Orlando 2025 Part 1: Disney Springs
We decided to take an early spring vacation to Orlando, Florida at the end of March. Given the current political climate, you might be wondering if this was a wise choice. In my defense, we booked this vacation back in December of 2024, before Donald Trump started his tariff war against my country and announced his desire to annex Canada. We actually considered cancelling this trip, but realized we would be losing money and missing out on a unique opportunity to return to a place my wife and I had visited 29 years ago. We didn’t feel the political climate was going to improve at any point in the foreseeable future, and it’s hard enough for the three of us (my son, my wife, and myself) to get a week off from our jobs at the same time, so we decided to take one last trip to the United States before all hell really breaks loose.
One concern I had was with Canadians traveling to the US who were being detained without due process for doing “Work” in the US or for posting unflattering things about the Tangerine Mussolini in their social media feeds. Not being a citizen of the US means neither I nor my family have any rights under the current administration; we might as well be traveling to North Korea as far as our human rights are concerned. For this reason, I decided to leave my Pentax KP DSLR, lenses, and tripod behind. With my trusty Panasonic HC-V800 camcorder in hand, I blended in as the kind of foreign tourist Americans want to see in their country, and so we breezed right through US Customs and Border Protection and on to our Air Canada flight.
We left our home in southern Ontario just as an ice storm was settling in, and the ride was bumpy with turbulence, so the coffee I was hoping for was not served. We were boarded by 11:52 am, and were walking off the plane by 3:05 pm.
One of the most interesting features of the Orlando International Airport is the use of trains to ferry passengers along raised rails to and from the gates. There are two trains assigned to each of four gate nodes. Unfortunately, for the remainder of our trip, we would have to settle for a less civilized mode of transportation; the Budget rental car.
I was hoping for the “Full sized” Toyota Camry or similar promised during booking. Instead, I got a “Free upgrade” to an underwhelming and abused Mazda CX-50 compact crossover that constantly lost air pressure from the front passenger side tire. This was no budget, as I got hit with over $200 in charges over and above the rental fee for things I was lead to believe were covered, perhaps because they knew I was Canadian and couldn’t do anything about it. No matter; lesson learned, and we still had plenty of fun.
Our first stop was our hotel; the Holiday Inn resort at Disney Springs. Ours was a 3rd floor room with a balcony overlooking the hotel swimming pool. Our room was very clean and came with two queen sized beds, a bar fridge, a microwave, and a 50" television with satellite TV, and plenty of outlets to charge our phones and gear.
As is our tradition whenever traveling to the US, our first meal was dinner at Burger King. Everything was very fresh, and this Burger King was within a 20 minute walk from our hotel, so this became one of our favourite spots for breakfast and dinner. Since it was outside of the resort area, the prices were not inflated, though still not as good as what we pay in Canada.
We decided we would spend our first full day in Florida at the Holiday Inn at Disney Springs resort, and started our morning like we would every morning while in Florida; in the hotel’s well appointed gym.
Breakfast was at Burger King, and we enjoyed walking along the scenic, winding path we took to get there and back.
Most of our day was spent in the pool.
Of course, we had to go to Costo at around lunch time to stock up the mini fridge in our room…
…and to have Costco’s famous $1.50 hot dog and drink combo for lunch.
But the day was mostly about spending time in and around the pool and hottub to rest up for a big day to come.
Disney Springs was a very short and leisurely walk from our hotel, so our second full day was spent there.
Even though Disney Springs is an outdoor shopping mall that is open to the public, and costs nothing unless you actually buy something, everyone still had to go through armed security and have their bags checked. At least we didn’t need to take off our shoes. Is this the future of shopping in America?
However, once inside, we really felt like we were in a completely different world. Everything was very clean, and uplifting music was being pumped through speakers that could be heard everywhere.
Right near the enterance, there is a Christmas store that’s open all year round.
The World of Disney and the Lego stores are amazing…
…and there are huge Lego sculptures everywhere, even in the water.
In Disney Springs, there is a car that is also a boat that people can experience.
This is where they launch the amphibious cars from.
People can pay to go for a ride up in a helium balloon, which wasn’t everyone’s cup of tea, but combined with the amphibious cars definitely brought a flavour of the 1964-65 World’s Fair to this unique place.
This place really is a shopper’s paradise, with premium American brand stores and prices to match.
But if you loiter in front of the World of Disney for too long, Stitch will spit on you.
We ended our day by relaxing in the pool once more. We could have spent the week at Disney Springs, but we had tickets to spend the rest of the week at Universal Studios, which will be the topic of my next post.