Places I've Been... By State

Walt Disney World is a destination unto itself. Four Theme Parks, two nightclub areas, five golf courses, two miniature golf courses, two water parks and more resort hotel rooms than you can shake a stick at. It's the undisputed king of vacation resorts, and with good reason. They can provide an experience unmatched anywhere else in the world.

This link will take you to the Theme Park pages.

Walt Disney World runs 26 full service hotels, with around 27,500 rooms, from "value" (somewhat low-end) hotels to very opulent high-end rooms and suites, and even to Disney's own version of a timeshare, they can accommodate almost any level of service desired.

The Walt Disney World Resorts have their own page, with images for around 17 of those hotels.

Universal Orlando is Disneyworld's biggest competition in Central Florida. Islands of Adventure, one of the two Theme Parks here, is an equal to any Disney park in America in terms of themeing, attractions, food and ambiance. Anyway, with two Theme Parks, three on-site hotels (run by Loews Hotels) and a nightclub venue, it's more like Disneyworld than anything else East of the San Andreas Fault.

This link will take you to the Theme Park pages.

The hotels at Universal Orlando are all run by Loews, who owns hotels on the high-end of the luxury spectrum in any city they have a presence in. Universal Orlando, like Disneyland, only has three hotels on property. The lower-end, "partner" hotels are offsite.

This link will take you to the Universal Orlando Resorts page in Theme Parks.

Kennedy Space Center is the real deal. It's history, it's facts, and it's deals more with reality than any other theme park in Florida. But in the end, reality never could compete with Fantasy and Thrill Rides.

This link will take you to the Theme Park pages.

SeaWorld Orlando (to me) is a day trip, and if you've never there, I'd recommend the visit. They too, like Universal, has to compete with Disneyworld, so there's a lot of Disneyesque type venues, but underneath it all, it's a bunch of creatures that have a lot of learned behaviors. Just like us.

This link will take you to the Theme Park pages.

I vacationed in Florida a lot. Mostly to the Theme Parks, but there were trips to various Gulf beaches associated with those trips. I found myself maintaining a bunch of very small pages for some of those trips. A pain. With the version 5 update, I took all five Florida Gulf Cities I had pictures of, and combined them to a single page...

Those cities are: Pensacola Beach, Siesta Key, Marcos Island, Key West and Venice.

Inn at the Beach is a motel right across the street from Venice beach.

I stayed in a unique, small room (which I suppose could be a second bedroom to the suite next door if you use the connecting door), which faced the Gulf of Mexico. Too bad the weather was crap, but I can hardly blame the management for that. :)

Here's a quote about Everglades National Park in The Complete Guide to America's National Parks:

"Mosquitoes and other biting insects make camping and backcountry use during the summer rainy season virtually unbearable by all but the most dedicated outdoors person."

'Nuff said.