Our Orlando Story: Where the Love Affair with Florida Began

Last updated on January 21st, 2026 at 11:11 pm

I (Leigh) can’t quite put my finger on the exact second my Florida obsession started. I did the usual stuff as a kid, like sitting in the cinema to watch The Little Mermaid and The Lion King. So Disney was in my childhood, as it is most kids.

I think the lightbulb moment happened when a friend went to Florida for a family holiday. I was around 8 years old. I remember the jealousy bubbling up while hearing about him meeting Mickey Mouse and seeing the castle.

I had holidays in Torquay, Wales, Norfolk, and Spain. Those trips gave me memories for life. But Florida? That felt like a different planet. Every kid in the UK grows up watching American TV, and I wanted to go visit and wished I’d been born there every single day.

I also remember watching the opening of Euro Disney in 1992. Now, a Disney park was just on my doorstep, but it still felt so far away.

I spent years daydreaming about going. It took another 8 years after DLP opened before I would set foot in a Disney park.

Then came the year 2000. My parents found a deal at a travel agent in a Supermarket (Asda). Flights and two weeks in Orlando for £500 each. We didn’t stop to think. We just grabbed our bags and ended up on an Air 2000 plane with my parents and sister, flying toward Florida.

They only went in for bread and came out with a Holiday for the family to Florida (Yay parents!)

Kissimmee Pines 2000

We stayed at Kissimmee Pines, just off the 192 and a mile or so from Medieval Times. Nick and I were in a twin room upstairs while the rest of the family took the bottom floor.

The walls were paper-thin. We could hear every single word the family next door said.

My Mum managed to get into the pool for a swim. It was ice cold. How she did that is still a mystery to us.

Even with the thin walls and the freezing water, it was a result for our first trip.

We were just down the road from a humongous Walmart (The one on Vine Street), which started our obsession with that place.

Walking through those doors, the size of the building and the stuff on the shelves blew our minds. For people from the UK, it felt like a shopping theme park.

Every night, no matter how late it was, someone would say, “Shall we stop by Walmart?” on the way back. Without fail, we always ended up there. We would walk out with cheap DVD’s and t shirts.

I remember one night when it was nearly midnight, and we still found our way inside. We bought our first Disney and Universal tickets there, which cost around $41 a day (if only they cost that little now, hey!), along with plenty of other bits and bobs.

I’ll put a photo below of one of our shopping hauls. This one is from 2004, but the 2000 haul would have looked just like it.

On our first trip to Florida, we got around and saw a huge chunk of the place, both inside and outside the parks, all without any sat nav to help us.

We were never a family that only concentrated on the parks nonstop from opening to closing. We love the parks, and they hold a special place in our memories and hearts, but from that very first trip, we knew there was more to Florida than just theme parks

We rented a car, and my Dad took the wheel while we sat in the back, glued to paper maps trying to figure out where we were.

Massive kudos to my Dad for doing the driving back then with 5 people in the back, all shouting directions and telling him where to go.

Our list was packed. We hit Disney, Universal, Kennedy Space Center, the Everglades, Busch Gardens, and even a couple of beaches.

I’m not sure if we planned on returning during that first trip or if it was supposed to be a one-time trip of a lifetime thing. At the time, we were just trying to soak in every second of it because we didn’t know if we’d ever be back.

But four years later, we did it. We went back. This time, we picked a better spot—a three-bedroom villa with a pool just down the street from Give Kids The World

Having your own pool to jump into after a day at the parks was a game-changer compared to the freezing communal one from the first trip!

It was right next door to that massive Walmart, which was a result for us 😂.

We have no shame in saying we still get excited about a trip to Walmart.

We can spend hours in there looking at things we don’t even need. It brings back all those memories from the first time when everything felt so new.

For us, a villa was the way to do Florida. We loved having the space, the kitchen for late-night snacks, and the freedom to come and go.

Back then, staying on-site at Disney or Universal never even crossed our minds. We were happy out in the real world of Kissimmee.

We stuck with villas for every trip after that, right up until 2019. That was our first Florida trip with just the two of us, so we decided to shake things up and stay at the Red Lion Motel.

It was different, but it made us realise how much we appreciate the size and space you get with a villa.

The best thing about a villa is being able to go with friends and family.

You’ve got enough room to spread out so you aren’t constantly in each other’s hair, but you can still all get together for meals, BBQs, and time in the pool or the living room. It just feels more social.

That’s not to say we don’t enjoy staying on-site.

If you’ve watched the vlogs, you’ll know we’ve stayed in a fair few Disney hotels over the years. But for the most part, if the price is right, we’d pick a villa every single time.

So, we owe a massive thanks to our parents for finally getting us to Florida. If they hadn’t been doing the shop in Asda that day and spotted that deal, who knows when we would have finally made it over there.

I really think that first trip—where we spent as much time exploring outside the parks as we did inside them—laid the groundwork for how we still do our trips today.

We love Disney and the other parks, obviously, but we’ve always had that urge to see what else is out there, both in Orlando and further afield.

There is so much more to discover once you leave the tourist bubble, and for us, that’s what adds that extra dimension to the holiday. It’s about the whole experience, not just the rollercoasters.

We ended up making several more trips to Florida throughout the 2000s with our friends, including our lovely Sazzle, who just loved Animal Kingdom, before eventually heading back with the whole family in January 2019.

By then, the family had grown, and we had two little girls in tow.

It was a completely different way to see the place, but just as brilliant. You can watch our whole 2019 trip with the family and girls below

For us, Florida started as a family holiday, and it still brings back all those memories every time we land.

It has that warm, familiar feel to it, full of laughs and good times.

Over the years, we’ve made friends with locals who have become very dear to us.

Going back to Florida now also means a chance to reunite with those people. We always have someone to meet, someone to have a laugh with, and someone to head off on an adventure with.

Florida has become a home away from home for us. Even though we always want to see more of the world and sometimes take a break from the Sunshine State, we can say for sure that Florida will always have a special place in our hearts.

Let us know in the comments below—how did your love of Florida begin?

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