Flo

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

December 2006

More skateboarding and shopping

Love being in Florida for the New Year.  This year we flew out on boxing day and had the first night in a hotel before heading over to the house.

The first order of the day was to get stocked up for a party as we had friends coming round for a BBQ. All were fellow villa owners both from Eagle Pointe and other areas.

  As every villa owner knows there is no trip to Florida without a bit of work so the lads were roped in for a bit of furniture removal before they were allowed to settle down with a beer and a burger. The Mohito's were flowing and a great time was had by all. The adults were chilled around the BBQ and the kids were in the pool!

Once the grandparents had arrived we decided to spend a day at Cypress Gardens. This is one of the oldest parks in Florida and was refurbished in 2006 so deserved a visit. There are no great thrill rides here but there are plenty of rides and attractions that might appeal to younger children and grandparents. The park also has a arena that hosts various concerts throughout the year. These are included in the price of the entrance ticket so it is worth visiting the web site to check if there is anything on when you are there. You also get another day's entrance free when you buy a ticket

All in all we enjoyed our day at Cypress Gardens. The only disappointment was that we had missed the Trace Atkins concert!

The Grafton score is 2.

The rest of the week in Orlando was spent at Van's, Cocoa Beach, Typhoon Lagoon and the Orlando Watersport's park - All the usual places :-)

Then, as we had guests arriving, we packed up the Xmas decorations and headed off to the Gulf coast for our final week.

Grafton's on the beach

We went to the beach at Manatee a few times.

We had rented a house at Bradenton over on the Gulf Coast for the week - no hotels for us as we have been spoilt by having all the space and amenities of a villa for too long! The house for very near the coast so we spent some time on the beach burying Sam and building sandcastles. There was a fantastic little cafe on the beach where we had great Fish and Chips while watching the sunset.

The only downside as far as the boys were concerned were the lack of decent waves as they love to body board.

Another great treat was the day we saw a school of dolphins playing near the beach.

Sam really wanted to swim out to them but they just kept out of his reach!

Busch Gardens Tampa

As you can see from this shot Busch Gardens was really busy!! This is why we love to visit in January. The weather is nicer than the UK and the crowds are nowhere to be seen.

This was also the year that Sam decided he was a roller coaster fiend after all. He joined Connor and Lee on all the huge coaster while Jan held all the bags and watched ( well someone has to do it!) Needless to say they were kept busy riding the coasters as there were no lines and they could go on as many times as the wanted - which they did until closing time and we were thrown out. Then it was back to the villa for a relax in the pool and a glass of wine in the spa.

The rest of our week was spent visiting the beach and Sarasota, where we found another great skate park and a science museum called GWiz. Again it was not busy and we had a fund afternoon looking round the exibits which were all very hands on. All too soon it was time to pack our bags and head home - but first...

Natural Park January 2007

we checked out of our  villa and as the flight was not until the evening we checked out one of the local parks near Tampa. This was a great water hole although the water was low. In the summer the water levels are up to the top of the fence around the pool.

Still there were some great picnic spots and play areas for the kids - I bet in the summer this place gets real busy. We also stopped at a Golf range on the way home and let the kids hit some balls off. Then it was time to head for Tampa and the airport - but not before a final meal at Casterways' on the causeway where we watched to sun go down and began planning our next trip to Florida in 2007.

We give the Gulf Coast a 2 1/2 - well we do love Cocoa so!!