A&E; AUCTION HOUSE, FRIDAY NIGHT AUCTION
1780 W. Fairbanks Ave., Winter Park
407-645-0407
Hours: The auction house is open during the day for you to look over the merchandise; the auction is at 7 p.m. until whenever every Friday.
Admission: Free, but bring your cash, check or credit card (and a drivers license). You’re going to want to buy something.
The skinny: A place to find hidden treasures or appliances or furniture or used clothing or collectibles. I saw a 100-year-old Tiffany chafing dish set to go for $150 one night, and I scored a very good bike for $35 (plus sales tax and 10 percent auction commission). Auctioneer Mark George and his team keep the crowd entertained, and he tells people to “Bring your money, bring your rope, bring your pads and bring your help.” You buy it, you take it home. Think of it as Antiques Road Show with a mix of valuable stuff and junk — and without the pretentious PBS “experts.”
ASTRONAUT HALL OF FAME
6225 Vectorspace Blvd., Titusville, off 405
321-269-6100
Hours: 9 a.m.-5 p.m. daily.
Admission: $13.95 plus tax, $12.55 plus tax for seniors, $9.95 plus tax for children, 6-12.
The skinny: The U.S. Space Camp Foundation operates this hall of fame, museum and hands-on spaceflight training experience. The exhibits are pretty good, including a Mercury capsule and an Apollo command module. It’s no substitute for the Kennedy Space Center tour, but it has three “aggressive” motion simulator rides aimed mainly at kids who’d rather be at a coaster park or enrolled in the Space Camp. One ride flips you upside down. The Hall of Fame has a few too many movies and videos to suit me, but you’re not trapped on a NASA bus all day, and there’s also an on-site cafHIGHBIT.
THE CITRUS TOWER
U.S. Highway 27, Clermont
352-394-4061
Hours: 8 a.m.-5 p.m. Monday-Friday, open until 9 p.m. on weekends.
Admission: $3.50 adults, $1 children (ages 3 to 15).
The skinny: There used to be citrus trees, as far as the eye could see, and a clear view from Tampa to Disney to Orlando. The tower, built in 1956, is 224 feet tall and was all by itself up on what used to be a main drag between north Florida and south Florida, U.S. Highway 27. Then came the turnpike, and progress.
The tower now sits in the middle of the south Lake County building boom — a sea of rooftops. You can almost count the fruit trees still surrounding it. How much longer this faded attraction will sit atop this prime hilltop property is anybody’s guess.
DORA DOODLEBUG
150 W. Third Ave., Mount Dora
1-800-625-4307
Hours: departures at 11 a.m., 12:30 p.m., 2 and 3:30, Tuesdays through Fridays.
Admission: $10 general, $6 age 12 and under, $9 age 55 and older.
The skinny: A cute little motorized streetcar, copied from a 1920s model, runs you out and around Mount Dora, Tavares and environs. It’s a pleasant hour-long ride and you get a little taste of history too. Could be even better if they took you somewhere, say Eustis and Tavares, and let you on and off.
FANTASY OF FLIGHT
1400 Broadway Blvd. S.E., Polk City
863-984-3500
Hours: 9 a.m.-5 p.m. daily, restaurant 8 a.m. to 4 p.m.
Admission: $24.95 plus tax general, $22.45 seniors, $13.95 ages 5-12.
The skinny: The best aviation attraction in the region, this experience takes you inside a B-17, lets you simulate dogfights in some pretty nifty simulators and gives you fly-bys of various planes they have on display. Shiny Mustangs, a B-24, various other restored or re-created aircraft, a “mission briefing,” all part and parcel of the show.
It’s a little pricey, but there’s a nice lunch restaurant on the premises (just about the only one in Polk City) so you can spend the morning, have lunch and do something else with the rest of the day.
FLYING TIGERS WARBIRD RESTORATION MUSEUM
231 N. Hoagland Blvd., Kissimmee
407-933-1942
Hours: 9 a.m.-5 p.m. daily.
Admission: $8 general, $7 seniors, $6 ages 6-12 (free for age 5 and under).
