Most people would think that because I live in Florida that I have been to all the Theme Parks. Well, unfortunately that isn’t so. However, this past weekend I spent it all  the parks. Disney, Epcot & Disney’s MGM, and whew……I was exhausted when all was said & done, but I had a great time.

My husband & I along with some friends enjoyed playing in the parks as if we were kids again. Rode all the rides,  saw all the shows, ate a bunch of junk food and even danced with Mickey Mouse. Disney has definitely out done them selves this Holiday season with decorations and Holiday Spirit. 

We even saw the Parade, it has been years since I had sat back enjoyed a parade. I was amazed with how much they actually involved the guests.  They even had games & activities prior to the parade beginning. I saw kids playing hopscotch and blowing bubbles, jump rope and so much more.  As if there wasn’t already enough to do?..lol

We had a memorable time & if you haven’t been to the Theme  parks here in Orlando, you just don’t know what your missing. 

 Happy Holidays �

This past weekend my band and I took a trip to Alpharetta, Georgia to play a show at a teen center located at the local YMCA. I have to say it was a fun experience! We met a lot of interesting people and learned about travel since this was our first show outside of Florida!

I never realized that the cost of travel by car would be so expensive. I’m sure everyone is aware of gas prices and that they are going up! If you are traveling by car anywhere I’m sure your destination will be worth it once you get there!

If you are planning on traveling by car anywhere I would recommend driving to Florida anytime! This place has a lot to offer to any tourist! It has a lot of attractions and a lot of leisure activities!

Former “Baywatch” star and Playboy model Pamela Anderson has apparently reconciled with her third husband just three days after filing for divorce to end their two-month marriage.

In a divorce petition filed on Friday in Los Angeles, Anderson, 40, cited irreconcilable differences as the reason for the breakdown of her marriage to Rick Salomon — best known as Paris Hilton’s partner in a 2003 sex tape.

But on Monday, Anderson wrote cryptically in her Web site diary: “We’re working things out.”

What a great pity…. looks like all of us at Florida Leisure Vacation Homes get to miss out on hosting her honeymoon for her fourth marriage.

C’est la vie.

Walt Disney World, the Orlando/Orange County Convention & Visitors Bureau, Carnival Corp. and Royal Caribbean International were among scores of winners of World Travel Awards announced recently.

Based on thousands of votes online from 167,000 travel agents and tourism professionals eligible to vote, Disney World emerged as the world’s leading theme-park resort; the Orlando CVB, the leading convention bureau; Carnival, the leading cruise brand; and Royal Caribbean, the leading cruise line.

The 14th annual awards were presented by World Travel Awards, an independent company, at a gala last week at The Beaches Turks and Caicos Resort and Spa in the Caribbean.

Among other winners, British Airways was chosen world’s leading airline; Grace Bay Beach in Turks and Caicos, the leading beach; Casa de Campo in the Dominican Republic, the leading golf resort; Singapore Changi Airport, the leading airport; and London, the leading destination (an award won in 2006 by Orlando).

Regional awards also were presented. Among them, Orlando was chosen North America’s leading tourism destination. The Walt Disney World Swan and Dolphin was named both the leading convention hotel and the leading resort hotel. The Greater Miami Convention & Visitors Bureau beat out the Orlando bureau as North America’s leading tourist-and-convention bureau.

New York JFK Airport was picked as the continent’s leading airport. JetBlue Airways was voted the leading budget airline, Delta Air Lines the leading business-class airline, and American Airlines the leading overall airline. The Phoenician in Scottsdale, Ariz., was chosen the continent’s leading golf resort.

Animals and trees spout liquid fun at the colorful Tropical Splash Ground.

Chelsey Brandao giggled as she splashed in water that gushed from the ground. She ducked under spouts coming from a huge frog’s mouth.

“I’m all wet,” Chelsey squealed. “But, it’s fun, fun.”

The 3-year-old Ocala girl just happened to be visiting the Central Florida Zoo and Botanical Gardens with relatives last week when about 70 people showed up to open the Tropical Splash Ground.

Chelsey’s romp in the water may not seem like a common activity for mid-December, but the folks at the zoo hope thousands of guests will use their play area as an oasis when things heat up during the summer.

Wharton-Smith designed, paid for and built the fountains and statues with in-kind donations from some other local companies.

Although the opening party was no surprise to George Smith, the Wharton-Smith co-founder was taken aback when the area was dedicated to him and his wife, Gretchen.

“It means a tremendous amount to me,” Smith said. “I come here with my grandkids and get halfway around the zoo and we’re hot and tired. This will provide a nice relief for so many people.”

