pistonbroke
10-12-2003, 00:20
We recently got back from 19 wonderful days in Florida and had the most amazing holiday. I'm so glad I found this web-site while doing my intial research as it was invaluable in helping us find the right accommodation and planning our trip.
When I put in a request for a private villa, I was amazed at the swift resonse. I think I got about 75 emails in the first 24 hours.
We settled on Huckleberry-House in Thousand Oaks mainly for it's location as there are no other pools/cages in sight and it backed onto a lovely natural lake. Lesley, the owner answered all my numerous questions very speedily and was a joy to deal with. Although it had 5 bedrooms and there mainly only 2 of us, it was the perfect choice. The house is beautifully furnished and the bed in the Master Bedroom SO comfortable - I didn't want to leave it! We asked for the pool heating to be turned up on the first day (it was the middle of November) and no sooner than asked for it was done!
The location of the villa was great in our opinion. Just 5 minutes from the I4, 10 minutes or so to Disney and 20-25mins to Universal. It was just SO easy to get anywhere. There were shops close by in Champions Gate so running out of something was never an issue.
We enjoyed the theme parks very much, particularly Islands of Adventure. We are front seat roller coaster junkies and loved every one we went on. Our favourite was Kraken but Montu, Hulk and Duelling Dragons run it very close.
The highlight of our trip was swimming with wild Manatees at Homossassa Springs. These awesome, docile creatures only come into the river between November and March. It involved an overnight stay at a local hotel as the trip started at 6am. It's a 90 minute drive from Thousand Oaks so the alternative was a VERY early start! We were amazed at the size of the creatures, one was the size of a hippo! They are very inquisitive and some are incredibly friendly. Although you aren't meant to touch them, they seemed desparate to be touched and rolled around in front of you daring you to stroke them. We took lots of photo's with our underwater camera (without flash)but they kept coming too close to get a good shot. Although we were given 12mm wet suits to wear, I had to get out of the water after about 45 minutes as I was so cold. The water is a constant 72 degrees so I hadn't expected to shiver so much. My husband stayed in a further 20 minutes as one of the Manatees wouldn't leave him alone and kept wanting to interact. We deliberately chose Sunshine River Tours as this company offered boat trips with a maximum of 10 and were very glad we did as when we were leaving, another company pitched up with about 24 on board. They leapt into the water and were surrounding the animals and taking flash photography - none of which is allowed (you are briefed beforehand) but I was very pleased to see guys in kayaks doing voluntary Manatee watch and they soon had the situation under control. Captain Mike never hurried us at all and was a great source of information, although a quiet kind of chap we soon warmed to his dry sense of humour. We certainly would have no hesitation recommending them (if it's allowed on this forum) as the tour was tremendous value for money and Captain Mike and his deckhand Doreen made it very special indeed. Both my husband and I were 'high as kites' after our amazing experience and would do it again in a heartbeat! There is also a Wildlife Park in Homosassa so a full could be spent there. In fact, I could quite happily stay up there for a week - it's such a nice place.
Our first 4 days were spent down The Keys. Key West is very unique and really grows on you, it's vibrant, bizarre, with a real bohemian mix of people and steeped in history. We'd planned to do some diving but the weather wasn't brilliant at the beginning of the holiday. We did swim with dolphins at Dolphins Plus in Key Largo, a nice experience if you can close your mind to the confined spaces that these creatures live in. They are
When I put in a request for a private villa, I was amazed at the swift resonse. I think I got about 75 emails in the first 24 hours.
We settled on Huckleberry-House in Thousand Oaks mainly for it's location as there are no other pools/cages in sight and it backed onto a lovely natural lake. Lesley, the owner answered all my numerous questions very speedily and was a joy to deal with. Although it had 5 bedrooms and there mainly only 2 of us, it was the perfect choice. The house is beautifully furnished and the bed in the Master Bedroom SO comfortable - I didn't want to leave it! We asked for the pool heating to be turned up on the first day (it was the middle of November) and no sooner than asked for it was done!
The location of the villa was great in our opinion. Just 5 minutes from the I4, 10 minutes or so to Disney and 20-25mins to Universal. It was just SO easy to get anywhere. There were shops close by in Champions Gate so running out of something was never an issue.
We enjoyed the theme parks very much, particularly Islands of Adventure. We are front seat roller coaster junkies and loved every one we went on. Our favourite was Kraken but Montu, Hulk and Duelling Dragons run it very close.
The highlight of our trip was swimming with wild Manatees at Homossassa Springs. These awesome, docile creatures only come into the river between November and March. It involved an overnight stay at a local hotel as the trip started at 6am. It's a 90 minute drive from Thousand Oaks so the alternative was a VERY early start! We were amazed at the size of the creatures, one was the size of a hippo! They are very inquisitive and some are incredibly friendly. Although you aren't meant to touch them, they seemed desparate to be touched and rolled around in front of you daring you to stroke them. We took lots of photo's with our underwater camera (without flash)but they kept coming too close to get a good shot. Although we were given 12mm wet suits to wear, I had to get out of the water after about 45 minutes as I was so cold. The water is a constant 72 degrees so I hadn't expected to shiver so much. My husband stayed in a further 20 minutes as one of the Manatees wouldn't leave him alone and kept wanting to interact. We deliberately chose Sunshine River Tours as this company offered boat trips with a maximum of 10 and were very glad we did as when we were leaving, another company pitched up with about 24 on board. They leapt into the water and were surrounding the animals and taking flash photography - none of which is allowed (you are briefed beforehand) but I was very pleased to see guys in kayaks doing voluntary Manatee watch and they soon had the situation under control. Captain Mike never hurried us at all and was a great source of information, although a quiet kind of chap we soon warmed to his dry sense of humour. We certainly would have no hesitation recommending them (if it's allowed on this forum) as the tour was tremendous value for money and Captain Mike and his deckhand Doreen made it very special indeed. Both my husband and I were 'high as kites' after our amazing experience and would do it again in a heartbeat! There is also a Wildlife Park in Homosassa so a full could be spent there. In fact, I could quite happily stay up there for a week - it's such a nice place.
Our first 4 days were spent down The Keys. Key West is very unique and really grows on you, it's vibrant, bizarre, with a real bohemian mix of people and steeped in history. We'd planned to do some diving but the weather wasn't brilliant at the beginning of the holiday. We did swim with dolphins at Dolphins Plus in Key Largo, a nice experience if you can close your mind to the confined spaces that these creatures live in. They are