Florida 1990

So enthralled with the USA was I, that by the end of summer 1990 I had decided and booked a trip to “the other side” Florida. The whole experience was different to California. I had booked my trip with Virgin Holidays. The flight and arrangements were brilliant, at every stage it was easy. I flew into Orlando International, and within a couple of hours I was in my hotel just off Highway 4 and International Drive. This time I was in quality Inn for the whole two weeks – no more adventures in bad hotels for this trip!

I will admit up front to being a total Disney fan. I like animation in general and have even dabbled myself so have a small inkling of what is involved, so the scale of producing a feature is mind boggling. My first port of call had to me the Magic Kingdom. I had been to Disney-LAND so I knew what to expect, but then this was bigger, much bigger! I just love the colour, music, fun and character of the whole thing. I visited all the parks. Epcot Centre, MGM/Disney Studios as it was then. Animal Kingdom wasn’t there at that point. I also went to Gatorland, that was still going at that point. I visited, NASA, and Daytona Beach out on the east coast. I went north to Silver Springs. As a film fan I also had to go a see Universal Studios too.

Universal had only just opened a couple of months earlier, it was much smaller then, and half the rides were not operational. What was there was brilliant, and as I left was given free tickets for another day of my vacation! Of course, I used them. Now in what was the car park is a second whole – even bigger – theme park, the “World of Adventures” but that wasn’t built and is another story!

At this time, I had acquired a small -Sony 8mm video camera. It was badged as being by Kyocera-Yashica but it was identical to the Sony – one was obviously made for the other! I was therefore in full movie mode on this trip and took limited stills photography. I believe for this trip I had a Samsung AF Slim. Looking back a great little camera, but with a very noisy motor! Film was Kodak Gold 200, processed by Kodak themselves. I had a blast on this trip, I have lots of good happy memories and don’t remember any downs – needless to say this is not the end of my Florida story – in fact it’s just the start! Have I been again? You bet!