Anyone been to Florida lately?

[crosser62]

We go in a few weeks.
Got park passes and excited but just wanted your top tips for getting the most out of it.
Where’s good to eat in the evenings?
What’s the new universal bits like?
Is food still crap in the parks? Can we take in our own?
What about shopping and outlets, still cheap or expensive?
Flying with American Airlines..any good?
Thanks all!

You can take food in, anywhere that serves fountain drinks you can ask for iced water. We did this a lot. If you register for any of the chain restaurants they will send you deals. We really like to Bahama breeze, and longhorns. There’s lots of different branches of them so wherever you’re staying is bound to be one nearby. We took a small cool bag to leave in the car. Left bottles of frozen water and cans of coke etc in there. Lovely cold drinks for when we were tired after the parks! Shopping not as cheap as it was but downward the app for the malls, there are some discounts on there. Can’t remember what it’s called but I’ll have a look for you. Where are you staying?

App is called Simon- black and white logo

Thanks very much that’s brilliant.
We are staying about 45 minutes from the parks so will be having breakfast on the way in and probably dinner late on.
We were planning on taking in packed lunches and iced water to keep it all cool.
We have previously used ponda Rosa but tbh it wasn’t nice so would like to go elsewhere...any recommendations for breakfasts?

If your on Facebook there is a great group called it Orlando time. Over 200,000 members with a wealth of knowledge

We went in October flew both ways with AA - absolutely fantastic on the way out, couldn’t do enough for us, great in flight entertainment, good food. Return trip was dire cabin crew looked like they just got out of bed and everyone of them must have been drawing their pension and everything was an effort. In flight entertainment didn’t work, food was vile. So both ends of the spectrum.
Everything was generally more expensive, exchange rate worse than it is now.
We planned to the nth degree to get the best out of fast passes and extra magic hours as it has definitely got busier the past few years.
I never find the food in the parks too bad if you’re choosey. We stay onsite so ate at Disney Springs quite a lot in the evenings , love Gaston’s for a Cinnamon roll for breakfast. Best meal of the holiday was Rainforest cafe in Animal Kingdom.
We didn’t do Universal this time as only there for 9 nights.
Have a fabulous holiday - we love it

If off-site remember you now have to pay for Disney parking 20$ a day.

Yeah I think there are $20 parking for all parks, it’s gone up from the $18 it was when we were last there.

I’ve joined the Facebook group thanks for that tip.

I'm afraid the parking has gone up again- it was 25 dollars for Disney and 28 dollars for universal in August 2019!

Not sure about breakfast, we tried Denny's but weren't impressed. We just got things from the supermarket. If you want to book a Disney character breakfast we loved Tasker House in Animal Kingdom.

Another good eating place to register for vouchers for is Sweet Tomato, self service style salad - a good change from burgers and chips!

I’m picky and I never found the parks to have crap food. Saying that, didn’t eat at universal.

Disney, we ate steak, salads and sandwiches. Occasional treats and burgers.

STK in Disney Springs was the best dinner we had in September followed by Wolfgang Puck’s. We found a lot of the others were fairly poor choice and some like Olive Garden seemed a bit gritty. Found some good buys at the outlet shops, particularly sportswear.