Family Fun: Orlando

Whether your family has little or big kid, teens or grown ups, you can find plenty of ways to spend your family vacation in Orlando.

Although the theme parks are expensive, hotel deals in Orlando are relatively easy to find. If you stay on site at a theme park, you get perks like a line-skipping pass at Universal’s Islands of Adventure and Universal Studios Florida or special hours at Walt Disney World Resort.

Some Orlando Family Hotels offer free breakfast, or kids eat free specials, along with discounted theme park tickets.

Whether you are a foodie, picky eater or vegetarian, you can eat feel in Orlando. Top restaurants in Orlando include sushi, Italian and Thai restaurants.

Fitness Challenge: Day 49

Animal Kingdom Lodge at Walt Disney World wows visitors with its recreated African environment. You see giraffes glide by on your way to your room. kudu and antelope with night vision goggles and African birds throughout the resort.

While your kids are at the playground or zipping down a slide into the pool, you can work off a South African feast (courtesy of the signature resaturant, Jiko, which has plenty of vegetarian options) at the gym.

The gyms
There are two at Animal Kingdom Lodge, one at Jambo House, the main part of the hotel, and one at Kidani Village. I used the Jambo House gym, where the treadmills ovelook the lush vegetation and the main pool, so if our spouse is at the pool with the kids, you can keep an extra eye on them while you run. I was pleased by the selection of free weights and the stretching area, with mats and stability balls.

All day access
I've been to Animal Kingdom Lodge 3 or 4 times, and I see little kids late at night, in the wading pool or searching for animals. Not sure when they sleep. But if you have spent the day at Disney parks and still have the energy to work out, you can use the fitness center at Jambo House 24 hours a day.

Hakuna Matata

Coming Home from a Family Vacation

I was recently passing through the Orlando airport on the way home from the travelingmom.com Disney retreat and since my flight was at 6:30pm and airlines don’t serve meals on domestic coach flights, I had to find vegetarian food.

The results were grim.

In my little neck of the woods, the Delta terminal, an Outback restaurant had no vegetarian food on the menu. The Starbucks had only chicken sandwiches left and a place I’d never heard of did have broccoli cheese soup, but everything else looked so unappetizing, I didn’t want to chance the soup.

There was a veggie burger at Burger King, which sat forlonly while everyone else scooped up hamburgers. Since no one could tell me if it had been cooked on the same grill as the meat, I avoided it. Good thing; I found out later that it had 1030mg of sodium.

I wound up at The Smoothie King where people are deluded into thinking they are choosing a healthy snack. My peanut power shake (plus chocolate) had a whopping 717 calories in the 20 oz size, the smallest. I couldn’t finish it, which led me to wonder about the people I saw ordering the large.

OK, I didn’t have to wonder much. They were HUGE.

But since neither calorie nor nutritional information was posted, how could people make an informed choice?

When I go to Starbucks, the cinnamon chip scone looks appealing, but since by NY State law, the calories are posted, I know this indulgence will cost me 480 calories.

Which is why it’s so cool that the new Starbucks Petite line has fewer calories and less sugar. The salted caramel sweet square, with chocolate, pretzels and pecans, has 190 calories and 15 grams of sugar.

And if the airport Starbucks had only sold the vegetarian roasted vegetable panini, at 350 calories, I could have had a more filling dinner, at less than half the calories.

My hotel and meals at the retreat were sponsored by Disney. And I found plenty of vegetarian food there.