Tag Archives: Florida

My Floridian holiday (Summer Holiday Part 1)

I made it!

Finally after 3 years of waiting I got to go on my 2020 summer holiday. If this is the first blog post that you are reading you may want to read ‘Is summer here??’. Now this holiday is going to be split into 2 parts; part 1 is going to be about Orlando Florida and the Universal parks, part 2 is going to be about my Caribbean cruise on Harmony of the Seas.

On Thursday 10th August I travelled to Heathrow airport and flew out to Orlando Florida. When we arrived at the airport we found out that for this flight my dad had upgraded us to premium economy as well as booking us into the Club Aspire lounge.

A picture containing an LED screen which is mounted on the wall. The screen primarily has a black background but there is some yellow at the top of the screen and white in the middle. the screen says Lounge D club aspire lounge pay on entry passengers welcome open 01:00 - 22:00
a picture taken inside of club aspire of an LED sign which reads Club Aspire with a symbol which looks like a > sign
a picture of part of the buffet in the club aspire lounge there is salad, cheese peppers and hummus in the picture
another picture of food at the buffet in club aspire this picture contains rice, pulled pork in some kind of sauce and some more salad.
a picture of a Virgin Atlantic plane taken from a window. you can see a cloudy sky in the top of the picture with the plane sat on the tarmac at the front of the picture
a picture of the front of the menu provided in Virgin Atlantic premium economy it is a white card menu says Hello You
a picture of the second page in the menu provided in Virgin Atlantic premium economy it is a white card menu which says welcome onboard it's lovely to have you here
a picture of the third page in the menu provided in Virgin Atlantic premium economy it is a white card menu which says After take off Settle in with a drink and we'll be along with your meal shortly after Starter Caprese salad with mozzarella, tomatoes and basil pesto (v) Served with a kaiser roll and butter Mains (choice of) Mini chicken and leek pie with spring onion mash, chervil cream and kale Barbecue pulled pork with a sweetcorn salsa, white rice and crispy onions Spinach and ricotta tortellini with sage butter sauce, roasted pumpkin and caper panko crumb (v Dessert Passion fruit and mango cheesecake garnished with coconut (v) A bite later on Served 90 minutes before landing Mile high tea (V Cheese and pickle salad, cream cheese and roasted red pepper finger sandwiches Salted caramel éclair and poppyseed battenberg mini patisserie Warm scone, clotted cream and strawberry jam or Mile high picnic Chicken caesar finger sandwiches Smoked salmon blini and mini pork pie Aged cheddar with crackers and Tiptree's onion relish Monty Bojangles flutterscotch chocolate (v) And after all, there's the Wander Wall If you're feeling a bit peckish, feel free to wander up to the galley and help yourself to some tasty treats or a drink. (V)
a picture of the fourth page in the menu provided in Virgin Atlantic premium economy it is a white card menu which says Drinks Wine list White - Sauvignon blanc, Dry Red - Malbec, Smooth Rosé - Pale and dry Bubbles If you're celebrating, or just love a bit of bubbly, we have mini bottles available to purchase. Take a look at your Retail Therapy magazine for more info Beer Brewdog Lost Lager | Brewdog Hazy Jane IPA (on select routes) | Brooklyn Pilsner (on select routes) | Cobra Lager (on select routes) Spirits and liquor Eristoff Vodka | Bombay Sapphire Gin | Bacardi Carta Blanca Rum | Bacardi Cuatro Rum | Dewars Whisky | Jack Daniels Bourbon Soft drinks Coke | Coke Zero | Fever Tree Lemonade | Fever-Tree Ginger Ale | Fever-Tree Naturally Light Tonic Water | Orange juice | Apple juice | Cranberry juice | Tomato juice | Still and sparkling water Hot drinks Coffee with Change Please Change Please are an award-winning coffee company who use 100% of their profits to support people experiencing homelessness. Tea Twinings English Breakfast Tea Twinings Sleep Spiced Apple and Vanilla with Camomile and Passionflowers. A warming blend to send you to the land of nod Twinings Digest Spearmint, Apple and Rooibos with Baobab Twinings Defence Citrus and Ginger with Green Tea & Echinacea Cadbury's hot chocolate
a picture of the afternoon tea served in the premium economy there is two finger sandwiches, a small square of Battenburg cake, a chocolate eclair,
another picture of the afternoon tea this one is of a scone which has cream and then jam on

