A big hello from orlando :)

We have had a lovely two weeks running around the parks, they really are amazing, like nothing we have ever been to before and we can see what all the hype is about!

So we arrived on my birthday, luckily we were able to check in early, as we both didn't sleep too much on the flight. We spent the day catching up on sleep, and went for a lovely meal at tgi's, it was delicious and we knew we would be back during our stay! Our hotel rosen inn, is perfect. The room is really nice, big and clean and it is a perfect location. We have absolutely loved our two and a half weeks here, Orlando truly feels like we are on holiday.

So the majority of time has been spent getting up early and spending the entire day exploring the six different parks we had tickets to. All the parks were all completely different, but they were all amazing. Luckily the queues have not been bad at all, and we have managed to get on and see everything we wanted to. We haven't had to wait more than 30-45 mins, which is really good, as in the summer holidays it is normal for the wait to be at least two hours!

Our first park we visited was seaworld (this was my favourite). The park consisted of lots of turtles, dolphins, crocodiles, penguins,sharks and lots more, with of course the main attraction being shamu, the killer whale. It also has two massive rollercoasters, manta and kraken, which me and lee tried straight away. We both didn't really like manta, it is made to make you feel like a manta ray swimming around, and it turns you 90 degrees so you are racing downwards, really turns your tummy!!

The highlight of seaworld was definitely the two shows we watched. Our first and much anticipated one, was one ocean, which starred shamu and four other killer whales. The show was fantastic, it was great to see these massive whales so close and to see how well trained they were. I loved it so much I made lee go back again later on in the afternoon. The dolphin show was just as good, and had acrobats diving in from all over the place. The trainers could interact much more with the dolphins, as they are not such a threat, like the whales! It was a truly amazing first day in Florida, and we both loved it, but were absolutely shattered by the end of the day.

The next day, we were up early again, to hit island of adventures. This was a great park and one of lee's favourite. It is incredible how well designed the parks are, and each different section looks so realistic, lee loved the superhero area. Our favourite ride, was a big thrill rollercoaster called the hulk. It is the fastest ride we have been on, it shoots you out of a tunnel, drops and loops. We also loved Spider-man, at stimulator ride, and the water rides.

Island of adventure, is also home to the wizarding world of Harry potter, we decided we would go there a different day so we could spend the whole day exploring hogsmeade and hogwarts. Me and lee both aren't massive Harry potter fans, we have seen only a few of the films but we both loved it. It literally felt like you were in the film when you walked through the gates, it is so clever how it was made and looks so realistic, especially the castle Which was unreal. There were so many shops from the films, you could buy cloaks, wands, chocolate frogs and so much more. Every tiny part, to the decorations in the shop windows to the building structure was so carefully thought out, in so much detail. Me and lee even tried some butter beer, but it wasn't really to our liking, lee much preferred the fizzy candy belts!

We also loved the duelling dragon roller coasters, but the highlight was definitely the Harry potter and the forbidden journey, it is probably the best ride I have been on. The ride is in the castle, which just walking through to queue up is amazing. The ride follows Harry on his broom around the castle, running from enemies and casting spells. It is something you have to go on to understand how good it is! I didn't even think it was possible to make a ride like it! The technology makes it a one of a kind experience. We were gutted as for the past two years they have been building an additional section to Harry potter world. It includes diagon alley, featuring the London embankment and a train ride to hogwarts. The opening date has not been announced, but it is any time now so we have just missed it, but we got to have a sneaky peak over the fence!

Next door to islands of adventure, was universal,it was so good and reminded us a lot of the one in Singapore. The shows were amazing, we loved watching fear factor live, In which the audience perform some scary tasks. The best one to watch was two couples drinking a smoothie like something they make on I am a celeb. Me and lee were both gagging just watching. There was also a horror make up show, it was great to see how universal make some of the scariest figures in movies, and an animal show where we saw Marley from Marley and me. We also witnessed how they make a twister come to life on screen, a terminator show and played a shooting role in men and black (lee won of course). There were many simulator rides, which we loved, including transformers, the Simpsons and ET, and a massive drop rollercoaster called rock it where you pick your song and the mummy. The different sections were amazing and me and lee could really appreciate how good and realistic the san franscico and hollywood sections were, as we have just been there.

We have also visited two water parks, aquatica and wet and wild, both were really good and had some good thrill rides. We particularly loved the rapids, the waves and the lazy river. We went on so many rubber ring rides together which was so much fun, and some racing ones. Lee went on the falls, which I didn't, it was a drop slide, where you stand in a cylinder tube and can hear a heart thumping, when the floor beneath you drops and you go shooting off down the slide. He was so brave he done it twice. He also went on a ride called storm, where you shoot Down a flume and come out in a big bowl spinning round really fast until you fall in any position through the whole into a whirl pool! The water parks were great, especially as it was so hot and made a nice change.

Our final park was busch gardens, this was about an hour and a half away but was defiantly worth it. It is a zoo and a park full of many big thrill rides, which we went on all of them. This had the best rides for our age group and the roller coasters were so long which was great. We went on the longest inverted rollercoaster in the world, the largest wooden track and one which was a 200 foot drop at 90 degrees, it was terrifying especially as lee made me sit at the front. The zoo was also great, the highlight was seeing our first ever silverback gorilla, lee loved asking the keeper loads of questions and we stood there for ages just watching. We also loved watching the cheetahs run they are so fast, and can run the length of a football pitch in 4 seconds, the orangutans and the chimps. We also watched an amazing ice skating show, about a journey to Africa, it was really good. It was a great day and an amazing park.

The Days we have not been at the parks have been spent tanning by our lovely pool, relaxing, watching too much basketball (not my choice) and shopping in the outlets. We have had a few cloudy grey days, but overall weather has been amazing. It is really muggy here, and it has been 34 or higher every day. We have also been for some lovely meals in the evening.

We originally thought about going to miami, however in the end we decided to stay here, as it would be a lot of travelling for only three days and would have worked out more expensive. So we are spending our last days here soaking up the sun, mad lee is enjoying dunking me In the pool, before we fly to New York on Friday morning. We will spend five nights in New York, before we fly back to England on the 18th. We cannot believe we are almost at the end, we have had the most amazing time and seen so many incredible places which we will never forget. We definitely couldn't spend much more time in America though otherwise we would come back obese, the portions are huge!!

We will update soon, with our LAST ever blog entry. We are so sad to be coming home in a week but so excited to see you all, and get rid of our bloody rucksacks!

Lots of love xxx

Ps we will upload all our pictures when we get to our hostel in New York :)