Oct 18, 2005

Maiden visit to Orlando

It was a great trip to Orlando. This being my first visit, had quite a bit of confusion with so many choices in front of me .. Atlast, pinned down on 'Epcot' since it was, as the friends said, good for adults too.

Orlando is an amazing city. I really kick myself in the butt why I never visited Orlando, despite being less than 2 hours drive from our home to any attraction there. Anyway, better late than never. :-)

Got a good deal on the ticket, free parking and a nice tour in Epcot. Best part was the whole lot of walking and standing, which happened after a long time.. good for the body. :) I couldnt cover all the attractions on a single day.. but covered 60-70%. Enjoyed the most on the 'Space travel'... Had a real feel to it, since I had watched "Apollo XIII" just a few weeks ago.

In the evening, managed to sneak out of Epcot to visit the Hindu Temple (It was good) and returned for the 9 PM cracker show. Had a nice dinner in an Indian restaurant just few hundred feet from the hotel.

It was a real ideal day, as I had dreamt. Doesnt happen always like that. It was lotsa fun and I have decided to visit all the remaining parks one after the other in the coming months, before leaving Florida.

17 comments:

Adaengappa !! said...

Thats interesting..Its sure a place for thrill and adventure loving adults...A week wasn't enuf to cover the all 4 theme parks..
Planning again later this yr to escape winter here..Shall contact ya..

Cheers !!

Gnana Kirukan said...

u culd have written what u had for dinner - :P LOL

ada-paavi!!!! said...

photos engai??

tt_giant said...

Welcome back Raju. And congrats on the occasion.

You wouldnt bel. it.. except Magic Kingdom and Adventure Island, I have seen everything else. Whenever someone comes to see me here, I take them to Orlando!. I think I have been there 6-7 times now. But I4 section from Tampa to Orlando is a b*tch. :-((

For pure enjoyment, Sea world is the best. Get the most out of FL while you are still here.. coz, "kann imaikkum nodiyil... ada edhuvum nadakkum..." ..

Raju said...

Prabhu, as Balaji said in my previous post, it is the place where "Happiest celebrations on Earth" take place.. There are actually 6 theme parks - three from Disney, two of universal studios and one seaworld. Winter will be good here. Plz do let me know about ur plan.

Arjuna, it was a typical punjabi dinner - kadai panneer, tandoori roti and garlic naan.. podhuma? :-)

Ram C said...

the caption you had mentioned as a reply to Balaji "these things that we see today are captured by eye, processed at heart and stored in the brain" rekindles some of my thoughts of last year.. when I asked my friend about his gift to his wife on their anniversary, he mentioned that 'he had gifted himself to her'.... nalla sappai kattu kattiteenga.... You could have bought batteries there in the stores, isn't it?

tt_giant said...

achacho.. battery vaangirukalamey!.

you are right.. its intra state. but that road is SO important. When you are even 20 miles out of Orlando, every exit has some place to see.

I4 starts from Tampa and trouble starts right there. WORST highway!. Almost permanently there are some constructions going on. Many sections have 1.5 lanes and you can go only upto 25 mph. Once in the night, I got caught in rain on I4 with 1/4 petrol and stuck in traffic. That was a nightmare.

Hey, maybe we can meet up sometime in Orlando!. Its 2 hours from Sarasota too! -well, if traffic is not a b*tch

Raju said...

Ram, though initially she was a bit upset on my goof-up with camera, the magic of Epcot made us forget the absence of camera. hehehe sappai kattu ellam ille.. samaalippunnu vachukkalam.. :-)

Ours is a Sony 7 MP camera, powered by a Lithium battery... I wasnt sure whether it would be sold there..

Deepak, , you are right about I4.. Really big constructions going on...

Surely we can meet there once you are back from India... let us make some plan..

Siddharth said...

glad 2 read u had a nice vacation.which deity was the temple 4?btw does the indian food taste the same there?

Me too said...

Nice Summary! I have always wondered how much fun would these theme parks be for adults(this post and comments section is changing my views). And mostly local/nearby places always gets overlooked(NYC in our case!)

Raju said...

Sid, the temple was 'Hindu temple of Florida' and it had deities of Krishna, Ram, Venkateshwara, Ganesha, Lakshmi, Navagraha and Kasi Viswanatha. In medium-big cities here, they have such temples with many gods.

Taste of Indian food depends strongly on various factors - such as quality of restaurant, type of cook, etc. The gravy dishes are OK in many places.. the problem is with dishes like Naan, which tend to have 'bread-like' taste. In Orlando, we had a Lunch Buffet in a Mallu-owned restaurant, which was very good with Idly and Dosa also as part of the typical North Indian buffet lunch.

Aps, thanks. The 'fun for adults-part' was the main thing that prevented us from visiting the theme parks in Orlando so far. I am glad I visited now atleast.. We have visited pretty much all the places in Florida - even far away ones like Miami. As you mentioned, this place so nearby and dubbed the 'busiest vacation spot in the world' got overlooked.

mitr_bayarea said...

Raju: sounds like a nice and enjoyable vacation. I really enjoyed visiting Florida, had a friend who lived in Tallahassee and we drove to Orlando and did a 2 day visit to Universal.

Guess you could do this more often, as the drive isn't too much for you guys and its also a nice close getaway from the daily routine.

Raju said...

Mitr, yes it was nice. We are also planning a 2-day visit for Universal probably during some long weekend. We are gonna surely do this more often. :-)

S.G.Ramkumar said...

Nice trip. I had seminar in the dept. That's why this much time I could not blog on.

Raju said...

Ram, I guessed so, seeing no update in your blog and also no comments here. How did the seminar go? What was ur topic?

S.G.Ramkumar said...

I gave on "Adsorption calorimetry on single crystal surfaces" and I somehow managed with 75%

Raju said...

Ram, engeyirundhappa indha madhiri topic pidiche? Glad to know that you got 75%.. wow.. thats cool.. Should be among the best, right? I didnt see anything close to that high during last year... All the very best to win the prize !!