I will admit this did make the whole process of checking in and waiting at the airport less stressful for me and I felt a lot more relaxed going into the flight. We did sign up for assistance at the airport and got fast-tracked through security and we did get priority boarding for the plane but as my mum was with us we needed minimal assistance but what we received from the staff was great. Again this did make the process less stressful which is always a bonus.

a ;picture of the Portofino Bay hotel it is a posh looking hotel with a facade meant to replicate the style used in Portofino Italy there is a lake in foreground of the picture which reflects the building on its surface, the buildings are a mixture of yellow, red and pink.

We landed at about 8pm and got to the hotel around 9:30pm. We were staying at the Portofino Bay hotel which is a Universal hotel meaning we got early to the parks. For early admission you are allowed in from 8am and there were two rides you could go on at this time which were Hagrid’s Motorbike or Velococoaster. These are the two newest rollercoasters but there was a massive difference in wait time. For example Velococoaster was 15 minutes when the park was open to all guests but Hagrid’s Motorbike was 50 minutes long at 8am when the park is only open to early admission guests.

We decided to spend a couple of hours everyday either in Islands of adventure or Universal Studios. The heat was just too much to be spending full days in the parks; so we opted to spend a couple of hours and then head back to our hotel for a few hours before adventuring back out to City Walk for food.

a slightly blurry picture of Amy stood in front of the universal globe at night. Amy has dirty blonde short hair she has a small smile on her face. Amy is quite far away from the globe so you can see the word universal on the globe and to the right of the picture you can see the arch which is the entrance to the universal studios section of the park

I loved a lot of this holiday but the thing that both shocked and amazed me was the amount of knowledge and acceptance that the staff at universal seemed to have for visual impairments, well disabilities in general. The fact that I could walk up to a ride with my white cane and get help with the whole ride process made me feel included like I was everyone else. Yes at a certain point in the ride queue I would be asked if I wanted to use the lift to get to the ride station and at that point I would go a different way to everyone else. But on the whole I felt so much more included.


The kind of help I was offered honestly depended on the ride for some rides I would have the moving walkway slowed down, for others I would be able to have my cane one the ride but most I had to give it to a ride attendant. For a majority of the rides I would go to a different loading area whether that just be the opposite side to the normal loading area or a custom built one like they had on forbidden journey.

This amount of accessibility and thoughtfulness really did make my holiday that much better as it allowed me to be like anyone else who was visiting the parks.

There were some days when we didn’t visit the parks but on these days we still went out either to Universals waterpark Volcano Bay, walking down International drive, visiting SeaWorld or even Hotel hopping to different Universal owned hotels.

a picture of the hard rock hotel sign on the floor at the hotel the logo is round with a dark blue background with yellow writing at the bottom right of the picture there is a projected clock
a picture of Amy who has dirty blonde hair is wearing dark sunglasses and a small smile. Amy is standing in front of the fountain outside the hard rock hotel the fountain has a sculpture of guitars in the middle
a picture of the plastic donut chair which sits outside the voodoo doughnuts shop on city walk. the chair is pale pink and has various different doughnuts on
a close up picture of two Orca who have their tails in the air and are on top of a platform.
a picture outside the front of volcano bay the sign is made up of individual sections which each have one letter in and fountain at the bottom

I enjoyed everything in the first half of my delayed holiday and there was even more to come.

If you want to know what I thought of each ride at Universal Orlando go the Islands of Adventure Ride Ranking or Universal Studios Ride Ranking.

To read about the Caribbean cruise I went on go to Harmony of the Seas 2023