Flo

	LJCS Villa's
	Eagle Pointe, Kissimmee, Florida
	A family owned villa for family holidays

The Graftons and Eagle Heights

The Graftons are a family of 4 living in Wiltshire.  We honeymooned in Florida and promised ourselves we would go back when the children were old enough.  Summer of 2003 rolled around and the Grafton's boarded Virgin Atlantic for one of the best holidays we ever had.

The theme parks were great, the weather was lovely, we got to the beach a couple of times and did lots of other things like swamp tours, a bit of baseball batting practice, go-karting and miniature golf.  We stayed in a rented villa and enjoyed the whole thing so much we decided to go back later that year and buy a villa of our own.

We searched for a villa that would be perfect for us to stay in on holiday (now we own the villa we are there maybe three times a year!) and found Eagle Pointe.  The house has 4 bedrooms, 3 bathrooms a pool and lots of other great features.

We hope you will book with us and have as good a time in Florida as we do every time we come.

Things we like to do

People go to Florida for the weather and the theme parks.  The list of those things is in our attractions section.  We thought we would add a small list of other things that we liked to do when we were in Florida.  This is a summary and we have started adding more detailed pages and photo's for some of these. If you come across something off the beaten track that was good - let us know on jan@ljcs.net and we will put up a page.

Skateboarding Dude
The boys are getting older and love to skateboard. Fortunately there is one of the best skate parks in the world in Orlando called Vans Skate Park <more>

Go hit some baseballs
A cheap, fun thing to do as a family is to go to the Osceola County Softball Complex and go in the batting cages.  Any age can have a go (our son was 5 the first time and he just loved it!) The only rule is that you must have shoes that cover the whole foot (no open toe sandals) to bat.  It costs $5 for 15 minutes and you will be exhausted by the end of it as this is a lot of balls (about 60 swings!) To get to the complex go east on 192 to John Young Parkway, and turn left.  Go along this road for a couple of miles and just after you think you have missed it, it is on the left opposite Lowes Do It Yourself shop.  It takes about 15 minutes max from the villa and the kids will love it!

Have Breakfast at the Golden Coral
Everybody heads for The Ponderosa but you cannot beat The Golden Coral for breakfast.  I love the omelettes which they make for you fresh, but they have absolutely everything else you could want, all for fixed price.  You even get breakfast Pizza's if you want (yuk!)  You will find this place if you go east on the 192 for a few miles (it is on the left near The Sporting Authority.)

Body Surf at Cocoa Beach
To get to beach takes just under an hour and is well worth it.  Take the I4 North and the take the turning for Kennedy Space Centre.  Follow the road until you get to the 520 to Cocoa Beach. You go through the town of Cocoa (which looks a bit rough!) and then across the causeway to Cocoa Beach itself (about 15 minutes after Cocoa.)  You just keep driving until you hit the beach by Ron Jon's and turn left along the beach road. Our advice would be to head down the coast about 5 minutes until you find the Pier and camp there for the day (the clue as to where the pier is, is the large PIER sign on the right - turn just after that and there is a car park.)  The pier has toilets, showers and a great bar where you can have lunch (and a beer!) while watching the kids play on the beach.  Friday and Saturdays there is even a band - does not get any better than this and is one our favourite days out - heck we even stayed for a week!!

I have included some basic tips on body boarding here if you want to try it.  Have a quick read and it will improve your day on the beach.  If you have any more tips. let me know and I will happily publish them - Lee

Wakeboarding and Knee skiing

If your children like to skateboard and body board - they are going to loooooove this!!  Basically, its a huge lake with a cable that goes round it constantly.  Running down from the cable are hand grips which allow you to ski round and round the lake. If they are very good they can wake board (which is basically standing on a mini surf board) or if they have never done anything like this they can knee ski, where you kneel down on a board and get dragged along.  They also do normal skiing with the one or two skis.

Even if you have never done this before I bet you will be able to knee ski after a couple of goes.  I watched a 6 year old, tiny little girl do this for the first time this summer.  I bet her parents still have not got the smile off her face :-)

Children under 10 must have a lesson first time they go.  It costs $65 (ouch) but includes 2 hours of skiing so is not too bad.  Both Connor and Sam had the lessons and learned lots.  Connor even learnt to get up on a wakeboard as he was taught by a genuine XGames competitor for his lesson (this is awesome - ask your kids!)

