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Condé Nast Traveler picks
 Best of Orlando
With some 48 million visitors a year, Orlando is America's unrivaled champion of family-friendly vacations and a titan among trade show and convention hosts. But while the region claims seven of the world's ten most-visited theme parks, it's also dotted with charming villages and vestiges of dignified living that seem to clamor in vain for attention.
Attractions & Activities Sometimes it seems like every good American must make a pilgrimage to 35,000-acre Walt Disney World at least once, and in summer, it can feel like all of them have done so at the same time. But in few other places will you find everyone so happy to be there. King among the quartet of theme parks is the Magic Kingdom, where the quintessential Disney icons are found: Cinderella's Castle, Main Street USA, Space Mountain, and the Pirates of the Caribbean boat ride. The second-most popular park, Epcot, is a sprawling version of a world's fair that, although quickly becoming dated, still draws them in with two rides—Soarin' and Mission: Space. Disney-MGM Studios is a mildly diverting tribute to Hollywood magic, and contains the chilling Twilight Zone Tower of Terror free-fall ride. You can cover Disney's Animal Kingdom in a five-hour day; the park's calling cards are its menagerie of wild animals and its spectacular Expedition Everest roller coaster, opened in April 2006. Besides Pleasure Island, a bustling (and pure-as-milk) nightlife and shopping area in Downtown Disney, the Mouse also operates two waterslide parks: Blizzard Beach has the thrills, and Typhoon Lagoon appeals to youngsters. While Disney is generally tame and sugary to suit young children, its rival, Universal Orlando, squeezed into a compact campus off I-4, is edgy and thrilling enough for teens. Its Universal Studios park, with blockbuster movies as its theme, is home to the high-tech Revenge of the Mummy ride. Its sister park, Universal Islands of Adventure, is famous for its attention to design and for the groundbreaking Amazing Adventures of Spider-Man 3-D adventure, voted the world's best ride by enthusiast clubs for the better part of a decade. The restaurants and nightclubs of Universal CityWalk are no less canned than those in Disney World's nightlife zone, but they attract a younger and hipper crowd and keep the beer taps open until the wee hours. Among scenesters, its multistory dance hall, The Groove, has the most street cred of the theme park clubs. SeaWorld Orlando draws a mellow crowd with its pleasant gardens and informative displays of exotic marine animals—including Shamu, who dutifully performs daily. The superlative Discovery Cove is a luxe reworking of the SeaWorld experience; the stratospheric admission buys you access to a tropical idyll of sparsely populated beaches, aviaries, and reefs, and includes food and face-to-face swim time with a dolphin. But Orlando is not all theme parks. Indeed, it's easy to forget that central Florida is essentially wetlands, but 43-acre Lake Eola Park, smack dab amid the city's skyscrapers, is a pleasant reminder. The Orlando Museum of Art houses an eclectic range of pieces, from ancient Americas artifacts to works by John Singer Sargent and Georgia O'Keeffe (407-896-4231; omart.org). The Harry P. Leu Gardens, cultivated during the Depression by a wealthy businessman, are living proof of the city's long-forgotten reputation as an Eden in America (407-246-2620; leugardens.org). Orange Avenue is the city's unofficial spine and convivial post-work beer halls and lounges buzz on and nearby it, around Church and Robinson streets. Tabu is Orlando's answer to South Beach (46 N. Orange Ave). About a mile north of Downtown, past Virginia Drive, Orange morphs into the treasure-hunter's heaven of Antique Row. Flo's Attic carries surprising acquisitions at reasonable prices (1800 N. Orange Ave.; 407-895-1800). A stroll along tree-lined Park Avenue, in the suburb of Winter Park, just north of Downtown, can feel like a sojourn in the genteel, moneyed world of Florida in the 1920s. The Charles Hosmer Morse Museum of American Art has the world's most comprehensive collection of works by Louis Comfort Tiffany, including his virtuosic chapel created for the World's Columbian Exposition of 1893 (407-645-5311; morsemuseum.org). The surrounding blocks lure shoppers and café-goers with many of the region's best (and only) independent boutiques and patisseries. Auke Hempenius stocks hard-to-find Italian menswear and recently launched its own label (316 N. Park Ave.; 407-647-5007). Led by a salty skipper, the meandering Scenic Boat Tour through the suburb's chain of lakes has been a sightseeing institution since 1938 ( one-hour tours, $10). Lodging As a region built on conferences and family tourism, Orlando is heavy on interchangeable business-class hotels, but top-drawer properties are finally appearing for those who want a little more than a crash pad by the parks. The Ritz-Carlton Orlando Grande Lakes merited a position on Condé Nast Traveler's Gold List. It shares its 500 acres with the high-rise JW Marriott Orlando Grande Lakes, which blends luxury-level bird's-eye digs with a lush pool complex that includes a lazy-river