Autumn is the slow season in Florida, but this year a spate of new developments will make it an unusually lively time for vacationers.
Before the year ends, Walt Disney World will unlock the doors of a huge new entertainment complex, Kennedy Space Center will launch two space-age facilities for visitors, a daily entertainment train will begin running between South Florida and Orlando, and visitors will feel the power of earthquakes and hurricanes as they explore a large new attraction housed in an upside-down building.
That’s not all. Universal Studios is gearing up for its biggest Halloween yet, Disney will finally launch its newest and fastest thrill ride this fall, and several new attractions introduced in recent months will be running at speed.
Best of all, autumn is one of the best times to vacation in Florida. Destinations aren’t crowded, summer’s heat is fading and it’s the bargain season, when the cost of hotels, car rentals, airline travel and cruises hovers near the lowest levels of the year.
One of the most intriguing developments may be the Florida Fun Train (888-FUN-TRAC), slated to start service from South Florida (Hollywood) to Kissimmee in Central Florida on Thursday (call first to confirm).
The multicolored train–painted in blues, pinks, greens and yellows–will carry up to 400 passengers in each direction once a day Mondays through Thursdays and on Saturdays; on Fridays the train will make two trips north (and one south) and on Sundays two trips south (and one north) to accommodate weekend travelers.
The train will pull four double-decked entertainment cars and five glass-domed passenger cars. One car, for adults only, will have a tropical bar and grill and live music. A second car will have ’50s-style dining, a wine bar, pub and gift shop. The third, for children, will have a play area and high-tech video games, including eight virtual reality systems. The fourth car, with a stage and auditorium-style seating for 70, will be used to show movie clips and accommodate promotional presentations, group meetings and similar functions, according to Tara McGinn, marketing director for First American Railways, which operates the train. That company also operates the popular Durango and Silverton Narrow-Gauge Railway in Colorado.
The price–$69.95 adults, $49.95 children each way–includes the entertainment but not food, beverages or electronic games. Reportedly, the train already has taken a substantial number of bookings from foreign groups.
Meanwhile, new attractions are continuing to come on line this fall at Central Florida’s theme parks.
In October, Universal (407-363-8000) will bring back its highly successful Halloween “Fright Nights,” an annual celebration of the macabre that has grown from a three-day weekend six years ago to 17 nights this year. This fall, the event begins Friday, the earliest ever, and runs on selected nights through Nov. 1.
New haunted houses and fright acts are on schedule, but the popular Chain Saw Drill Team and Rat Lady are back in their accustomed roles. A separate admission fee is charged for “Fright Nights,” which takes place after dark.
Meanwhile, Walt Disney World (407-824-4321) also has a few new tricks up its vast sleeve this fall.
Recently opened at the humongous theme park is the large West Side addition to its Downtown Disney complex. Downtown Disney is the new name for the sector that presently encompasses Pleasure Island and the Disney Village Marketplace.
The new West Side entertainment, retail and restaurant complex will showcase several nationally known names. One of them is Miami singer Gloria Estefan and her husband Emilio, who will open Bongos Cuban Cafe there. Another is chef Wolfgang Puck, who is opening a full-service restaurant featuring recipes made famous in his Los Angeles restaurant. There also is a House of Blues and a Virgin Megastore.
Test Track, opening in Disney’s Epcot theme park late in the season, will feature Disney’s fastest thrill ride, a five-minute spin on a banked track in a test car at speeds up to 65 m.p.h. The $100-million-plus remake of the old World of Motion pavilion originally was to open last July. It guides visitors through a simulated auto testing and manufacturing facility, complete with huge weights smashing down on car doors, human dummies struck with swinging weights, windows rolling up and down, and wheels jogging up and down to test suspensions.
Just opened also at Disney is its 25th on-property hotel, the Coronado Springs. The 1,967-room, moderate-price hotel has 95,000 feet of convention space and the largest ballroom in the Southeast.
Another intriguing attraction due to open in Orlando is WonderWorks (407-841-5468) whose visitors can participate in strange acoustical and electrical experiments and experience illusions and other unusual phenomena.
Housed in an 82-foot-high structure designed to look like a building plopped upside down atop an old warehouse, the $6 million attraction will have two earthquake simulators portraying a San Francisco cafe scene in 1989; a Hurricane Hole in which visitors will experience the effects of 70-m.p.h. winds; a Bridge of Fire whose static electricity will put visitors’ hair on end; a physical challenge area; and many other effects.
The attraction is part of the $120-million Pointe Orlando shopping and entertainment complex opening in December adjacent to the Orlando Convention Center.
Another spooky new attraction in Orlando is Skull Kingdom, a 12,800-square-foot haunted house on International Drive.
An hour’s drive from the theme parks of Central Florida, Kennedy Space Center’s Visitor Complex (407-452-2121) this fall is opening two major additions costing $12.5 million.
The International Space Station Center will take visitors into the building where the international space station is being built. The Launch Complex 39 Observation Gantry will have a 60-foot-high observation tower close to the rocket pads, plus exhibits and a shop.
Those two facilities, along with the $37 million Apollo/Saturn V Center opened last December, will be stops on the bus tour. Visitors will be able to stay as long as they want at the three stops. The bus tours cost $10 for adults, $7 for children.
Florida’s two other major theme parks both opened new sectors earlier this year. On July 4, Tampa’s Busch Gardens (813-987-5082) opened Edge of Africa, a 15-acre preserve that provides up-close viewing of hippos, lions, giraffes, baboons and meerkats. In Orlando, Sea World (407-351-3600) premiered its Dolphin Interaction Program last spring; the two-hour program ($125) allows guests to touch, feed and help trainers communicate with the marine mammals.
DETAILS ON FLORIDA ATTRACTIONS
Autumn is Florida’s bargain season. At that time of year, discounts are a contagion, spreading to just about all tourist-oriented enterprises.
Many hotels continue their low summer package rates or offer new fall discounts, theme parks unveil promotional admission fees and cruise lines often offer their best deals of the year.
A sampling: The Quality Inn Gulfcoast (941-261-6046) in Naples offers a Naples Paradise Getaway package of $109 per couple for two nights, including breakfast, cocktails and a steakhouse dinner for two, good through Dec. 19. Palm Beach’s prestigious Breakers Hotel (888-BREAKERS) has a fall sports package for $199 per room per night (three-night minimum) that includes $200 in sports credit for golf, tennis, fitness center and bicycle rental. It’s good from Wednesday to Dec. 19. Best Western Pink Shell Beach Resort (800-237-5786) on Estero Island has rates starting at $69 per night through Dec. 18.
Wet ‘n Wild (407-351-3200), an Orlando water theme park, is knocking $5 off its regular $24.95 rate through Dec. 31.
But discounts aren’t limited to hotels and theme parks.
In Orlando, for example, Capone’s (800-220-8428), a dinner-show, is offering a second ticket free when residents buy one at the regular price ($31.99), and in South Florida, Scuba Referrals of South Florida (800-585-DIVE) offers a two-night dive package at the Deerfield Beach Comfort Inn that includes a two-tank dive and use of diving equipment for $119 per person, double occupancy.
It’s the slack season, too, for cruises. With demand down, the lines tempt travelers with deep discounts, twofers and other bargains.
In mid-September Carnival Cruise Line, for instance, was offering seven-day cruises for as little as $750 per person on selected autumn dates.
“There’s no question that the best deals of the year are available in the fall,” said Tim Gallagher of Carnival Cruise Lines. “Rates are probably half the in-season winter level.”
