This article is reposted from the WeChat public account of a reader from our WeChat group, 懒人 33 的吃喝玩乐. Original link.

Orlando

Picking up from the previous post, we left Legoland for Orlando and also had dinner there. We chose Thai Thani Thai Restaurant. The decor was seriously over the top—more “Thailand” than any restaurant I’ve been to in Thailand. Walking in, I thought it was a shop selling Thai handicrafts...

The food was quite good. The tom yum soup was loaded with ingredients, and I really liked it. The Roast Duck Curry was also pretty good, though a bit sweet. We also ordered a sweet stir-fried noodle dish for our kid, who liked it a lot, but it was too sweet for me.

Sorry about the blurry photos...

Dessert was fried ice cream, and it was incredibly, incredibly, incredibly rich. Even my kid, who is obsessed with ice cream, thought it was too much. Our server was also truly terrible—almost never around, hiding behind the counter eating, and impossible to flag down. For once, we left a smaller tip than usual.

Restaurant prices in Florida are much cheaper than in Seattle. Dining out in Seattle—especially Chinese food—is so expensive.

After dinner we checked into our hotel, The Ritz-Carlton Orlando, Grande Lakes. If I remember correctly, we booked it with a 50,000 Free Night. Since we had already done all four Disney parks in 2021 and our kid wasn’t that into them, we skipped Disney this time in Orlando. This hotel is not in the Disney area and is closer to seaworld.

The front desk service was excellent. At check in, one staff member chatted with our kid the whole time, gave gifts, and told stories. That kind of service is rare even among Ritz properties in the U.S. We were upgraded to a room with a sofa bed.

The bellman said our room could see the fireworks at Epcot. It really could, just from quite far away. I was too lazy to edit the fireworks video, but they were roughly in the upper-right corner of the photo below. The room view was actually very nice. Too bad our stay was so short and our schedule so packed that we didn’t get to enjoy the hotel amenities.

This hotel is connected to the neighboring JW Marriott. Over at the JW, there’s a kids pool and water slides, about a 5–10 minute walk away.

Day 5

The plan for the day was a packed, 12+ hour manatee tour. It was a 5-star-reviewed tour on Tripadvisor: https://www.viator.com/tours/Orlando/The-Real-Florida-Manatee-Adventure/d663-284370P2

Because we had to leave very early, we ordered room service at the hotel. It had been quite a while since we last ordered room service. This property really leaned into the presentation. I forgot to take photos of the food; we ate in a daze, and it wasn’t especially impressive.

This was the longest tour we’ve booked since having a kid. Not only was it long, but there had also been a major cold snap across the country, and Central Florida was cold. Snorkeling in that weather sounded scary enough that my spouse was intimidated just thinking about it. But if you’ve read Alaska Cruise - Carnival Splendor (Part 2), you may vaguely remember our previous cold-water snorkeling story. So this time, under my pressure, my spouse still went through with it.

This tour has 3 departure points in total, and they call in advance to confirm your pickup location based on where you’re staying. We were at the last pickup point, boarding at 8:30 from Orlando Starflyer. We were also the last drop-off at night, and by the time we got off it was after 8 p.m.—basically a full 12 hours. The tour only provides lunch, so especially if you’re boarding from our stop, I’d recommend bringing plenty of snacks. Otherwise, by 8 p.m. you’ll be absolutely starving.

The tour had three parts: first, snorkeling with manatees; second, visiting a wild life state park; and third, riding an airboat. From our last pickup point, it took about 1–1.5 hours to reach Crystal River for the snorkeling portion.

The guide explained a few things on the bus. Manatees live in the ocean during the summer, but in winter, when the water gets too cold, they head to the state park. Their livable temperature range is very narrow—basically, they don’t tolerate either cold or heat well. That day it was under 70 degrees Fahrenheit, which the guide said was a temperature manatees like.

The tour recommends wearing your swimsuit in advance, with regular clothes over it, to make changing easier later. At the first stop, you rent a wet suit for warmth. Originally, since our kid wasn’t getting in the water, I thought we could skip it, but it was really cold that day, and the wet suits they provided worked very well, so we rented one for our kid too. Clothes and anything else you don’t want to get wet can be left on the bus.

After changing, we walked a short distance to the dock area, took a group photo, and boarded the boat. The boat moved very slowly so as not to disturb the manatees. But the area is small, and after just a few minutes we found the manatees, and everyone lined up to get off the boat and snorkel.

This time we saw three manatees—probably 2 adults and 1 baby. There was a lot of sediment in the river, so the water was fairly murky. Because of that, the guide repeatedly emphasized in advance that we should keep our legs floating at the surface, not kick hard, and definitely not kick underwater. Still, some teenagers didn’t listen and kept kicking around, making the water even cloudier. At one point, you couldn’t see anything at all. Luckily, for most of the time visibility was still decent. My spouse and I were floating directly above the manatees several times, extremely close—really, really close.

There was also an underwater photographer with the group, who captured photos of the two of us with the manatees. That was the highlight of the whole trip. The photos below are all from the photographer. I also filmed with a gopro, but I’ve been too lazy to export the footage.