Smith and his grandchildren got soaked testing out the new play area.

“George and Gretchen Smith are two of the zoo’s biggest supporters and two of the nicest people I have ever met,” said Joe Montisano, chief executive officer of the zoo. “They are always there to help . . . sometimes even before we get the chance to ask; and the splash ground is no exception.”

The water play area — just steps away from the concession building and a proposed aviary — has transformed an underused 4,000-square-foot section of the park into a place for “fun and excitement, and a showpiece for the zoo,” Montisano said.

It features water sources that resemble some of the zoo’s current and former animal residents.

An alligator, frog and hippopotamus spit out streams of water; palm trees sprinkle water from beneath their fronds; and a colorful collection of buckets dump water from above.

“It really is first class, just like George and Gretchen,” Montisano said. “I have said it about them before and it is true, the Central Florida Zoo and Botanical Garden would not be where it is today without the help and support of kind and generous people like George and Gretchen Smith; they are the best.”

As Christmas is almost upon us, it’s once again time for Orlando’s annual Christmas Parade!  Load up the family and grab a curbside seat this Saturday – the parade starts at 11:30am.  This year’s parade theme is “Santa Salutes the Stars”, featuring country music stars, retro tribute artists, a gang of North Pole pirates, sports team mascots, and of course, St. Nick himself.   You can get all of the information (including a parade map) from their website:  Orlandochristmasparade.com.

A couple of notes if you’d like to attend the festivities:

- The staging area is on the north side of Lake Eola, and the parade runs south on Rosalind, west on central, then north on Orange Ave.

- The TV viewing stand is on Orange, right across from the courthouse.  This is usually the best area to see the bands perform, but is also usually the most crowded.

- Orange Avenue will close at 7am, and Robinson St (the main staging area) will close at 8am, so come early!  I recommend heading into downtown from the south, and using parking garages south of Central (either the Church Street or Pine Street garages) in order to avoid the street closures.

- Set those DVRs!  The parade will be broadcast locally on WRDQ, TV 27 (Brighthouse channels 10 and 1027) on Saturday, December 22nd at 8:00pm, and again nationally on WGN (Brighthouse channel 20), on Sunday, December 23rd at 9:00pm.

Here’s your chance to get a jump on the Westminster Kennel Club show and see some of next year’s likely competitors. The 2007 Central Florida Kennel Club, Space Coast Kennel Club and Brevard Kennel club shows are being held in Orlando today, Saturday and Sunday.  More than 1,700 dogs representing over 150 breeds will be taking part in the show at the Central Florida Fairgrounds. The fairgrounds are at at 4603 W. Colonial Drive, Orlando. Tickets are available at the door and are $5.00 for adults. Bring a Purina dog food weight circle and receive free admission. Parking outside on the field outside the fairground fence is FREE. Show hours are 8 AM to 6 PM.

SeaWorld Orlando fast-tracks high-tech Polar Express train ride

The train crested the mountain, then tipped downward, rushing like a roller coaster. And, as if they were on a roller coaster, many of the children seated inside raised their arms, and some squealed.

Of course, they were all sitting in a room, inside a building at SeaWorld Orlando, rocking up and down, back and forth or side to side, yet going nowhere while watching a movie. They were experiencing SeaWorld’s newest attraction, the Polar Express Experience, taking a wild but simulated train ride to Santa Town.

As recently as mid-November, riders in that same room were taking a much different ride, a simulated helicopter flight over the edge of a cliff somewhere in the Arctic. And a couple of weeks from now, the helicopter ride will be back.

SeaWorld has developed what many in the industry have been expecting to see in a major theme park for some time: a quick-change conversion package for a high-tech simulator ride.

All it took was acquiring the rights to a theme-park version of the movie The Polar Express, investing more than 100 hours in engineering and computer programming and building sets based on the film.

“I’m not going to say it’s easy, but we have a phenomenal team, from the art direction to the programming of the ride to the visuals,” said Michael Fletcher, SeaWorld’s vice president for entertainment.

Other theme-park companies have swapped out simulator-ride films and changed themes before; Universal Studios is doing that now with its old Back to the Future: The Ride attraction, to create a new ride based on The Simpsons TV show. And there is always industry talk of new possibilities, such as whether Walt Disney World would replace at least part of its Star Tours simulated spaceship ride with a new Star Wars-based pod-racer experience.

But SeaWorld’s changeover is different because it’s temporary and was swiftly executed. In a matter of weeks, the park switched off its regular attraction and replaced it with what its new general manager, Dan Brown, calls a new holiday-season centerpiece.

