Florida
Florida Holiday
Florida justly earns this title, with its unrivalled volume and variety of theme parks and attractions. As a result, it offers a magical formula for family holidays, with children welcome at all the hotels we feature.
All the holidays we feature to Florida are based on scheduled airlines, with frequent departures from London and
Manchester. Furthermore, we also include a rental car on a rental only basis with unlimited mileage for up to two weeks. Both these features add up to ultimate flexibility when it comes to arranging your Florida holiday with Kuoni.
We are committed to offering you the most competitive prices, giving you the best possible value for money holiday to Florida. That's why we have introduced our money back guarantee and our exciting new best price special offers.
Mix the energy and excitement of the Walt Disney World Resort, with a relaxing stay on the fantastic beaches of South Florida or the Gulf Coast. Just one of hundreds of perfect holidays to be found in this brochure. Enjoy the Kuoni difference: fly on scheduled airlines and enjoy holiday itineraries that have been carefully planned by our professional staff and management.
Jutting out from Georgia nearly all the way to Cuba, the peninsula of Florida (bigger than England) is home to spacemen and sports stars, millionaires and pensioners. Not to mention alligators, acrobatic dolphins and Mickey Mouse. With every sort of water sport, unlimited tennis and golf, lake and sea fishing, inland adventures and a surprising measure of culture, there's more to see and do here than anyone has time for.
The climate is subtropical: every winter Floridians and visitors smugly read about snowstorms wreaking havoc in the north, while Miami basks in the nation's highest temperatures. This ought to be the Deep South, and indeed you'll hear some soft drawls, but so many immigrants have brought their own accents from Cuba, Haiti or New York that the state is more multi-cultural than most. In Miami you can go for a whole day without hearing English spoken.
Florida is flat, its highest point a mere 105 m (345 ft) above sea level. The coastline, much of it bordered by beaches of white or golden sand, stretches 2,200 km (1,370 miles)-far more if you count all the offshore islands. Seas are generally calmer and warmer on the Gulf of Mexico than the Atlantic side of the peninsula.
Inland, millions of cattle graze the grassy plains, and great tracts of land are planted with groves of orange and grapefruit trees-Florida is the biggest citrus-growing region in the world.
From the 1,800 sq km (700 sq miles) of Lake Okeechobee ("big water" in Seminole) and an estimated 30,000 smaller lakes, warm water seeps through the unique wetlands of the Everglades, culminating in mangrove swamps at the tip of the state. No doubt it seemed a good idea at the time when, in 1905, Governor Napoleon Bonaparte Broward lifted the first shovelful of earth, beginning the digging of countless canals designed to drain swampland and turn it over to farming and building. Now an awareness of the area's delicate ecology has led to a remarkable change of thinking. In 1989, President Bush signed a bill directing the US Army's engineers to restore a more natural flow of water into the Everglades.
From the mainland, the world's longest overseas causeway links a chain of islands known as the Florida Keys. The coral reefs that shield them, fatal to many ships in the past, now attract hosts of scuba-divers and snorkellers. The road ends at Key West, where a famously laid-back lifestyle has drawn all sorts of escapists and eccentrics: some who came for a visit stayed for ever.
Newcomers are invariably impressed by the facilities they find in Florida. You can eat well on a modest budget, and accommodation offers value for money. The best way to get around is by car. Orlando and its theme parks and indeed all of Florida are practically designed around the automobile. In the smaller towns, parking problems have yet to reach crisis levels. And for out-of-town excursions the car permits spur-of-the-moment decisions and detours that often provide the unexpected pleasures which turn out to be the most memorable of your trip.