For this installment of ‘Getting To Know’, we have information from our friend Cheryl Perlmutter. We are thrilled to have Cheryl’s thoughts on the Orlando areas that she and Todd have lived in. You can learn more about Cheryl at http://about.me/cherylp3.
2007 – Waterford Lakes in East Orlando While the shopping and dining is great in this area because you are close to the college. The area has had theft issues, breaking into cars.
2009 – Winter Springs – Rented a house Lesson learned. Make sure you see your security into a bank or use a management company. After 1 year – one day the landlord came and said stop paying me rent and I haven’t been paying my mortgage for the past few months. I never saw my money back. I had realtors knocking on my door. I had some great neighbors though, we lived on a road lined with trees and my neighbor would blow the leaves on the street all the time.
2010-2012 Winter Springs – Apartment I picked the place I lived because it accepted my breed of dog I had at the time. Apartment was growing mold and had large AC bills.
2012- Present Davenport by the Omni – renting condo using management – http://www.statemanagement.us Although Todd works in Lake Mary we moved to be closer to our friends and Disney. I enjoy living here also close to 429. We have some full time neighbors and some tourists. It is mostly quiet here.
There are both small and large synagogues in the Orlando area.
On Monday, April 15th, Jen and I took Ben and Catie to LEGOLAND as part of their Homeschool Days. Ben has been waiting since before we moved to go, even though it didn’t open until October, 2011. 🙂 LEGOLAND is in Winter Haven, FL on the site of the old Cypress Gardens and is conveniently located 45 minutes from Orlando and Tampa. Here’s our experience.
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We decided to arrive at park opening so that we could see and do as much as possible. This time of year, LEGOLAND is open 9:30am to 6:00pm most days; but those hours vary by the season. We were surprised by some of the differences to our usual days at Disney or SeaWorld. First, we parked within just a short parking distance of the entrance. There are no bag security checks, but there are also no carry-ins (except for water bottles). And the turnstiles were very quick and easy with no finger scan. Then we were in.
The park wasn’t very busy this day, mainly as this was a day for Homeschooled students and their families to come and enjoy the park. So we had very little (if any) wait for any of the rides that we went on. There is no fast pass type system here, so all of the queues are together; but most rides do have a quiet area where children can sit, wait and build with LEGOs while the parents wait in the lines. LEGOLAND Florida is the largest LEGOLAND Park in the world, but it isn’t too big to enjoy in one day.
You start your park adventure walking through The Beginning, the entrance area. Here you’ll find Guest Services, the Annual Pass Center (and they do have a dedicated AP office as they take your picture which is on the AP), The Big Shop (their LEGO Store), the Market Restaurant (an indoor ‘food court’ that serves a variety of food items) and the Island In The Sky (a 150 foot high platform that gives you a view of LEGOLAND and the area).
Once you leave The Beginning you can branch out in various directions. We entered into Fun Town. Fun Town lives up to its name with tons of LEGO fun. Here you’ll experience a simulated LEGO Factory Tour, The Grand Carousel (a double decker carousel featuring LEGO horses), a Florida Greenhouse, several shops (including a ‘Pick-a-Brick’ shop ($8.49 for a ¼ pound bag of Lego pieces), a LEGO Friends shop and LEGO Studios – dedicated to LEGOs from TV and Movies), the Wells Fargo 4D Theater where you can see 3 different 4D movies (we saw Spellbreakers and LEGO Racers, both awesome!), 3 snack shops (Ice Cream, Slushies and Granny’s Apple Fries) and the Pizza & Pasta Buffet (a sit-down buffet restaurant). We had a lot of fun touring Fun Town. We did stop for ice cream at Sunny’s Ice Cream Shop; and the scoops there are very big. So, unless you’re very hungry or really love a lot of ice cream, one scoop may be plenty. 🙂
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From here you can enter Miniland USA, the heart of LEGOLAND. Plan to spend at least an hour of your day here, this is just the most amazing area. We’d also recommend visiting here toward the start or end of your day while the sun isn’t directly overhead as there is little shade as you walk through. Here you visit Florida in general, Daytona International Speedway, the Kennedy Space Center, Pirate Shores, California (LA, San Francisco and Hollywood), Washington DC, Las Vegas, New York City and, the newest addition, LEGO Star Wars Miniland. You walk through and the details are amazing! In several areas, stop and push the buttons and watch (and listen) for the surprising actions that take place. This was one of our favourite parts of the entire day (and I particularly enjoyed the Star Wars area – too bad you can’t take things with you).