The skinny: Wondering where to take Grandpa? This museum/restoration project, a constant work in progress, is a guided tour through a very interesting junkyard. You get to see famous and not particularly famous planes in various stages of restoration. There’s a rare German Focke Wolf 190, a couple of B-17 bombers, assorted jets, fighters, racers and trainers. If you know an aviation buff, this is the place to take him. They also offer flights in some of the vintage aircraft and restoration training clinics and workshops. It’s all for a good cause, historical preservation.
GATORLAND
14501 S. Orange Blossom Trail, Orlando
407-855-5496
Hours: 9 a.m.-6 p.m. daily.
Admission: $17.93 plus tax general, $8.48 plus tax for ages 3-12.
The skinny: A local favorite, this slice of Florida Tourism, B.D. (Before Disney), has a petting zoo with a llama, goats and other critters. There are also emus, flamingoes and other birds, and there are gators, crocs, gators and more gators. There are gator wrestling shows and gator feeding shows, often with Nate and Bret.
“If Nate gets eaten, I get promoted,” says Bret.
Cute, quaint, with lots of homespun exhibit signs that inform, entertain and point out how habitat destruction is wiping out some of the critters on view here.
On the downside, they have a bear in a cage. “Rescued” or not, a bear in a cage is still a bear in a cage
GUINNESS WORLD RECORDS EXPERIENCE
At Mercado, 8445 International Drive, Orlando
407-248-8891
Hours: 10 a.m.-11 p.m. Sunday-Thursday,10 a.m.-midnight Friday and Saturday.
Admission: $12.95 plus tax general, $7.95 ages 4-12, $11.95 seniors.
The skinny: Maybe a couple of pints of the beer that gave the record book its name would make this “experience” go down easier. It’s a video-happy, trivia-contest-loaded bore that culminates in a pointless and bruisingly unpleasant motion-simulator film ride. They also show this poor woman getting a 300-pound tumor removed twice.
They get facts wrong (John Glenn was not the “first man to orbit the Earth”). And they misspell words on their captions. “You’re” is NOT the same as “your.”
INTERNATIONAL TROLLEY & TRAIN MUSEUM
8990 International Drive, Orlando
407-363-9002
Hours: 10 a.m.-9 p.m. Monday-Saturday, 10 a.m.-8 p.m. Sunday.
Admission: $6.95 plus tax general, $4.95 plus tax for kids, $5.95 plus tax for seniors. The train ride is $2 extra.
The skinny: A hobbyist’s dream model train set up, with lakes (fake fish), ski slopes (fake skiers), tunnels and towns and many, many itty-bitty trains running through them. They need to soundproof the lone train room better, so that you can’t hear shouts of, “Wait a minute, is this IT?” The higher ticket price includes a short ride on the little choo choo that circles the property. And they say light rail won’t work in O-town!
JUNGLE ADVENTURES
26205 E. Colonial Drive, Christmas
407-568-2885
Hours: 9:30 a.m.-5:30 p.m. daily.
Admission: $14.50 plus tax general, $8.50 plus tax ages 3-11, $11.50 plus tax seniors.
The skinny: For people who consider Gatorland too “slick,” this fills the bill. This down-home and somewhat funky old-style attraction has lots of gators, a gator swamp boat tour, critters in holding pens that are, at least, much larger and closer to real life than some zoos we could name, a fake Spanish fort and a pleasantly off-the-cuff tour guide. Funkiest of all is the gift shop, which smells as if a gator crawled up in the air ducts and died, very pleasant for diners in the in-house cafHIGHBIT. The “Indian Village” is basically a place for a couple of vendors to sell “native” trinkets and skins. The cages for the big cats, including a Florida panther, are, as always, far too small for such animals. Equally depressing, plopping an arctic fox in a box in the middle of the Florida swamp. Send him home!
But you have to love the great big honking gator-shaped entrance.
JUNGLELAND ZOO
4580 W. U.S. Highway 192, Kissimmee
407-396-1012
Hours: 9 a.m.-6 p.m. daily.
Admission: $11.95 plus tax general, $6.95 plus tax ages 3-11, $9.95 plus tax seniors.
The skinny: This zoo has a gator show that is more a lecture than a show, and lots of cages holding exotic animals from coatimundi, capuchin monkeys, ringtail lemurs to macaws and cats and iguanas, all amid piped-in jungle noises.
The first time you see one of the great cats pacing its small cage, you may find yourself hating zoos. This private, for-profit attraction is what public zoos used to be before they realized how bad small cages are for animals and the way we experience them.