inner-tube ride. Ever since it invaded Florida in 1971, the Mouse's premier hotel has been Disney's Contemporary Resort, where monorails bound for the Magic Kingdom cruise dramatically through the signature 1960s A-frame lobby and nearly every room has a lake view. At Disney's Animal Kingdom Lodge, beside the Animal Kingdom itself, rooms overlook paddocks stocked with African game including giraffes, kudu, and zebras. On the lagoons of Universal Orlando, the Loews-run Portofino Bay Resort is a sprawling folly designed to mimic its romantic Italian namesake, down to re-creating the angles of its side streets and boat docks. The intimate Westin Grand Bohemian, which doubles as an art gallery, appeals to a discerning clientele: It has more than 100 works from owner Richard Kessler's collection (four of them by Gustav Klimt) and a pool terrace perched above the city's avenues. Rising grandly in the recently reclaimed wide-open spaces south of the city, the Omni Orlando Resort at ChampionsGate, abutted by two more Greg Norman courses, is home of the prestigious David Leadbetter Golf Academy (the faithful endure years-long waiting lists to learn here with the master). Dining You don't have to flee the theme park universe to find a good meal, because a few top-quality tastemakers are already inside the gates. Many of Walt Disney World's restaurants specialize in over-sugared kiddie fare, but several are superb, and you should make reservations as soon as you know the dates on which you'll be visiting. The extravagantly opulent Victoria & Albert's, inside Disney's Grand Floridian Resort, consistently wins international praise for chef Scott Hunnel's assured culinary execution (407-824-2591; seven-course prix fixe, $100). Directly across the lagoon, atop the Contemporary Resort, California Grill is more casual, but its nightly fireworks view and broad New American menu make it one of the most hard-to-secure tables in town (407-939-3463; entrées, $21–$35). Inside Epcot, in the France Pavilion, Bistro de Paris combines dining with drama: gourmet French standards and stunning views of the nightly IllumiNations show outside (407-939-3463; entrées, $24–$31). For live tunes and shoulder-to-shoulder cocktail consumption, Universal's CityWalk is the place. Favorites include Latin Quarter, with spirit-lifting live South American music, which often tops local polls for best Latin food (407-224-3663; entrées, $12–$18). Jimmy Buffet's Margaritaville, noted for its overstacked Cheeseburger in Paradise, features a volcano exploding with margarita mix, which just about says it all (407-224-2155; entrées, $10–$22). Not all of Universal's kitchens are so kitschy: Emeril Lagasse's Tchoup Chop, designed by David Rockwell, is distinguished by a changing menu of fresh fish and Polynesian flavors that are far more nuanced than you'd expect from a kitchen overseen by an absentee celebrity chef (6300 Hollywood Way; 407-503-2467; entrées, $20–$31). Several of the city's better restaurants inhabit the strip mall netherworld suspended between Downtown and the Disney zone, within easy reach of the Convention Center. One standout is the justifiably jammed Seasons 52, a grill where no dish is more than 475 calories (7700 Sand Lake Rd.; 407-354-5212; entrées, $8–$25). In the JW Marriott Orlando Grande Lakes, James Beard award–winning chef Melissa Kelly mines her southern Italian ancestors' recipe books at the organic, open-kitchen Primo, an outgrowth of the celebrated original in Maine (407-393-4444; entrées, $20–$33). As you head north out of the tourist stomping grounds and into the Downtown area, pastiche gives way to homegrown pleasures: This is where the locals tend to kick back. For a generation, chef Louis Perrotte has presided over the domestic-feeling Le Coq au Vin (4800 S. Orange Ave.; 407-851-6980; entrées, $15–$20), and for his efforts in seasonal, traditionally French fare, including a Grand Marnier soufflé, he's an elder statesman among Floridian gourmets. Formerly a printing plant, the hospitable Adair's, just east of Downtown in College Park, serves high-end Southern comfort food such as Vidalia onion cream soup (2625 Edgewater Dr.; 407-423-0081; entrées, $21–$29). Serving bold fare such as chipotle-laced Caesar salad, the tiny Blue Bistro and Grill is also popular (815 N. Mills Ave.; 407-898-5660; entrées, $16–$29). You can't know Orlando's tacky soul without an evening of so-called dinnertainment. Of the dozen or so spectacles packing them in nightly, the most eye-goggling has to be Dolly Parton's Dixie Stampede, an unabashedly redneck equestrian tribute to the antebellum South paired with a finger-lickin' barbecue (8251 Vineland Ave.; 407-238-4455; dinner and show, $49). Truth in Travel is the guiding principle for all content published in Condé Nast Traveler. Other travel publications often accept free travel and accommodations. Condé Nast Traveler does not. It is independent of the travel industry. The magazine always pays its way, and, as far as possible, its correspondents travel anonymously. By doing so, they experience the world—both the good and the bad—as other travelers do, and their reports and recommendations are fair, impartial, and authoritative.
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