In efforts to bring a little education and wonder to our Florida vacation, we took Zoe and Felix to Kennedy Space Center. Dan and I had visited Kennedy Space Center during our winter trip ( and previously as children), so we had a good idea of where we wanted to focus our time.

The Kennedy Space Center is huge. When we visited in the winter, we stayed from opening until closing and didn't see it all. We knew that the kids couldn't handle spending an entire day. It would just be too much. We were blown away by the entire presentation of the Space Shuttle Atlantis, so that is where we focused our energy.

We arrived prior to opening, giving us plenty of time to purchase tickets and take a few pictures.

The Atlantis presentation is phenomenal. It starts with a multi-screen video presentation, that ends with a clever reveal of the actual Atlantis Space Shuttle. I was most excited to see Zoe and Felix's reaction, which didn't disappoint. They were blown away.

After Atlantis, we spent about an hour in the Atlantis building, which is filled with educational and interactive exhibits. The kids really liked climbing through a clear tube tunnel that was on the second level: not for those who fear heights! We also rode The Shuttle Launch Experience, a simulator ride. The ride itself is fairly tame, but the preshow is a bit intense. It made Felix really nervous and he didn't ride.

The constellation globe is like a magnet for kids.

Next we took the bus tour to the Apollo/ Saturn V Center. Although this is a "not-to-be-missed" part of Kennedy Space Center, it was too much for the kids. They really enjoyed everything in the Atlantis building, but they were ready to call it quits and head back for an afternoon by the pool. If we lived in Florida or if we had more days on our vacation, it would have been wise to buy a multi-day pass and do the bus tour on a different day. It didn't help that our bus driver wasn't very enthusiastic and he was difficult to understand.

When we reached the Apollo/Saturn V Center, we skipped the main presentation ( which is great, should not be missed) and went straight to the Moon Rock Cafe for a quick lunch. When Dan and I visited in winter, we splurged on the "Lunch with an Astronaut" experience, which was a buffet meal and a Q/A session with an Astronaut. It was a great experience. It was spendy and we didn't know if they kids would be at the right age to appreciate it, but I wish we had gone for it. Eating at The Moon Rock Cafe was expensive, crowded, and underwhelming. It fed into our general vibe of needing to call it a day.

We briefly looked at the exhibits in the Apollo/Saturn V Center, including touching a moon rock.

Recently, we were talking to Felix about our trip to the Kennedy Space Center and he remembered the gators. He was a little freaked out about the gators. It was his biggest memory of the day; to be fair he was only six at the time. We did see several gators sunning themselves in the waterways as we were on the bus tour.

We didn't see any Sandhill Cranes.

Zoe told us all about Sweden's astronauts. It's cool to hear what she's learning about in her country. I'm always impressed with how much my step kids know about the world around them: science, politics, history, et...

Last stop was the rocket garden.

After Kennedy Space Center, we drove to Coco Beach. Unfortunately, a storm was rolling in, which made for dramatic pictures, but cut the playtime short. We had just enough time for a quick dip in the Atlantic.

On a future trip, we'd likely plan to spend a few days at Coco Beach, rather than spending the entire time in Orlando. Florida just has so much to offer for a vacation, that it's impossible to do it all on one trip.

In 2016, before realizing that I prefer to go on vacations and write about my trips, I tried my hand at running my own travel agency. As I was learning the business, I was able to discover fantastic deals for our family vacation. One of our discoveries was the Holiday Inn Orange Lake Resort in Orlando, Florida.

We contemplated staying on Disney World property, as I have done on many previous trips. However, the high prices and lack of availability for our trip in late July/early August, made us look elsewhere. I don't think that the Holiday Inn has a great brand image, but we read reviews of the property and our price couldn't be beat.

We got a two-bedroom condo for two weeks and a mid-size rental car for about 1600.00. No parking fees or other costly surprises. The resort is just a fifteen minute drive from Disney property and located very close ( practically walking distance) to restaurants, grocery stores, and a Target. We ate at several of the local restaurants, including a Bahama Breeze ( twice), a waffle house (twice), and the biggest hit with our family, Logan's Roadhouse. As a Disney fan I'm shocking myself by writing this, but I think I enjoyed our time off-property, as much as in the parks.

