Jill's Holiday to Orlando Florida

Euan’s Guide Ambassador Jill Clark shares her experience of going on holiday with her family after the pandemic. She also shares her experience of disabled access both in the airports and in Orlando itself.

Going on a holiday is one of my favourite things to do so for the last two years I did wonder if I will ever get a holiday again! Lucky for everyone the world opened up again and we were allowed to travel.

Everyone has their favourite place to go to and mine is Orlando Florida. It isn't just because of all the parks and warm sunshine, but because Florida is very wheelchair accessible, except their public toilets but I will talk more about it later. Let’s start with getting there.

We always fly direct from Glasgow to Orlando, we like to do this because if we change over somewhere it will be a lot of work getting the wheelchair and going for another flight, especially when it is a big airport.

I find Glasgow airport a great airport. We always get through check-in and security easily and quickly, this gives me time to pick my perfume at duty free.😊

When it comes to getting on the aeroplane, it’s very easy too. We are followed to get my wheelchair right up to the plane, and there is always airport staff to help me on to the plane. But as we were sitting near the door my Dad just lifted me on to the aeroplane. Then they take my wheelchair away, it goes in to a special compartment next to the cases. 

I sit just on a normal aeroplane seat. It’s okay, but I do find it a bit uncomfortable. It’s the only way to get to Florida so I put up with it, but I wish I could fly in my wheelchair. Maybe some day. 

This was the first time that we flew with TUI and they were very good to fly with. The flight took about eight and a half hours which it wasn’t too bad. We flew into a new airport called Melbourne Orlando International, which is very small and good to get through.

Once we landed we needed to wait until everybody got off and they brought my wheelchair up, but we didn’t wait too long. We got our cases and went through the airport quite quickly, which it is always good after a long flight. space"> 

Our hotel was an hour and 20 minutes away from the airport so we got a coach to the hotel, the coach had a wheelchair lift so I went on the coach in my wheelchair. The journey from the airport was fine and it lets us to see other bits of Orlando.  

We have been going to the same hotel every year since 2010, it is called Rosen Inn at Point Orlando International Drive. This hotel is a great hotel for disabled access. We always get a ground floor room with a roll in shower. The room is quite big for my wheelchair and two double beds. There isn’t a hoist in the room which it is terrible but we do manage.

The hotel has three swimming pools which have hoists in to the pools.

International Drive is 18.5 km long with a lot of restaurants, shops and it isn’t too far from the parks.

We love eating out when we are away, for breakfast and dinner. Our favourite restaurants are Olive Gardens, Bahama Breeze, Perkins, Buffalo Wild Wings and many more. All of the restaurants are accessible.

Orlando is famous for theme parks like Disney or Universal Studios.  As we have been to Orlando so many times and done all of the theme parks, this year we decided to not to do any of the parks because they can be very tiring especially when it is warm. So this was more of a chilled holiday with days at the pool, shopping, and trips to downtown Orlando which was good to see.

Like I said we did a lot of shopping.  Orlando has some great shops, there is two outlets at each end of International Drive and there is two shopping malls called Mall at Millenia and Florida Mall.  I love going shopping in Orlando, my favourite shops are Holster, Guess, Gap and many more - especially where they sell trainers. 😊

In terms of getting around in Orlando, we use their public buses. All of the buses have ramps and they clamp wheelchairs in which it is great.

Orlando is very accessible like their transport, hotels, restaurants and shops. Even when we did all of the theme parks, they had some rides which wheelchairs could get on.

Orlando hasn’t a single Changing Places toilet, even not in any of theme parks. I must say this year I found that all disabled toilets were quite big which it made it easier. It is strange in a way because America is ahead of us terms of their transport but we are ahead of them terms of Changing Places toilets. They may catch up with us some day!

When it comes to booking our holiday, until a few years ago we always booked through travel agent because we found it safer with all of my needs, but the last few years we started booking our holiday over the internet\phone. The way it works that is we bookend the holiday first and then the travel agent puts us in contact with the guest assistants team. I think every travel agent has one of these, and then the guest assistance team sorts everything for myself like the hotel room, the bus from airport to the hotel and so on.

Overall I love my holidays to Florida, it is really a great place to go to for a holiday.

Tags: Ambassadors, reviewer's story, Euan's Guide