“I’m intrigued by the idea,” said Kevin Coons of Gary Goddard Entertainment, a California-based attractions-design firm that helped develop simulator rides such as The Amazing Adventures of Spider-Man at Universal Orlando’s Islands of Adventure. “I think it’s a smart way to go.”

A new simulator ride would cost tens of millions of dollars to build. A new software package that creates a new experience — converting an arctic helicopter flight into a polar train ride, for example — costs a small fraction of that amount.

“If it is successful, you’ll see an expansion of that sort of concept to other attractions,” said Dennis Speigel, president of International Theme Park Services in Cincinnati.

The Polar Express Experience didn’t start out as a ride.

Working with Warner Bros. Pictures and Shangri-La Entertainment, which produced The Polar Express movie, California-based attractions company Iwerks Entertainment had created a short version of the 2004 animated feature for possible use as Christmas-season entertainment in theme parks.

Meanwhile, Busch Entertainment Corp., which operates SeaWorld, was looking for a new holiday attraction.

Mike Frueh, Iwerks’ vice president and general manager, said he and others at Iwerks were not thinking of the film as the basis of a simulator ride until Busch suggested Wild Arctic as a platform.

“The Busch team, they’re visionaries and they’re quite creative,” Frueh said. “We’ve had a long relationship with Busch in different roles, and had mentioned the film to them. It kind of evolved from there.”

SeaWorld’s Fletcher said the film was an obvious choice for the ride.

Engineers took Iwerk’s film and used hand controls similar to video-game joysticks to program new movements into the Wild Arctic simulators to accompany small sections of the film. Once the motions were synchronized with the film’s movements, the package was fine-tuned on a computer to create a seamless ride.

“When you’re working on a project like this, it’s always a joy to work with an idea that is a perfect fit,” Fletcher said.

Orlando to get United Football League team

Get ready Orlando. Another professional city football league is in the works and could be here as early as May 2008.

The United Football League, a brainchild of google executive Tim Armstrong and billionaire Bill Hambrecht, is scheduled to debut in 12 non NFL cities, including Orlando, next August. League commissioner Michael Huyghue spoke with city officials Thursday in hopes to secure the Florida Citrus Bowl as a home.

Huyghue, a former general manager for the Jacksonville Jaguars, said he was confident in the UFL’s business model, which would have NFL caliber players competing on Friday nights in the fall directly against high school football.

“We may start games later on Friday,” Huyghue said. “We’ll have played three or four games before the high school season starts and end Thanksgiving weekend before championships.”

Currently, the UFL has secured four team owners and will release the names later this month. No one has made the $60 million commitment to purchase an Orlando team, but Huyghue said there are several interested parties outside Florida. Huyghue said the UFL is highly interested to make Orlando the centerpiece for the league with mini-camp being hosted here next May, training camp in July and an all-star game here as well.

Orlando has been the pit-stop for several failed start-up professional leagues such as the XFL and USFL, but few have been guided by someone with the expertise of Huyghue.

Huyghue, a Michigan law graduate, was a key executive in the Jaguars start-up years when they won two AFC Central Division Championships and produced three-time Pro Bowl quarterback Mark Brunell.

Before that he joined the Detroit Lions as Vice President and General Counsel and started his career as an attorney with the NFL Management Council in 1987.

I’ve just received an email from Susie Ellis from Spafinder, predicting the top 10 spa trends for 2008. Here are her suggestions of what we can expect:

1. The Feng Shui’d Gym: Spas will be offering new and unique gym designs.
2. The Star Therapist: Spas and spa-goers will learn to recognize and appreciate the really gifted therapists.
3. Wellness, Wellness, Wellness: Spas are not so much about pampering anymore as they are about wellness.
4. Luxury Detox and Luxury Bootcamps: There is nothing wrong with mixing comfort and luxury while detoxing and getting in shape.
5. Spa Real Estate Mania: There are many options now to buy a condo or home where the spa component is a key feature.
6. Taking Sleep Seriously…Especially if you want to Lose Weight: Research shows healthy sleep makes it easier to lose weight.
7. Fertility Tranquility: Relaxing at a spa is good for your body, mind, spirit…and conception.
8. Hydro and Thermal Super-Experiences: Explore the large variety of beautifully designed water and heat experiences at spas – hot saunas, steam grottos, ice caves, etc.
9. Urban Spa Explorer: Generation X, Y and others are discovering spa “gems” in the ethnic community of cities; Korean scrubs, Thai massages, Shiatsu, etc. often at no frills prices.
10. Plug-in or Unplug: It’s up to You: Some spas don’t allow you to use your phone or Blackberry yet other spas do. Some spas have sections for each.