What else do you do in Orlando?

[melissa180]

We are going down to WDW March 26- April 4. We are planning on getting 5 or 6 day park hopper passes, staying offsite and have a car. I wanted to go to Daytona Beach or Clearwater for a day resting on the beach. DH thought about Cape Canaveral also. I work for a zoo, so thought maybe one of the zoos in the area (but we aren't sure which one is better Melborne or Brevard). We have 3-4 days to fill. Any suggestions?

 

[melissa180]

I just realize I put the wrong zoos...either Brevard or Central FL zoo. We know there's universal and seaworld too...but they just seem expensive after spending all that money on WDW PH's.

 

[newholiday]

I just got us all 7day plus park hoppers at Christmas time, 2 day passes for Universal and 1 day tix for SeaWorld
Now that we're starting to put together this October's itinerary it looks like 1day AK/EpCot, MNSSHP, 2days Universal, 1 day SeaWorld and Kennedy Space.
Guess those other days on the park hoppers will need to be used in the future!

 

[EsmeraldaX]

Haven't been to one of the zoos, but I would say a fun thing might be to try an offsite dinner show, like Medieval Times, or Arabian Knights, or Pirates Dinner theater.

I just did MT & Pirates and they were both lots of fun. Pirates gets the audience involved and kids seem to really like it.

 

[monarchsfan16]

Sea World is expensive when you spend all the money on park hoppers and such for disney, but if it's within the budget at all I would reccomend Sea World. It is absolutely incredible. We love it there. We had Silver Passports (a type of AP) for there this year, so we spent nearly 3 whole days there. The shows are incredible, and so are the exhibits. Universal on the other hand was not worth the money (of course there are people that will debate that but it really wasn't that great.
If you enjoy shopping there are an awful lot of outlets and malls in Orlando that looked pretty good.

 

[shelleybell]

Try SkyVenture...."Orlando's high energy vertical wind tunnel"
Lots of fun!
Ripleys museum
Cocoa Beach
Kennedy Space Center

shelleybell

 

[Aimeedyan]

We visit the great outlet malls while we're there... and the malls (Mall of Millenia is awesome!).

We are visiting Vero Beach this time, but mom says Cocoa Beach is also nice! She just moved there last year...

Space Center is a possibility, too. =)

We also like to take time to just chill by the pool =0

 

[kathyseb]

Sounds silly, but my husband and I never have time to do much else other than the parks.

We have Annual Passes and make the drive down from Indiana three times a year for a total of four weeks.

We take time to go to DTD to shop. Last time we did venture out and found two outlet malls, each of them having a discount Dinsey Store, so that was a PLUS.

Other than that, our time is spent in the parks. We have never gone to Sea World or Universal. We are strictly WDW lovers!!

 

[Suzflee]

I would highly recommend a "down" day if you do the parks from opening to closing as we did. We were just there Sun - Sun and took off Weds to sleep in, hit the pool, downtown Disney and the outlets.
Belz outlet has two Disney stores and a Universal store- $10 sweatshirts and $4 pins!!!!
We also did the Medieval Times dinner and my almost 10 year old thanked us profusely throughout the show!

 

[VAN]

I'd like to recommend "Old Fashioned Air Boat Rides" in Christmas, FL. It is about 1 hour east of Orlando and is great!! You'll be out on the St. John's River and will see lots of wild life, including hundred's of alligators.

We found out about them by word of mouth and loved them so much we went 2 years in a row.

They have a website.

What we did those two years is go on the 10:00 ride and then drove into Cocoa Beach and had a picnic on the beach/sunning and then shopping at Ron Jon's!!

A great day!

 

[frannn]

Depending on how far you are willing to drive from Orlando, there's also Las Olas Blvd in Ft Lauderdale. It's a long strip that has great shopping, galleries, dining, bars, etc. I always vote for the outlets in Orlando, though!

 

[WDWisTheBest]

Originally posted by melissa180
I just realize I put the wrong zoos...either Brevard or Central FL zoo. We know there's universal and seaworld too...but they just seem expensive after spending all that money on WDW PH's.