It’s no wonder Nala, a lioness, escaped from here in 1998.
Jungleland is expanding its holding pens, which is the very least they could do. I won’t call it an animal Attica, but it’s pretty sad.
LAKERIDGE WINERY TOUR
19239 U.S. Highway27 N., Clermont
1-800-768-WINE, www.lakeridgewinery.com
Hours: 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Monday-Saturday, 11 a.m.-5 p.m. Sunday.
Admission: Tours are free, except during festivals, when the winery has tastings as part of the tours.
The skinny: You don’t see a lot of faux Spanish mission wineries in Florida — wine grapes don’t do well here. But Lakeridge, just north of Minneola, uses Muscadine grapes as the base for its fruity wines, which take some getting used to. Purists may sniff, but sample some at the end of the tour and make up your own mind. Locals know how to miss the crowds, by not going during the late summer weekend harvest and wine-crushing festival.
MAZE WORLD
4623 W. U.S. Highway 192, Kissimmee
407-390-0088
Hours: 8:30 a.m.-11 p.m. daily.
Admission: $5 plus tax.
The skinny: The first maze you encounter is the puzzle of U.S. Highway 192 in Kissimmee. The Maze itself is tricky to find, seeing as how it is inadequately advertised by signage. Really seedy, basically a discount ticket outlet with an eight-station maze built out of multiple home deck kits. You could crawl it in under half an hour. Sober.
MOUNT DORA CANNONBALL
150 W. Third Ave., Mount Dora
1-800-625-4307
Hours: Departures at 11 a.m., 1:30 p.m., 4 p.m. on Saturdays; 1:30 p.m. and 4 p.m. on Sundays.
Admission: $16 general, $15 seniors, $8 age 12 and under.
The skinny: Don’t tell Disney, Universal or SeaWorld, but this is the best ride in America’s vacationland, a 75-minute amble through Mount Dora and Tavares on a 1913 vintage steam engine. You can sit outside in a converted flatcar or inside in restored passenger cars. There’s a refreshments car too. Fun for the very young, or for train buffs.
NATIONAL PRESIDENTS HALL OF FAME
123 N. U.S. 27, Clermont (at the base of the Citrus Tower)
352-394-2836
Hours: 9 a.m.-5 p.m. daily.
Admission: $9.95 plus tax general, $4.95 plus tax ages 4-11.
The skinny: The best (and worst) roadside museums are private obsessions, and this one is operated by a man who has gained fame for his scale model of the White House, a model which is sometimes in the museum, more often on tour. An under-maintained presidential limo sits, slowly falling apart, in the parking lot.
Mannequins in drab, period-appropriate clothing and long, unnecessarily detailed display captions make this tour an absolute ordeal.
NEW SMYRNA BEACH DRIVE
Entrances off Flagler Avenue and Third Avenue among others, New Smyrna Beach.
Hours: 8 a.m.-7 p.m. daily.
Admission: $5 to take your car on the beach.
The skinny: This is a slice of Old Florida tourism that is fast going away, so enjoy driving bits of the remaining 16 miles of beaches between Daytona and New Smyrna while you can. Traffic can be bumper to bumper, you have to keep an eye peeled for people on bikes or on foot, and parking a car in salty beach sand doesn’t do a thing for its resale value. And if you go more than once, you become the punchline to a Jeff Foxworthy joke.
OLD TOWN
5770 W. Irlo Bronson Memorial Highway, Kissimmee
407-396-4888
Hours: 4 p.m.-11 a.m. daily.
Admission: Free to the park, most rides cost in the $3 range.
The skinny: Got relatives coming to town with kids? This is a good, cheap afternoon or evening of amusement, sort of a boardwalk arcade, with candy shops, a gag vintage photo business, ice cream shops, a deli, restaurants, bars and a few kiddy rides, such as a small roller-coaster, carousel and go-carts.
RIPLEY’S BELIEVE IT OR NOT ORLANDO ODDITORIUM
8201 International Drive, Orlando
407-363-4418
Hours: 9 a.m.-1 a.m. daily.
Admission: $8.95 plus tax ages 4-12, $11.95 plus tax seniors, $12.95 plus tax general.