Below are lots of manatee photos.

The photographer caught the moment I was taking photos of the manatee.

The manatee rolled over—so unbelievably cute.

Below are photos of the two of us with the manatee, snapped by the photographer. Of course I happily paid for these photos right away.

The manatee was about to bump into us, so my teammate quickly moved out of the way.

Because we weren’t allowed to make large movements, it got pretty cold after being in the water for a while, so after we had seen enough manatees, we got out. The brave little kids on the boat also got in the water and saw the manatees.

Back on shore, we changed clothes, since you weren’t allowed to sit on the bus in wet clothes. There were very few changing spots here, so if you got back late, you had to wait quite a while. The shop provided free hot chocolate, which was really nice. The photos and tips were paid separately. There were also some souvenirs for sale in the shop. Once we were all set, each person picked up a boxed lunch, and we ate on the bus while heading to the next stop. Lunch was sandwiches, plus snacks, dessert, and fruit, so it was quite substantial. Being in cold water really takes it out of you, and by then everyone was hungry. My teammate and I finished our lunches very quickly.

The next stop was Ellie Schiller Homosassa Springs Wildlife State Park, a place somewhat like a zoo featuring Florida wildlife. There were several areas with manatees. The park was nicely laid out in a loop, and one full walk around it wasn’t too large. It took us about 2 hours in total. We, along with our friends’ kids ages 3.5-4.5, were all able to walk the whole thing easily.

Alligators are also a Florida specialty, and you can see them in many places.

There was a reptile house with all kinds of snakes inside. The kids said it was very impressive, and they bought a toy snake at the gift shop by the exit.

We were admiring the hippo when it suddenly pooped, and the whole pool filled with it as it spread out. Everyone watching cracked up.

The yellow part here is poop.

There was a manatee rescue pool.

Further along there were quite a few manatees to see, and the water was much clearer than where we went snorkeling.

You could even photograph the little fish clearly. The water was unbelievably clear.

That said, the view from above the water still wasn’t quite as impressive; underwater they looked much cuter. There was also a downstairs viewing area you could walk into, with a huge number of fish, though unfortunately no manatees swam by.

Just look at the number of fish here—amazing.

I took a photo of the map for reference.

After leaving the State Park, we headed to the next stop, Withlacoochee River. We were supposed to ride an airboat here, but the weather that day was just too cold—really not ideal for being out on a boat.

There were quite a few people in our vehicle, so we had to split into two groups and take turns on the boat, with the guide assigning people randomly. We were in the second group. The Gift Shop here also had a lot of interesting things. Outside the gift shop there were some small alligators; when the weather is warm, you can buy alligator food at the gift shop and feed them, but since it was cold, they were hibernating and couldn’t be fed.

I thought the setup here wasn’t great, since one group had to wait around for the other, which was a little boring. The airboat looked like the one in the photo below, with stadium-style seating. If you sit in the front, your clothes might get wet, so sit in the back if you’d rather stay dry. The captain steers from the very back. Because the airboat is extremely loud, everyone has to wear noise-canceling headphones.

The wind chill was biting. Once the boat started moving, my kid asked me to hold him tightly and block the wind for him. It was really, really cold.

Along the way we also saw this big tree, which is one of the local highlights.

By the time the boat ride was over, we were completely frozen, and once we got back on the vehicle we started the return trip. Our friends and we all independently decided we were craving hot pot, but unfortunately they got off at a different stop, so we couldn’t meet up. Orlando traffic is on par with LA—once we got back into the city, it was massively congested, and by the time we got off at our final stop it was already after 8. Good thing we had brought snacks so we didn’t completely starve.

Asian food options in Orlando also felt pretty limited. We went to a sister restaurant next to the Thai place from the day before, called Best Shabu Shabu, and had tom yum soup base. Fairly speaking, it was decent—nothing especially memorable, nothing bad either. But we were so hungry that it tasted like an absolute feast. The decor was similar to the sister restaurant’s style—very over-the-top.

Back at the hotel, I went to the front desk to get some more change, and another young woman at the front desk came over to play with my kid and even gave him a small gift.

                                                                                         Day 6

There wasn’t anything special planned for this day—we just needed to pack up and board the ship—so we slept in, then took a few photos of the room view. Once again, it felt a little unfortunate that we had basically paid the resort fee for nothing; maybe next time we’ll have a chance to actually enjoy it.

The chocolate the front desk staff gave my kid.

It was also hard to find a breakfast spot in the morning. We ended up at a restaurant where I honestly can’t even remember what cuisine it was, and I couldn’t even understand the menu. Surprisingly, though, it was pretty good, and the service was good too. The yellow item in the photo below was a soft, chewy corn cake with corn kernels inside. Unfortunately, I spent forever looking back through things and still couldn’t figure out the restaurant’s name…

After breakfast, we headed to the Cruise Port to begin the third part of this trip—a 9-night cruise.

Stay tuned for the next post.

About the Author

This article is reposted from the WeChat public account of a reader from our WeChat group, 懒人 33 的吃喝玩乐. These are all excellent original articles, so if you’re interested, feel free to follow the account.