There were a few catches to the incredible deal. The main one being that the Holiday Inn Orange Lake Resort is a time-share. We are not time-share owners nor was our deal contingent on taking a tour or sitting through a sales pitch. We simply booked an available room through my travel agency ( any agency can help you, I didn't have special access) and bundled it with our car rental. We knew it was a time share or "vacation club" going in and we had read advice on handling the time share employees from Trip Advisor.

When we checked-in, we were directed to a separate desk to get our parking pass. This is the time-share ploy. We knew it was coming. We responded to the rather intense offers of checking out their vacation club, with a polite and firm, "No Thank You." We were offered the usual time share gifts, like park tickets and coupons for free inner tubes for the lazy river on property. They charge nine dollars a day per tube, so we just skipped it and honestly, the kids didn't mind. We read on trip advisor that we should unplug the phones in our room, because the time share people would try calling and sure enough, they did. However, with enough polite and firm "No's" they will leave you alone and we did not have this impact our vacation.

Our family time is too precious to waste sitting through a presentation for something we are not going to buy in efforts to get a "free gift."

Our room was located on the front entrance boarder of the property, on the top floor in a three story building.

Some of the rooms are single-story bungalows. We had a large back balcony that faced a golf course that circled Orange Lake Resort. We don't golf, so this was another amenity that didn't matter to us. It looked nice if you are a golfer. I often sat on the patio to read and it was always peaceful with lots of local birds landing on our deck. I loved the patio. It was a good place for me to have a break, when everyone else wanted to watch television.

The condo was perfect for the four of us. We had our own little kitchen that was fully stocked with everything that we needed to make meals at home. Although we often ate in the parks or out locally, we did have a couple of dinners in and we found that it was really helpful for breakfast. With little kids (6 and 9 at time travel), it was easier and cheaper for everyone to eat breakfast in the condo. We mostly used the breakfast bar for these quick meals, but the condo also had a beautiful dining room table.

My Swedish stepkids wilted in the Florida heat, so we discovered that it was best to either go to the parks in the morning or late at night for just a few hours. This meant that we had plenty of time to enjoy the condo. The living room was perfect for watching movies and cooling off in the air-conditioning. This was the summer that we all discovered the show "The Impractical Jokers," which pretty much always seemed to be running in a marathon on TruTV.

The kids had their own room and their own bathroom. They surprised us by unpacking their suitcases and putting their clothes neatly away in their bedroom drawers!

Our master suite was down the hall and it had a large bathroom with a spa tub. The entire condo was spacious and comfortable.

I actually enjoy doing laundry, even on vacation, so I was thrilled that our condo included a washer and dryer. It just made things a lot easier, especially when our clothes were gross from sweating and getting dirty at the theme parks. Lots of stains from dripping Mickey ice cream bars!

One downside is unlike a traditional hotel, we did not have regular cleaning service. We could have had it for a per-day fee, but instead we just kept with the two cleanings that were included in our stay. We had to call to book the cleanings, but we found that they did a very good job. The lack of daily cleaning didn't bother me much, because we had the washer and dryer to clean towels and linens. We purchased an all-purpose spray cleaner and paper towels to keep sticky surfaces from getting mucky. It wasn't hard or a hassle to keep the room relatively clean ourselves.

As I mentioned, the Holiday Inn Orange Lake Resort has a pool complex with slides and a massive lazy river. This was not near our room. The entire resort is enormous and it even has an internal bus system. We drove over to the pool complex and found to be over-crowded. On a slow day, it might be nice, but for our needs, the kids were more happy at the small, basic pool/hot tub that was located within walking distance from our condo. The pool close to our room was rarely crowded and it was just easier than having to haul ourselves over to the bigger pool area. As much as our family loves lazy rivers, no one was fussed about skipping this one and for a family of four, it saved us thirty-six dollars a day in ring rentals! We never went back and since none of us had a camera with us, we didn't take pictures of the big pool area. The resort website has great pictures if you're interested.

Here is a shot of the pool near our condo. We used this every single day of the trip. A little Florida rain didn't stop the fun!

The Holiday Inn Orange Lake Resort has many features we didn't visit, such as restaurants, arcades, kids activities, a gym...it has a lot to offer.

Besides the initial pushiness of the time share people and the crowds in the main pool complex, we really had a fabulous time at the Holiday Inn Orange Lake Resort. The price simply cannot be beat and we loved our condo. It was convenient to the Disney parks and area shops/restaurants. It was the ideal fit for our family. We would definitely return to this property and seek out other Holiday Inn Vacation Resorts.