Orlando, Florida, USA – 3 Day Trip

Taking a break from visiting my home state I went down to Orlando to visit my best mate, Jordan, and his wife Maddie. I had been planning to visit Jordan since coming back from New Zealand and this was my third attempt, the first two denied by COVID restrictions.

This was going to be a very unique experience, “flying during the pandemic”. I heard a rumor that the restaurants at the airport were open so I decided to go early for my flight to check it out.

When I arrived I used my TSA pre-check from my global entry and as always it works perfectly, even faster with the pandemic. From drop off, at the door, I was at my gate within 7 minutes. For those wondering at the time Delta was flying with an empty middle seat. The flight was full minus the middle seats and the flight attendants were quick to remind anyone to pull their mask up.

The Orlando Airport was a complete ghost town and had no restaurants or bars open. I arrived late at night so time to rest and get ready for a beach day tomorrow.

Day 1 – Daytona Beach & Blue Spring State Park 07.31.2020

It wouldn’t be a trip to Florida without going to the ocean, the first stop this morning was to head out to Dayton and take in the sun before the rain was expected to come in. The drive from Orlando to Daytona Beach is approx. two hours. We parked near Harbour Beach Resort and on the beach, parking was USD 10. The beach was a dry beach which was a bit annoying so to drink with an ocean view we had to go up to the Beach Resort Bar.

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One the way back to Orlando we stopped at Blue Spring State Park. I wanted to check this park out because it has crystal clear spring water and an easy hike track. With it being a rainy season the water was not as clear as I hoped. I did get to go swimming and found a tree to jump off. The most encouraging part of this park was the alligator warning sign next to the swimming spot.

I didn’t see any gators and brought my Go Pro to look under the water, no gators were found in the video replay, phew.

Day 2 – SeaWorld Orlando 08.01.2020

This was my first time going to SeaWorld, Jordan has an annual pass which includes 1 free guest pass for the year. I had pictured SeaWorld just being a place to walk around and see Animals, I didn’t know it was also an amusement park. All I wanted to see here were the penguins, so we went to the “Artic” to get that off the list. The place was huge and I was shocked at how many penguins they had.

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We then went to see the seals and the Beluga whale. The rest of the time was spent on rides. And since I didn’t take any photos of the rides or videos I’ll leave the day here.

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Day 3 – Top Golf 08.02.2020

Raining all day today so we just went to Top Golf. Nothing else to report here.

A short trip to Florida and I’ll need to go back to visit Jordan again, always good to visit friends even if it’s for a few days.

Thanks for reading, cheers!