The skinny: The granddaddy of cheesy attractions, Robert Ripley’s house of hooey has long been a staple of tourist traps. But it’s still a cool cornucopia of kookiness; the weird (a Rolls-Royce made from toothpicks), the wacky (assorted human stunts) and just-plain-strange (petrified man, P.T. Barnum’s fake mermaid).
Here’s a tip. Don’t pick your nose in the mirror right at the entrance. People are watching you through the other side.
SKULL KINGDOM
5933 American Way (off I-Drive and Interstate 4, Exit 30A), Orlando
407-354-1564
Hours: 6 p.m.- “until late” Monday-Friday, noon- “until late” Saturday and Sunday.
Admission: $11.79 plus tax “per body.”
The skinny: A disembodied voice growls, “We’re all afraid of the dark inside ourselves,” and then we’re led on a tour of grisly, macabre and chilling dungeon featuring animatronic bodies and real people in seriously gory makeup. Take a group of friends, including at least one screamer, or wait until you can walk through with New Yorkers. They scream better than run-of-the-mill tourists. And catch the Blair Witch gag as you do the 10-minute tour. Not recommended for children under 8.
SKYCOASTER
2805 Florida Plaza Blvd., Kissimmee (next to Old Town)
407-397-2509
Hours: Noon-midnight daily.
Admission: $37 per person, $64 for two people, $81 for three.
The skinny: You lie in a big air-evac basket and SWING out, hundreds of feet in the air, over a lagoon, with a great view of U.S. Highway 192 strip malls, go-cart rides and water slides. And you do this for about 5 minutes.
Abraham Lincoln put it best:
Those who like this sort of thing may find it the sort of thing that they like.
TITANIC — THE EXHIBITION
8445 International Drive, Orlando
407-248-1166
Hours: 10 a.m.-8:30 p.m. daily.
Admission: $11.95 plus tax kids, $14.79 plus tax seniors, $16.95 plus tax general.
The skinny: It’s a guided walking tour through a re-creation of parts of the infamous ship that takes you through memorabilia of the passengers and crew, props from the movie (WAY too many versions of the theme song), items from sister ships and a couple of actual artifacts.
Stealing an idea from the Holocaust Museum, your ticket has a passenger’s name on it. Did he or she survive? You won’t know until the end. The guides are great, and the experience, despite its transparent fakeness, is kind of moving.
TROPIC THEATRE
122 W. Main St., Leesburg
352-314-9778
Hours: 7 p.m. nightly, with matinees at noon (1 p.m. weekdays) and 4 p.m.
Admission: $5.
The skinny: The oldest movie theater in Central Florida is a trip — back in time. Though the theater dates from the 1930s, it has a nifty 1950s vibe, big comfy seats, cool lighting and surprisingly hip films. The House of Mirth made its Central Florida debut here. This is what small-town moviegoing used to be.
They’ve opened and closed this place more times than you can count. A remodeled Tropic reopens Memorial Day weekend.
WONDER WORKS
Pointe Orlando, 9067 International Drive, Orlando
407-351-8800
Hours: 9 a.m.-midnight daily.
Admission: $15.95 general, $11.95 kids. $5.95 for Laser tag only, $19.95 combo ticket (tour plus Laser tag), $14.95 for kids, $28.95 ultimate combo (dinner show) $24.95 for kids.
The skinny: A hands-on “science” attraction that has things like a simulated hurricane and simulated earthquake, a few little perspective-twisting exhibits (funhouse mirrors, motion simulator rides). But mostly this is a very cool arcade, with hang-gliding simulators, a coaster simulator and shoot-’em-up video games.
Some people call this place “educational.” It isn’t. And Pointe Orlando’s parking stinks.
YALAHA COUNTRY BAKERY FOR LUNCH
8210 County Road Highway 48, Yalaha
352-324-3366
Hours: 8 a.m.-5 p.m. Monday-Saturday.
Admission: Free, but you’re going to want to eat something.
The skinny: You’re driving through miles of orange groves and the housing developments that are creeping through them when all of a sudden you stumble across this little bit of Bavaria in the middle of Yalaha (between Howey-in-the-Hills and Leesburg). The two-story bakery that Guenter Herold opened in 1995 is famed for its sweets and breads; it’s a also a restaurant and a local gathering place. They have free outdoor concerts most Saturdays.