Let me put in a vote for visiting the Brevard Zoo. It is one of the most underrated places to visit for those looking for something else to do for an afternoon. Here is the link:
http://www.brevardzoo.org/animal_html/latin_america/details.cfm?ID=12

It is well worth the cost of admisssion and you won't be disappointed visiting it with the family.

 

[bethie]

We have done both Midieval Times and the Pirates show. I think MT is way better. Great fun. There are definitely tons of things to do in Orlando.

 

[dolphincrazy]

Originally posted by WDWisTheBest
Let me put in a vote for visiting the Brevard Zoo. It is one of the most underrated places to visit for those looking for something else to do for an afternoon. Here is the link:
http://www.brevardzoo.org/animal_html/latin_america/details.cfm?ID=12

It is well worth the cost of admisssion and you won't be disappointed visiting it with the family.

are the zoos better than Animal Kingdom? Thanks

 

[Raisenbrand08]

We did Medieval Times......The food was good but i didnt care for the show but everyone else in my family did....I guess its cause i love horses and i didnt like they what the did to them to do tricks and some of the horses were really mad i mean like the bucked and stuff like that. We also did......Drive ur own airboat that was nice. Your suppose to be able to see all kinds of animals all we saw was a huge fish and some turtles..And we did Titanic we didnt like that to much. We left that early. We tried to find ripleys cause someone told us it was right next to Titanic but never did. But the parks we did were AK,MK, and universal, Sea world and discovery cove. Brandee

 

[RobinMarie]

After all our trips to Orlando and the Mouse, we FINALLY did Seaworld last November. The whole family loved it - grandparents, us and my 6yo dd. We were able to visit Seaworld for 2 days for the price of one (but paid two days of parking).

I think Seaworld is an excellent value - a top notch park for half the price if you utilize the two day feature.

I am enjoying other suggestions as well! Love the airboat ride and the zoo idea - the zoo looks like a nice option for what to do after we disembark from the cruise ship next month and have the afternoon to kill before our flights home!

 

[tidoublegger]

We opted for a quieter "down" day last May. We arrived on a Wed, did WDW Thu & Fri and then on Saturday we poked around Boardwalk, did Beaches n Cream for lunch, went to AKL to check it out, then a PS for dinner at Chef Mickey's! It was all in the Disney spirit and recharged my DD's batteries for Sun & Mon at WDW again! Have fun!!

 

[mum4jenn]

We ALWAYS do things other than Disney all the time. I guess because we go so often we were getting a little bored. We have annual passes for Universal/IOA so we go there the most now. It is much cleaner and more up-to-date than Disney. We also purchased the gold(I think) passports from Sea World which will allow us two years admission to there and Busch Gardens. We still have unused days for the water parks on our Park hopper tickets that we would like to use if the weather stays nice and warm (April 5-11). We also use one day for the outlet stores ans usually an evening for Pirate Golf. We have in the past gone to the different dinner shows that are also fun.

 

[SRUAlmn]

For those of you who have ventured off to Sea World for a day:

I'm weighing all the pros and cons of going for a day. Since the summer dream maker rates at the Disney Resorts are so low it seems silly to go stay off property to go to Sea World, so here are my questions...
1. Does it make sense if we are staying for 7 nights to get a 6 day park hopper and then just go over to Sea World for a day?
2. Are you allowed to get hoppers that are for less than the # of days you are staying?
3. Does anyone know if there is transportation to Sea World if we don't have our car? Prices for that?

Any help would be GREATLY appreciated. I LOVE Disney, but I also love Sea World and they took my close to home one away

Thanks

 

[newholiday]

only the length of stay pass is for entire time you are staying at your disney hotel - even then people have had either the 1st/last day taken off
Hoppers can be for any #days youd like - and even then whats not used can be used next time - they dont expire
For us its good to plan at least 1day break in the middle of vaca and why spend money for a park that day?