t sleep on planes, but there was movies to watch so it wasn’t too bad. When we eventually got to America the first thing I realised was how flat it was! My fellow Brits will know that here every thing is hills and trees, so it was something that surprised me. So after all the security stuff we went to get our hired car, (I don’t know what it was- I’m bad with car names), and set off to our hotel. Driving through the highway I was fascinated by just watching everything go by, the cars, houses, hotels, landscape, as cliché as it sounds it was just how I pictured it- having watched a lot of American television (might I say one of the High Schools looked just like East High, just saying).
On our first night we went to Disney Springs which was amazing so we went there most evenings, if you have never been before it’s got shops, restaurants, a cinema, bowling alley, and amazing views. It also has El Cirque Du Soliel however we didn’t get a chance to go, the arena it was in was absolutely huge though, I hope to go if I ever have an opportunity. Anyway, so we went to the bowling alley to get food as it was a diner as well and I had a huge pizza (I can eat a lot, so those portions were heaven to me). There was a five hour time difference, but I was starting to think I had escaped jet lag- I was wrong. It weird because I had been so wide awake from the adrenaline of this new place, then out of nowhere I was desperate to sleep. So our first night was pretty short so we could get enough rest for all the amazing things we were about to do.
My favourite place that we went to was definitely Universal Studios, every single aspect of it was amazing, just walking around felt like I was entering the different worlds of movies! One minute I was in the 50s era, the next I was in The Simpsons. The ultimate part though was Harry Potter; you might not already know but I am a huge Harry Potter fan, everything about it means so much to me but that’s for another post. Walking into Diagon Alley I could have cried, the only way I can describe it is how real it was. There was so much detail in every single part and to be honest there were some parts that were so much like England I thought I was home! I got a wand of course, the wand I chose was Hermione’s, and as you walked around you could do all the different spells (it was awesome trust me). All of the shops and the things that you could buy had been described in the book/shown in the movies, so of course I spent at least half an hour admiring every last item (maybe not that long). All of the rides I went on in America were beyond amazing, I love big rides- I’m an adrenaline junkie. However the Harry Potter rides were probably the best for me, my favourite was definitely the Gringotts ride. Outside of Harry Potter the best rides for me was the Transformers ride and The Mummy ride- this one was a bit scary though, or that might just be me.
Another theme park I went to was Busch Gardens which was amazing! All of the rides I went on were terrifying and I don’t usually find rides scary- my favourite was defiantly Falcon’s Fury, it’s a must do. We also went to Disney’s Animal Kingdom, I can’t describe how much I loved it. My favourite Disney film is The Lion King which most of the park was based on- I went to see The Lion King show which was unreal, my inner-child was truly coming out! There was also a safari park we got taken round and I saw so many animals such as, lions, elephants and rhinos so I really enjoyed it. The other Disney-themed park we went to was Hollywood Studios, when we went it was heavily based on Star Wars which was really good as there were actors and dancers everywhere, which made the atmosphere really lively and vivid. The Aerosmith ride was the best for me (I’m not biased because I love their music), it was the fastest ride and the most energetic which I loved! Of course though we went on The Tower of Terror, in the queue we were talking to an American couple who came to the park just to go on the ride every weekend, I just thought how good of a life that was. The Tower of Terror was actually creepy, I’m not going to lie I was a bit nervous walking around it.
We also did a bit of shopping in a Shopping “mall”, which was interesting to see all the different shops and styles compared to Britain. Some of it was actually quite similar though! We also of course went to Walmart which was an experience in itself, the food was amazing and it was absolutely massive compared to our Asda and Tesco. I want to also say that the weather was very interchangeable! It was extremely hot, even so much that sometimes we had to wait inside just to cool off. Whereas at some points it rained so heavy that mini floods were forming, it made some good memories though.
I would just also like to mention that I went to SeaWorld which formed my view on why orcas and dolphins shouldn’t be kept in captivity. However I want to talk about this entirely in a future post, which is why I haven’t mentioned it here, so please stay tuned for that.
I hope you enjoyed reading my post on my visit to America! It really was some of the best moments of my life and I can’t wait to go again. My next travel series will be up soon (I’m really enjoying writing about my travels).
Thank you so much for reading,
See you in my next post,
Libby x
P.S I’m still getting used to blogging so I think I’ll improve over time!
Libby Louise 