Florida - Big Group Trips

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We have been to Florida a few times now and it’s always been in a big group. We’ve been pre-kids and with the kids, two entirely different holidays. Both times we stayed off-site from Disney and Universal because we’ve found this is the best way when travelling in a large group, for both of our most recent trips we booked through Ocean Florida Florida Holidays 2024 | Low Deposits | Ocean Florida (ocean-florida.co.uk). They were really helpful and had really good deals for large groups. We’ve travelled during the Easter holidays (American Spring break) and the summer holidays. Weather wise it was better during Easter as the humidity wasn’t too bad and temperature wasn’t too hot, but it’s a popular time of year so expect the parks to be extremely busy. During the summer holidays the temperatures can soar, and it’s classed as rainy season, although it doesn’t rain all that much. As a teacher I prefer to go in the summer holidays because despite the occasional (and exiting) thunderstorm, it’s not as busy and we have longer to get over the jet lag when we get home.

Accommodation

Both times we visited we rented a villa close to the parks, a home away from home. The pros, nice big bedrooms with comfy beds, bathrooms for each room, kitchen, lounge and dining area and a private outdoor swimming pool. Great for having breakfast before you head out and making picnics to take with you into the park to save money on lunch, it’s also great for putting the kids to bed and chilling by the pool in the evening. The cons, it’s not on-site and the days are looooong. There’s no nipping back to the room or resort pool to get out of the midday heat, if you forget to take something with you for the day… tough. You need to take a daypack with you with everything you need for the whole day, with kids in tow, that’s a lot of stuff to have to carry round.

Transportation

Starting with flights we’ve flown with Virgin and Tui, both great flights. When we flew with Virgin we flew to Orlando MCO airport, whilst it’s iconic part of the trip, getting the monorail from the gates, the smell when you get into the atrium and seeing that Disney World Welcome to Orlando sign, I preferred flying with Tui into Melbourne. It’s quite a new flight path and it’s about an hour drive from the parks, but if you are intending to hire a car, it’s actually a lot quicker to travel from Melbourne to the parks than it is from Orlando, this is down to being a smaller airport, security and bag collection is quicker. If you don’t intend to hire a car it would be better to fly to Orlando as there are more options for transfers to the parks. There’s Mears connect and the sunshine flyer, I think these companies have now merged to create the ultimate transfer company to the parks. As we travelled as a group, we hired a minibus both times. We had a designated each time which was fantastic, but it did mean we needed to stay as a group for the entire holiday (it’s a good job we all like each other’s company ha ha). If you know that your group would want to split up at times, you could hire two large cars or alternatively use Uber or Lyft for travel. I’ve heard really good things about Lyft.

Travelling with kids the car seat conversation pops up quite a lot. There are different regulations in America and they have different rules about car seats. A lot of the UK car seats are not allowed to be used abroad and hiring them off the car companies can be costly. My advice is to do your research, it might be cheaper to by an approved car seat when you arrive, from Target or Walmart, or buy before you go and take an approved one with you. At the time we travelled we used the following booster seats for our children https://amzn.to/44uccgP . Bubble Bum at the time were US and EU approved, inexpensive, and perfect for storing and fitting into suitcases. Please do check before you travel for the latest regulations and rules regarding your travel vehicle as it can void your car insurance with the hire company if the car seats used are not on authorised. Whilst not strictly a form of transportation, I would highly recommend taking a pram, even if your kids aren’t toddlers anymore, there’s a lot of walking in the parks and in the heat the kids can get tired and cranky. Our four and six year old, quite often fought over who was going in the buggy and there were plenty of times where we managed to squish both of them into the single stroller together so they both could have a rest.

The Parks

There is nothing more magical than stepping foot into Main Street USA in Magic Kingdom and getting that first glimpse of the castle. The price of tickets can be expensive, we always wait for them to go on offer, there’s usually a 14days for the price of 7 ticket offer that comes up each year. The first big group holiday to Florida we opted for the 14-day ticket to Universal because we were adults and just paid on the gate for one day at Disney’s Magic Kingdom. We did it the opposite way round when we took our children because I feel like Disney better caters to young ones than Universal. Universal is for the thrill seekers that want the big rides. When booking we either book direct through the parks or use companies such as htpps://www.attractiontix.co.uk. If you only want to book one or two days at the parks, you can book tickets from https://www.undercovertourist.com

