GRISWOLDDAD
Parenting, Entertainment, and Travel Tips
Things to Do in Florida
*Florida has a lot of yearly events, to see the ones in central Florida, click here. For northern Florida, click here. For the Fort Lauderdale area, click here. Then, for Miami, click here. Finally, for all the events of the Florida Keys, click here.
Beaches
Whether it's Daytona, Palm, Cocoa, Fort Lauderdale, or Destin, Florida is known for some really great beaches complete with boardwalks, nightclubs, restaurants, amusement rides, arcades, ice cream parlors, cotton candy, miniature golf, and everything else you'd imagine with fun at the beach.
West coast beaches, like Destin, are covered in white sands, while east coast has the waves. Fort Lauderdale, for example, felt more for the singles and partying while Daytona seemed more of a family atmosphere. If you do go to Fort Lauderdale, be sure to go to the Las Olas area to find the best food in town.
Canaveral
Cape Canaveral is the home of Nasa's Kennedy Space Center. You can tour the launch complex, see the astronaut hall of fame, or even watch a space shuttle launch!
Clearwater
This town has been made famous by the moving yet fun Dolphin Tale movies that were filmed here. To find the aquarium that was made famous by Winter, the dolphin without a tail, go to Clearwater Marine Aquarium. If you haven't seen those movies, they rank among the perfect family movies. They're pure heart and good fun and teach valuable lessons of trying hard to succeed and acceptance.
Crystal River
If you've heard of people swimming with manatees, this is probably where they went to do it. These are harmless, sweet, friendly giants of the sea. It's an amazing experience to be able to get in and swim with them and pet them (if they let you). I add that last part because the tour companies AND THE LAW are very specific about not bothering the manatees and letting them come to you, but in my experience that wasn't a problem at all because they were very friendly and came right to us.
The manatees are there year-round, but during January to March, there are many, many more than the rest of the year due to their migrating habits. (You wear a wetsuit to keep warm, don't worry.)
Need help finding a tour company? River Ventures, Sunshine River Tours, Birds Under Water, and Native Vacations all offer manatee swims.
Everglades
This is an unparalleled landscape in southern Florida made of tropical wetlands and happens to be the largest subtropical wilderness in the US. Lots of fun adventures can be made here, riding airboats, seeing alligators, and watching alligator wrestling!
There are literally tons of places offering these Everglades experiences, but a few notables: Gator Park, Captain Jack's Airboat Tours, Sawgrass Recreation Park, and Everglades Safari Park.
Florida Keys
Between Key West, Islamorada, Marathon, Key Largo and all of the smaller islands...the Keys need their own page! Click here.
Miami
Here's some imagery for you, Miami Vice, Burn Notice, and Dexter...so Miami can be a scary place, but it can also be a fun place known for nightclubs and beaches, like South Beach and Miami Beach. Suggestion: find some good, authentic Cuban food while here!
Monkey Jungle is a protected habitat for primates and has around 400 animals roaming free for visitors to see while walking through tunnels of cages. Its tagline is "where the humans are caged and the monkeys run wild."
Orlando
This is, of course, the theme park capital of the world: Disney World, Universal Studios Florida, Sea World Orlando, LEGOLAND Florida, there's even one called Gatorland that is a themepark based in an alligator preserve.
There are apps you can download to see wait times at Disney and Universal. There are SO many ways to plan successful attacks on these large theme parks (yes attacks, because you want to squeeze in as MUCH of the parks as you can while still managing to have fun.) Disney does a good job with fast pass + and the ability to get more fast passes throughout your Disney day in order to avoid all those LONG wait times.
Also, when visiting the characters throughout Disney, for autographs or just for fun, be sure to try to interact with them. These guys are trained well to be in character. Most people just get their pictures and move on...but hand a fork to Ariel? She'll get super excited for the "dinglehopper". Show a kid sock to Mike & Sully? They will run scared. Mickey has a couple of different reactions if asked why he hasn't proposed to Minnie. For us, he held his hands out towards Minnie for my boys to propose, IF they were so interested! I think our favorite character was Tinkerbell though. We didn't do anything specific with her, though I bet she'd have had a reaction if we told her we didn't believe in fairies. She was just VERY energetic and adorable and great with the kids.
A good site to look at for advice on Disney, including when to go, fast pass processes, where to stay, character breakfasts, etc: http://www.disneytouristblog.com/disney-world-trip-planning-guide/.
As mentioned above, Disney (and also Universal) are so much more than rides. They have shows, character meet 'n greets, really cool places to eat, really cool places to eat WHILE meeting characters, and awesome places to stay.