This place is near to the Florida Malls (ish) and if you arrived from Orlando airport during the day time you will probably have seen it on the right. It is called The Orlando Watersports Complex (or OWC) and  more info can be found at their web site.

It runs all year round (unlike the Wet and Wild Knee Ski attraction) and is open from 11 am till 8pm (9 during the summer.)

They have directions on their web site which we found the place with first time.  One word of advice is that you think you are driving off into the middle of nowhere and then it becomes a huge industrial estate / truck park.  Just when you think "this cannot be right" you will see a huge sign for the place with OWC TURN HERE.  Its not too far and it is well worth the day.

If you are going to watch rather than ski, there is quite a nice cafe area so take a book and a towel.  It will almost be like being at the beach while your kids zoom round and round and round......

Here is some videos of the boys at the Complex

Listen to K92FM
Driving around listening to country music on K92FM - you know you are the US now!

Play Miniature Golf
There are lots of these dotted around 192 and the kids love them.  If you go during the day its cheaper, less crowded and you can get some good vouchers for free games.  Be warned though you will cook!  Its better at night when its cooler and all lit up anyway.

Go to the Flea Markets on 192
There are a couple of these dotted along the 192. Don't be put off by the name, they are well worth a look round for presents and souvenirs.

Go Karting and video games at The Fun Spot on International Drive (there is one at Old Town now as well!)

We stumbled onto the first The Fun Spot by accident because it was raining.  Its great!  You can buy wrist bands and race around the 4 go Kart Tracks all day if you want.  If the kids are getting withdrawal symptoms from video games there is also the option to buy a wrist band and play in the video arcade for as long as they want on the second floor.  If your kids are anything like ours they can go through money like water in an arcade but in this case you pay $5.25 and can sit and drink a coffee until they get fed up playing all the latest arcade games.

Indoor sky diving
This is so cool! They have a very big wind tunnel near Wet and Wild. My boys absolutely loved it and were far better than me at it.  Something to do with being small because all the little kids seemed to be able to hold the position much better than any of the dads!  Something really different to talk about when you get home. Here is us doing it in 2006.  Be warned that it costs nearly $100 for two to do this and you get two one minute rides.  The whole experience was an hour but you spent a small amount of time actually doing it.  Still worth the effort once in your life I think.

Being dropped from 300ft
Now - if you are a thrill seeker, you should really try the Skycoaster at Old Town Kissimmee. Think 300ft high rope swing and you get the idea.  They put you in a very flimsy feeling cloth straight jacket and then hoist you up until you are 300 ft in the air.  Really good view of Kissimmee.  Then YOU pull a release handle and plummet 300ft down and swing backwards and forwards for a bit.  Its worth going just to see people doing it, but if you get enough courage up, its well worth it.

Us doing it in 2005!!!

Old Town
While we are on the subject of Old Town, this is really worth a visit. In fact, when we were there in January 2008, we were so impressed by how much work they have done to the Old Town we have put up its own page here and highly recommend you make time for a visit one evening.

Indoor Wakeboarding

I know!  This is fantastic though.  Go to the Florida Mall and park at the Nordstrom entrance and go through to Adrenelina.  Inside the shop they sell all the usual skate boards, ski wear and T-Shirts but they have an indoor wave called a Flowrider.  Its fantastic and the boys loved it! Costs about $15 per half our session and its well worth it. 

A video of the boys trying to do this:

Typhoon Lagoon or Blizzard Beach

Now we know that we could have put these under the Attractions page but the fact is that these are probably the only Disney parks we visit every holiday. Often one of the parks is open and the other is closed for maintenance.  Given the choice we like to go to Typhoon Lagoon because the sand is so much better and we like the lagoon as well.  Here is a video of Jan and her mum enjoying this big wave in January 2008

Typhoon lagoon also has the usual slides and splash pools for the kids and has a fantastic swim through aquarium for free.  They give you a snorkel and a life jacket and basic instruction and off you go.

They also have a great ride called the Gusher Rusher which is like a raft ride but they shoot you up and down slopes on water jets instead of just heading down all the time.  Its great!!

The main reason that we go to these places is that it is like a day at the beach without having to drive to the coast. They have created fake beaches with free to use sun beds and chairs.  Even if you have somebody who does not want to try out a traditional water park will enjoy this as they can just pretend they are on a tropical island.

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