We hadn’t done Disney properly since we were children ourselves, so our last trip meant so much because it had changed A LOT. The first time I went the castle was a huge birthday cake as it was celebrating WDW’s 25th Anniversary (this time WDW was celebrating its 50th anniversary), and Universal Studios was called MGM, so going this time was exciting to see Hollywood studios and Animal Kingdom. Animal Kingdom is now a firm favourite, we LOVED it! The perfect mix of Disney magic, animals and rides. Animal Kingdom is my husbands’ favourite because we discovered Frozen Jack Daniels and Coke slushies, in the mid-day heat they were both delicious and lethal! We also discovered Tiffin’s the restaurant, my husband had a steak that was so good it made him emotional, he still talks about that steak to this day! Epcot will always be up there; the best activity is to eat and drink your way round the World Showcase. There are so many delicious snacks to try but be careful not to get too tipsy with the drinks. The popcorn from Canada is the only sweet popcorn you can get in WDW and is maple flavoured, starting in Mexico is the only way to walk round the world showcase. The addition of Star Wars Galaxy’s Edge in Hollywood studios is incredible, we managed to get on the Millennium Falcon: Smugglers Run just before the end of the day as the wait time was really low (the majority of wait times for any rides in Hollywood studios we found to be really long when we visited) when we came off the ride it was dark and Galaxy’s edge was all lit up, this is a great time to get some photographs in front of the Millenium Falcon. We are lovers of everything Disney and returning to Magic Kingdom feels like home, there’s always happy tears on Main St.

With the 14-for-7 Disney Tickets you also get entrance into one of the Disney waterparks. It’s worth noting that since covid only one of the water parks seems to be open at a time. When we travelled to Florida last year, we had the pleasure of visiting Typhoon Lagoon. It was great, we loved both the days that we spent there. As it was July, Florida was HOT, as were the floors, so I would advise to wear water shoes or a cheap pair of flip flops for walking around the waterpark. There were plenty of places to leave your flipflops when you went on the slides. In typhoon lagoon you could also buy a refillable mug to use all day, it was one set price and you could just refill it at any of the refill stations, it’s so important to stay hydrated in the parks when it’s hot so I would say that this is an important bargain to purchase, I think it’s actually a shame that the parks don’t have them too. There was plenty of food outlets and there was also a merchandise shop too. The facilities are great, plenty of showers, lockers and changing rooms to be able to get washed and changed at the end of the day. We made use of them, and park hopped to Epcot for dinner at Biergarten in the Germany pavilion. It was probably one of the best dining entertainments we experienced during our time there, it's a buffet restaurant serving traditional German delights whilst being entertained by an oompah band.

On our last trip we only spent one day in Universal, it was a one day, two park ticket. Parking was no problem at universal, like all of the theme parks you have to pay to park and it’s about $25. It also takes about 15-20 minutes to get from the car park into the parks as you have to travel through city walk, this is full of entertainment, restaurants and shops, we might have had a stop at Starbucks for drink on the way in. We started in Universal Studios, this day was really hot, probably one of the hottest days of the holiday. We decided to take the day slow and not focus on getting on rides but to just enjoy the atmosphere as it was busy and we were all feeling the heat. First stop was to ride the classic E.T ride, but when we got to the front of the queue it broke down and didn’t reopen all day, a little disappointed we opted to stop for a giant pink donut in the Simpsons area. Universal is a lot more compact than Disney and there are plenty more spaces to find shade. We headed for Diagon Alley because we had a few Harry Potter fans in our group. Honeydukes is worth a stop if you want to pick up a chocolate frog or some every-flavour beans. You can go to the wand shop and if you’re lucky enough to be picked you can experience having a wand chosen or should I say choosing you. These are not just any wands; they are interactive and can be used all round the Harry Potter areas in both parks to do tricks and make magic happen. If you have a park hopper ticket you can also hop on the train to Hogwarts located in Islands of Adventure. This is a special ride of it’s own, it’s all interactive to make you feel like you are actually travelling on the Hogwarts express, when you disembark the train you find yourself in Hogsmeade, here is where you can find butterbeer. I find that butterbeer is a little like Marmite, you either love it or hate it. There are plenty of big rides in this area we managed to get on the buckbeak ride as the queue was in the shade and not a long wait. Just around the corner is Jurassic Park, there are some pretty cool encounters with dinosaurs in this area, we grabbed a quick bite in the quick service here, just burgers and fries, nothing to write home about. We were all getting a bit hot and bothered by this point and were in search of ice-cream. The only place we could find was in toon town, and it was melting quicker than we could eat it, top tip, get it in a tub rather than a cone because you can always have ice-cream soup if it melts quicker than you can consume it. The ice-cream didn’t take the edge off so we decided to go on a water ride to cool down, we thought being splashed by a log flume type ride was a good idea. So we headed for a Popeye rapid style ride. Was it refreshing… yes, did we get a little splash… no! We were completely soaked through as if we had jumped into a swimming pool fully dressed. We soon cooled down and were so glad that we had brought a spare change of clothes with us “just in case”. We headed out of the parks and too our dinner reservation and got changed into fresh clothes in the WC. We ate at the Chocolate Emporium, my kid’s faces lit up when I suggested that they share a meal, so they had enough room for dessert! The theming of this place was spot on, the food was good, and the desserts were incredible! I would highly recommend getting a reservation here if you can. One day was certainly enough for us whilst the kids are little, I think you would probably need 2 or more days if you have teenagers that love rides. I’ve heard that it sometimes works out cheaper to book a 2-night stay at a Universal hotel as your tickets are included and you get fast passes. This might be something to investigate if you want to spend more than one day at universal.