We have stayed in Animal Kingdom, which is likely the most beautiful of the Disney resorts, and The Art of Animation. Here's a tip: No matter which one you stay in, you are allowed to go to the amenities of the others! So, Art of Animation has a pool that has Little Mermaid character statues all around it and plays music while you're underwater! If you stay at one of the other resorts, you can still get in that pool. We loved both, and it would be hard to pick a favorite because they both had really different, neat things. Art of Animation was very colorful with character statues from Little Mermaid, Lion King, and Cars all around. Plus, there's multiple pools including the one with that underwater music. The Animal Kingdom Lodge looks as if you've stepped into Africa. Zebras and Giraffes walk around in the back of the resort, there's a giant pool, and they have a lot of activities including a marshmallow cookout.
There are also a lot of really fun places to eat, ranging from dineresque, like the 50's Primetime Cafe or the Galactic Grill on Magic Kingdom's Tomorrowland (in which an animatronic alien sings you dinner tunes) to fancier fare, like the restaurants in Beauty and the Beast's Castle or Cinderella's Castle. You'll want to book these castle dinners well in advance. I think our favorite, though (and it's a HARD choice), was the Sci-Fi Dine-in Theater in Hollywood Studios. The "tables" are all in a series of cars that are lined up as if they are parked in an outside drive-in theater. While you eat, you get to watch cheesy clips of old sci-fi movies. Really cheesy. We had dinner at the Ohana Cafe...and I thought they'd never stop bringing food! Regardless of WHERE you eat, everywhere we ate food at Disney was amazing.
Universal is filled with a variety of really creative rides and areas. They have everything from Dr. Seuss and Spongebob and Despicable Me to Harry Potter, Fast and the Furious, Jurassic Park, Marvel, and Simpsons! Most of these aren't just one or two rides, they are entire lands where a LOT of thought and creativity has been poured into every detail, including the rides, the buildings, the decorations, even the restaurants and food!
For the most part, the rides are aimed a for a little older audience than Disney, but both parks are fun for the whole family. One difference I did notice, however, was the characters. As said above, the characters at Disney are very interactive and trained to play along with any reference to their characters' movies and shows. But, they are nice. Always. Universal, however? They talk smack! Donkey from Shrek and Megatron from Transformers really get going with the family-friendly trash talk. It's hilarious!
Well, shoot. Nickelodeon Resort has turned into a Holiday Inn Resort since last we visited. You used to be able to do character meets with most of the Nick cartoon characters, get slimed in the waterpark and join in to a nightly "Double Dare" gameshow. Sadly, that's all been swapped out, but Karisma Hotels, has worked out a deal with Nickelodeon and so, you should be seeing hotels like I'm describing popping up. There's already one in Punta Cana and Mexico.
Sea World, Legoland, and Gatorland round out the Orlando Amusement/Theme parks. Sea World, much like Disney's Animal Kingdom donate a lot of their proceeds to animal rescue. That's why, again similar to Animal Kingdom, they have quite a few animals to view while traversing the park.
Sea World has been around longer than Animal Kingdom, though, and is known for not just its aquarium attractions and rides, but for its Animal shows. Dolphin flips, seal tricks, there's the hilarious pirate show with otters and sea lions. The big show, though, the one everyone knows about, the one everyone goes to see is the whale show: Shamu. It's amazing to see animals that big doing the tricks and flips. It's a lot of fun. You just have to decide how close you want to sit, because the closer you sit, you WILL get wet!
St. Augustine
St. Augustine is the oldest continuously occupied city in the US. Alligator farms (St. Augustine Alligator Farm), a beach (St. Augustine Beach), St. Augustine Lighthouse, Spanish missions (Mission of Nombre de Dios), Fort Matanzas, and the Castillo de San Marcos...this place is overflowing with history! Castillo is the biggest attraction there, and the tour can take from 1-2 hours. This fort was originally built to project the Spanish from the British and pirates!
Tampa
Tampa has big league sports, aquariums, zoos...and just in case you thought Florida was running low on theme parks, it has Busch Gardens, Tampa, filled with crazy rollercoasters! Also, within Tampa, there's the historic Ybor City neighborhood, which used to be a huge cigar making town, is now the Latin quarter of Tampa with an old world charm. Ybor is filled with fabulous restaurants, many with amazing Cuban food, like Carmine's Restaurant and Bar. Ybor is also known for its nightclubs and bars and plenty of family fun near Ybor City Center.