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Next we went into LEGO City. This is a child’s paradise. You can drive your own boat at Boating School, earn your LEGO driver license at Ford Driving School (ages 6-13) or Ford Junior Driving School (ages 3-5), take a flight on an inverted rollercoaster in the Flying School or compete against other families to put out a fire in the Rescue Academy. The ‘Big Test Live Show’ is here, watch as the Fun Town Fire Department teaches you about fire safety during this funny show featuring acrobatics and comedy. There is LEGO City merchandise at the City Shop and you can enjoy a fried chicken dinner at the Fried Chicken Co. restaurant. This area also has the entrance to the LEGO Waterpark, but we didn’t make use of that on this visit.
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From here, move into the LEGO Technic area. The Aquazone Wave Racers are a fantastic ride as you zoom around on your own ‘jet ski’ carousel while dodging water cannons. On the Technicycle, you fly higher the faster that you pedal and the Project X Technic Test Track rollercoaster is a high-speed thrill ride. You can shop in the Extreme Zone which features ‘extreme’ LEGO products, Florida-themed merchandise and many clearance items. You can eat indoors at the Lakeside Sandwich Co. which features pre-made sandwiches, wraps and bakery goods or outdoors at the Drivin’ Drive-in where you can grab a hot dog and chips.
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Next up is Pirate’s Cove. Here you’ll see the water ski and action show, The Battle for Brickbeard’s Bounty. And you can grab a burger at Cap’n Brickbeard’s Burgers. This is an outdoor eating area, but there is a covered area with picnic tables and fans; and with a view of Cypress Gardens across the waterway. This is where we ate lunch and these burgers were excellent. There is also a chicken sandwich available. Take a moment here to look into the bordering waterway and you’ll see many wild turtles and the occasional alligator. But watch your food, the birds here are “burger hunters”. One landed on Ben’s burger (luckily he had finished) and then flew off and grabbed another child’s burger right off his plate. 🙂
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Cypress Gardens is next, a quiet area which kept the garden atmosphere of the park’s predecessor, Cypress Gardens Park. You can enjoy a leisurely stroll through the gardens and watch for the LEGO Southern Belles and the 74-year old Banyan tree.
From here you can enter the Imagination Zone, an area devoted to using your…imagination. Enter past the giant LEGO Albert Einstein and let the fun begin. You can build and program your own LEGO Mindstorms robot, build and test a LEGO race car, play and build with the LEGO Hero Factory and try the latest LEGO videogames in the WB Games Zone. Enjoy the Kids Power Towers, where you pull yourself up a 30-foot tower and then ‘free fall’ back down. You can grab lunch and get a pressed sandwich at the I-Zone Panini restaurant.
Moving on you enter the Land of Adventure. You’ll enjoy Safari Trek, a LEGO jeep trip through Africa featuring many LEGO animals. You can thrill on Coastersaurus, a dinosaur themed old-time wooden rollercoaster, enjoy a bouncing ride on Beetle Bounce and explore the maze of the Pharaoh’s Revenge. We loved the Lost Kingdom Adventure, a dark ride through Egypt firing your lasers at targets to earn points and defeat Sam Sinister. You can snack on Waffle Spears (warm chocolate-covered waffles) and have lunch at the BBQ Pit which features a Barbecue Pulled Pork sandwich on pita bread.