There’s plenty more to do in Florida other than theme parks.

If you’re looking for more than just theme parks and rides, we have done a few other experiences too. NASA is always worth going to, it can be quite a trek if you are staying onsite in Disney without your own transport, it’s a 40-minute drive if you have your own car. It’s also worth checking if there are any space launches happening during your holiday and going on that day. For a little extra cost you can watch the space launch from the viewing area, we did this but unfortunately minutes before the launch it go cancelled due to a thunderstorm brewing in the area. Don’t worry though if this happens as they give you a voucher to come back another day to view it or you can spend it in the shop, we all ended up getting a NASA t-shirt to remember the day we (almost) saw a rocket go to space.

We’re not lovers of SeaWorld so tend to give this a miss however we did visit Discovery Cove which is a part of the SeaWorld group, there are lots of ethical conversations about SeaWorld (a discussion for another day) we had a fantastic time here. There are a lot of rules that you must follow to keep the marine life safe, you’re not allowed to bring any food into the park but you won’t go hungry or thirsty as everything in your day out is included. We swam with dolphins, snorkelled in the grand reef, checked out the aviary and relaxed in the wind away river and serenity bay. It can be an expensive day out but we thought it was worth every penny.

Whilst in Florida you must be aware of the Gators! Whilst you can usually spot them on the side of the freeway you can actually see them in the everglades. There are a few different gator parks in Florida. The state does capture the “nuisance gators”, these gators are usually euthanised and not relocated to the everglades, so the gator parks do their best to take gators in that would otherwise be euthanised for the safety of the public. We travelled to the everglades to one of the Gator parks and took a ride on an airboat ride around the everglades, I wouldn’t recommend this to anyone that has sensory issues particularly with loud noises. They do give the children ear defenders, but it is still quite loud and can be unpleasant. It’s a great way to spot gators in their natural habitat and is a fast and thrilling adventure. After the boat ride, we then explored the rest of the park where extremely large Alligators are kept and looked after in as close as possible to their natural habitat. These gators can’t be released back into the wild as they are classified as a nuisance alligator. An alligator is deemed a nuisance if it is a least 4 feet in length and is believed to pose a threat to people, pets or property – SNAP (statewide nuisance alligator program).

If shopping is your thing there are plenty of malls and superstores to visit. If you are looking for Disney bargains going to the Premium Outlets is something you don’t want to miss, they have heavily discounted Disney merchandise. In the summer months you can usually find Halloween and Christmas merchandise, plenty of spirit jersey’s, Loungefly bags and Dooney and Bourke. There’s also lots of big brand’s shops with amazing bargains to be had. We also visited the Mall at Millenia, this has all the high street brands that you are looking for and can be a full day out if you want it to be. Just make sure you have enough luggage space to get it all home!

Places to eat

Whilst most of our trips were spent in theme parks we also did eat in a few other places. The Cheesecake Factory is always a good place to eat, we also went to Hooters. Whilst Hooters has a certain reputation, it had a great children’s menu and is just a sports bar. The food and atmosphere were great. If you’re after more themed dining, there is a great choice in Disney Springs. We ate at the Rainforest Café and T-Rex, these are fantastic for the kids, decent food and entertainment, my favourite bit is when it starts to thunder and lightning in the restaurant and the animals move and make a noise. We also ate a Planet Hollywood, again excellent theming and food – remember the portion sizes in America are huge and I was defeated by a salad here and I love my food! If you’re after Mexican we ate in Frontera Cocina, traditional Mexican flavours and cocktails, it was very busy, but we had a nice spot overlooking a water feature outside. If you’re after sweet treats Gideon’s Bakehouse is the one, it’s a unique dessert experience and their cookies are even better than their acclaimed reputation, when you’ve tried one you can understand why there are sometimes hour-long ques!

There are plenty of things to do in Florida, we’ve been a few times and still haven’t seen it all. Next time we go we’d like to stay on-site at Disney, we’d love to team our holiday up with a cruise around the Caribbean (I have done this as a child, but I think I was too young to appreciate how awesome it was). I’d like to see Miami and St Petersburg and try other theme parks such as Busch Gardens. If you want to hear more about our travels and any upcoming Florida trips please subscribe below.