During these days of some pretty high temperatures Aquatica provided some relief for some of it’s visitors. Albeit for a few hours, these ice seats were a hit with this family. Each section of seating weighed over a ton.

(Photo by Sea World)

President Obama has now joined the revamped Hall of Presidents in Walt Disney Worlds Magic Kingdom. The show is to reopen on the 4th July.

There have also been some new speeches added A film narrated by Morgan Freeman with video of presidents speaking during turbulent times, including Lyndon Johnson after the assassination of John F. Kennedy, Bill Clinton in the aftermath of the Oklahoma City bombing and George W. Bush encouraging citizens at ground zero after 9-11. Midway through the film, a screen lifts to reveal the animatronic Abraham Lincoln, alone on the stage. He now delivers the full Gettysburg Address.

Here is an interesting story that was reported recently in the Orlando press. Like most of us, Brent Pope of Jacksonville gets frustrated by long queues at Walt Disney World in Florida . So when Mr Pope, 44, was laid off from his job at an ad agency a few months ago, he decided to see if he could do something about it. So he developed “Wait Times”  a really clever iPhone application that will tell you just how long the queues are for the rides and attractions at Magic Kingdom. The app was approved for sale by Apple on Tuesday of this week. The “app” relies on other app users to supply wait-time information.

They can choose from a list of rides and then enter or view the current wait for that ride. The more information that people report, then the more useful Pope’s 99-cent app becomes. He’s also planning to release Wait Times apps for the other Disney parks in Orlando and California as well as for Universal Studios in Orlando and California.

Have you ever considered renting an Orlando Villa instead of a hotel room? There are so many advantages to doing so. Many years ago it was probably different but now vacation villas, condos and townhouses offer so much more than many hotels and at a cheaper price. It is not uncommon to be able to rent a property on a resort that has a communal pool, clubhouse with bars and restaurants, fitness centers , fishing lakes and much more. With such enchanting names such as Watersong, Emerald Island and Thousand Oaks they all live up to it with beautifully landscaped gardens and conservation.

Most villas have private pools that can be heated on request again some of them overlook breath taking views of lakes or conservation giving you the opportunity to see some Florida wildlife close up. Increasingly, there are now many homes that offer high speed internet access, free long distance and international phone calls, large screen tv’s, DVD players, spa’s/hot tubs and everything you need to make the villa your home from home, including, all linen, cooking equipment, towels etc. All included in the price. If you want mid stay cleans these can always be arranged.

If you consider the cost of say a group of 6 travelling to Orlando, work out the cost to stay in hotel rooms, then compare the cost of a vacation home. I am sure you will be surprised. Plus you have all that privacy, independence and freedom. If you want to cook in the villa then there are all the modern appliances at your disposal. If you need to do any washing, no need to drag all your washing to whichever floor the washing machines are located in a hotel, you have your own washer and dryer.

All vacation homes are within a short drive to Disney World and the other Orlando attractions. Orlando Villas at Perfect Florida Villas we have provided many satisfied travellers to Orlando with first class, affordable accommodation. We list the vacation homes, you choose the ones that you are interested in and contact the owner directly. All our owners are verified and are also very knowledgeable about Orlando and other parts of Florida and will only be too happy to help and advise you with planning your trip.

Mrs McCullum and her husband, Ian from Edinburgh, Scotland had long dreamed of taking their family to Disneyworld in Orlando, Florida. She states that “Having 3 children, I had always thought that it would be too expensive” Then she started looking into doing the trip in an independent way instead of using a package holiday. “ I started searching for flights and found that they were much more expensive during the kids school holidays, so we managed to work it so that they would only miss one week of school, the prices were much better" By this time Ian’s Mother and Father had also indicated that they would love to go along too.

So the next step was to find somewhere to stay when she was getting prices for hotel rooms the cost started to get quite high. To be comfortable she didn’t want to cram her and her husband and 3 kids into a hotel room. “The youngest Chloe was 5, Joe was 12 and Janine was 14, so it would have been a bit cramped. This meant looking at 2 rooms for us and one for my in-laws. It was then that my mother-in-law suggested that we rent a villa. I did a search on Google and found Orlando Villas from Perfect Florida Villas. I am so glad that I did, I was able to browse through the large selection homes on offer, able to choose the location and amenities etc. We narrowed it down to a short list and ended up choosing a gorgeous villa on Calabay Parc. We had some great chats with the owner and she gave us tons of advice that proved very useful. It had a games room, PC and free international phone calls. The pool was marvellous and we had the sun most of the day. The kids loved it. The cost of the villa for the 2 weeks was much less than the hotels we were looking at working out to £900 for all 7 of us and we loved the comfort and freedom.

It was a great holiday and we hope to repeat it again next year and would not consider staying in a hotel room. Thank you Perfect Florida Villas!”

It’s that time of year again where Star Wars aficionados descend on Disney’s Hollywood studios (MGM) to catch a glimpse and get autographs of some of the cast from the movies. These weekends (Fri, Sat & Sun) prove to be very popular so if you are planning on going here is a line up of the Star Wars actors schedules.

STAR WARS CELEBRITY AUTOGRAPH SCHEDULE

(Note: There are three one-hour autograph sessions per date: 10:00 am, 1:45pm and 3:45 pm)

May 22nd - May 24th
Ray Park (Darth Maul - Episode I)
Warwick Davis (Wicket the Ewok - Episode VI)

May 29th - May 31st
Peter Mayhew (Chewbacca - Episodes III-VI)
Matthew Wood (Voice of General Grievous - Episode II)

June 5th - June 7th
Jeremy Bulloch (Bobba Fett - Episodes V & VI)
David Prowse (Darth Vader - Episodes IV-VI)

June 12th - June 14th
Temuera Morrison (Jango Fett - Episode II)

Enjoy parades, autographs from some of your favourite Star Wars actors, trivia challenges, behind-the-scenes shows and a lot more!

What better place to be during this warm spell than soaking up some sun in one of the water parks in Orlando.

Disney have just increased the daily admission price to $45 for adults and $39 for kids for Typhoon Lagoon and Blizzard Beach. One way to take advantage of these increases is to buy a Water park Annual Pass, currently $106 for adults and $85.73 for kids.

These tickets are great if you do not intend on visiting the regular parks that much during your trip. 3 admissions and you are in pocket.

After a cold winter Orlando is under going some very hot Spring weather with temperatures reaching the upper 90’s. This is the time that Florida needs some rain as we start to see some wild fires cropping up in various parts of the state. Also villa owners and other home owners don’t want to see their lawns drying up and dying.

A new attraction at Downtown Disney featuring a balloon that carries guests up to 400 ft giving views of all around Walt Disney World has opened at Downtown Disney. One word of warning though, you could be waiting in line a long time if it is a little windy. The attraction operates on a “weather permitting” basis. Given the amount of thunderstorms around the area in the Summer I would say it will be closed quite a lot.

It works on a scale so if the wind speed is between 12 – 22 mph there will be fewer than 10 riders and each round trip lasts 10 minutes so by that calculation there wont be many people going through the attraction in an hour. If it gets much windier than that then the flight is grounded. Don’t forget it might just be breezy where you are stood but up at 400 ft it could be quite strong.