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Next is LEGO Kingdoms, where you visit medieval times and the LEGOLAND Castle. The main attraction here is The Dragon, an awesome dragon-themed rollercoaster that travels through the castle before launching you on an exciting coaster ride. We were able to ride this back-to-back; jumping off and then right back on. LEGO Kingdoms also features the Royal Joust for kids to age 12 ride horses through scenes where they will joust with targets along the way, The Forestman’s Hangout – a tree and rope-climb area and Merlin’s Challenge – a high-speed rambler-type ride. You can shop at the King’s Market and enjoy lunch at Castle Burger; which serves the same menu as Cap’n Brickbeard’s with the substitution of a chicken salad for the chicken sandwich. This is another outdoor eating area but not as shaded and quiet as Cap’n Brickbeard’s.
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The final area, and one we didn’t visit, is DUPLO Village; a play area for toddlers. Most of the rides here are temporarily closed while the expansion ‘World of Chima’ area is constructed – to open this summer. There are still play areas open here now, primarily DUPLO Farm, and this area also features an area for new mothers to nurse their babies.
The newest area, The World of Chima, is under construction and is scheduled to open this summer. This area will feature rides based on the new LEGO product line and TV show, The Legends of Chima, as well as characters from the show.
We found LEGOLAND to be very fun and we do plan on going back. This isn’t a park just for children as some might say, we had plenty of fun as adults. But if you have kids, they will absolutely love this! I’ve added some information and links for you below and below that are some photos and videos to enjoy. Please let us know what you think of LEGOLAND if you’ve been and we hope we’ve given you enough information so that you can plan your visit soon.
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Official LEGOLAND® Florida App
This is an extremely helpful app, available for both iPhone and Android. It helps with planning, buying tickets, finding places to eat and it even has a function that locates your car in the parking lot.
To kick off our new ‘Getting To Know’ series on the places you can look at moving to in Florida, today we have information from Greg Pabst. Greg and his family moved to Clermont in 2012 and I am glad to have his extra take on Clermont to add to what Jen and I can provide.
I thought I would share reasons why we picked Clermont since you already know everything else about the Clermont area. Orlando is very spread out and not compacted. It was important for us to find an area that would be as centrally located to potential work locations as well as Disney. Also our proximity to shopping, dining and area conveniences was important too. We don’t like living in the sticks, but we don’t like to be in the city either. Clermont offered this to us. Initially we were looking at Winter Garden, since it was closer to Disney but the housing cost more there and yards were very small with you practically looking into your neighbor’s window out your own. For the same price as Winter Garden we got a much larger house with nice extras like granite counter tops and large tile floors. Clermont did push my comfort factor regarding how far we were from Downtown etc, as a lot of tech and office jobs are in that vicinity or north of there (Maitland and Altamonte Springs etc). But, in the end it was worth the extra drive for the deal we got in Clermont. Since we are in southern Clermont (proper), near Hammock Ridge and 27, Disney is about 30 mins drive for us. We also heard of the growth that Clermont has recently undergone. We like areas that are growing and new. I was impressed by the road infrastructure improvements. I can’t wait to see new things popping up (ie. Like the new Hobby Lobby). Schools and crime rates were important to us as well. Clermont is much safer than other areas in Orlando. We were a little scared of the schools in Clermont as they aren’t as good as Winter Garden, but we have been happy so far with Pine Ridge Elementary. If you have any specific questions for me, I’d be happy to help out more.
We have had many requests for information that is more specific to areas that people can move to; quite a few of recent as many out there look to follow their dreams to move to FL. Now, Jen and I have been looking to do this for a while but we had a challenge. Do we just drive through cities and towns and report back what we see? We felt this would leave you short on actual info as you’d ‘see’ the area but not ‘experience’ it. So, we’ve reached out to many of our local friends and asked if they’d like to provide a short piece for us based on their personal experiences. How is the shopping? How are the schools? How is the traffic? How are the people and local conveniences? We know this is what we’d like to have had and now we’re looking to bring it to you. Watch for these pieces to be posted over the coming weeks and if you have a personal story you’d like to share, please let us know.
Today the Florida Department of Education released their School Grades for 2012. You can follow the link below to view all of their listings and historical information for all Florida schools.
Wishes And Pixie Dust 