10 Days in Florida

What happens when a British guy and American guy decide to go around Florida? Well read below to find out...

In May 2022 for my first holiday of the year, I flew out from London Gatwick Airport to Tampa Florida to meet Tyler for a chaotic 10 days in the sunny state of Florida. I arrived around 5pm and we headed back to Sarrasota stopping off at a little bar / restuarant where you can try different beers and ciders. It was here where I had my first batch of Calamari out of at least a dozen on the trip throughout our time together.

We headed back to his parents house for the evening and had a lovely chat before calling it a night before our morning drive to Miami. We set off to Miami about 10am, stopping off at Dunkin Doughnuts for an Iced coffee and bagel sandwich for the road. It was just a beautiful drive down, the sun was shining, it was nice and warm with a breeze as we had the roof down of Tylers portable Mustang, whilst blasting out the tunes. We had to stop off for a toilet break at the Everglades sevice station and we soon realised we were both getting sun burnt on Day 1.

The rest of the trip we had to have the air con on and the roof down to protect ourselves. In total it took us about 4.5 hours to get to Miami. We checked into the hotel, had some food and heading to check out the Wynward walls and we had an evening walk on the beach watching the sunrise. We headed back down the main strip to find a restuarant before calling it a night.

The next day we spent about 3 hours on the beach in the 28 degree heat which was lovely before calling it a day and headed back to the room so Tyler could finish some things for work and recover from the heat. We headed down for some food and cocktails and in the afternoon we headed to the Vizcaya Museum and gardens. I saw my first iguana in the wild!!!

We then headed to a museum called Super Blue which was an immersive experience. You get dressed into some cloaks and goggles that make you look like a crazy scientist and then you enter a room full of soapy clouds. you walk around and you literally cannot see anything because there's so much soap and bubbles. Once you come out you can walk around the museum and some of the things you can see there are so relaxing. For example, you can lay down on a sofa and watch umbrella lights open and close and they have soft relaxing music playing which makes you want to fall asleep. It would be very good for meditation.

We went to play top golf on the way back to Sarassota and spent the afternoon and evening just chilling. We spent the day after with his elder sister and her partner watching the FA Cup Final between Liverpool and Chelsea before going to St Petersburg for Tylers mums birthday at Spinners hotel and restaurant. Essentially, it was a restaurant at the top of the hotel that had a revolving floor so as you ate dinner, you could have a 360 degree view of the beach and skyline. At golden hour and during sunset this was stunning.

The next day, we made our way to Orlando, headed out for food in Hooters, I had seen so many of them around America but never actually dined there and then we headed to a bar for a few drinks where they played live music and you could request songs for the performers to play. We headed to south Orlando and found a nice park with an Ampitheatre to walk around in the shade and found a cute little ice cream shop to have a tub of ice cream to cool us down. We headed back to the hotel for a chilled evening, had a swim in the pool and in the jaccuzzi until the Lightning storm hit. We then decided to spend the rest ofthe evening watching the basketball on the tv.

Day 2 was Universal Day 1 so we spent the first day at the Universal Studios Park going on all of the rides we could, my favourite place has to be the Harry Potter world as it literally looked like the actual set of Harry Potter and you could see children going around with their interactive wands waving them and seeing all kinds of weird things like fountains spraying water and we even went into the Leaky Cauldron for some food and a butter beer.

The next day we decided to have a break from the theme parks so we decided we would spend the day at NASA going round the museum, enjoyed the interactive rocket launch simulator and looking at rockets for the day. In the evening Tyler treated me to a surpise dinner in a very fancy restaurant where I had a sirloin steak with a fillet of Salmon on top and roasted veg and fries. Best meal of the holiday by far.

The next day was Island of Adventure day, and I finally got over my fear of rollercoasters by pulling up my big boy pants and thinking fuck it. We went on the Hulk rollercoaster and it was literally incredible. We then went on the water floom ride, Tylers least favourite ride of the day because he's not a fan of walking around in wet clothes. I don't think this should have been one of the first rides we went on. We made our way around the entire theme park and going on all of the rides we thought were appropriate for us. We went on the Spiderman ride, The Marvel superheroes ride, The velocicoaster which was the highlight of the day, Hagrids hut (spending time taking photos and videos of all the Harry Potter scenery), Men In Black, we watched one of the legend of poseidon shows, Jason Bourne show, interacted and had a photo with Blue the raptor, Tyler was feeling a bit tired so went to find a restaurant to chill out of the sun and I went on the Jurrasic world river ride solo. We ended the day with the cat in the hat ride and I don't know why but this seemd to have been Tylers favoruite ride of the day as we went on it twice.

The last activity of our trip was at Tampa zoo before Tyler dropped me off at Tampa Airport to go home :(