Orlando for Grownups
By John Cloud
Orlando, FLA.: You're thinking roving packs of sunburned children who let their ice cream drip on your toes as you wait to ride Space Mountain. You're thinking overpriced hot dogs and hotel pools crammed with little kids leaving warm spots. All true, but the city has also quietly become a favored destination for adults traveling without kids. Some 54% of adults who visit the city now do so without children--66% if you include convention attendees, according to travel researcher D.K. Shifflet & Associates.
Sure, a lot of adults go to Orlando to indulge in creepy Disney nostalgia. (Grown men should not wear Mickey ears.) But there's another side to Orlando, a city with an opera company, two excellent museums and a busy, quirky nightlife. In an era when only the wealthy can afford an overseas plane ticket, when New York City is too expensive and "the new Vegas" now feels old, consider Orlando. This perpetual adolescent of a city is finally growing up.
That's not to say you should avoid the theme parks entirely. They are, after all, the spectacles that make this place unique. After checking in to one of the more grownup hotels--the so-new-it-smells-like-paint Westin Imagine has a barman, Kyle McCann, who does masterly things with flavored vodka--go ahead and submit to Disney World. Skip the main park and head for Animal Kingdom ($75). Cynics will argue, correctly, that the park's Kilimanjaro Safaris are merely rides around a large zoo. But this zoo has no walls, and you see it from a rover-style truck. The animals might walk right up or lie low in some brush as a guide imparts PBS-worthy information ("Thomson's gazelles are fully grown at 60 lb."). For adults who can't afford a trip to Africa, it's a highly satisfying substitute.
You can get even closer to the wildlife at Discovery Cove, an Anheuser-Busch-owned day resort where the $289 admission includes all-you-can-drink beer. But the bottles of Bud Light Lime aren't the reason to go. The dolphins are. At first I was skeptical about swimming with a dolphin. At swims outside the U.S., the animals have been abused. But Discovery Cove's dolphins work only about two hours a day, according to head trainer Jesse Pottebaum. You'll learn a lot--almost too much--about dolphin anatomy (don't touch the "genital slit," we were told). And the mammals, which weigh around 425 lb. (about 200 kg), are captivatingly sweet to humans. When a trainer urges you to give the animal a kiss, you'll oblige, even if you have deeply mixed feelings about man-dolphin love.
After the bustle of the theme parks, take a person you'd like to kiss to Leu Gardens ($7), a 50-acre (20 hectare) botanical garden in downtown Orlando. Make your way back to the Reba Tennessee Varnes bench and sit under the Spanish moss that hangs from a weeping Chinese elm. This must be the most romantic spot in Florida. Not far away is the Orlando Museum of Art ($8), which focuses on works by Americans. Don't miss Dennis Oppenheim's majestically disturbing 1996 installation Products from the Snowman Factory, a collection of faceless fiberglass snowmen leaning in a corner. The other great museum in the region is the Morse ($3), just outside Orlando in Winter Park. The Morse features the world's largest collection of works by Louis Comfort Tiffany (1848-1933), of lamp fame. I didn't expect much--maybe a bunch of overly precious glasswork. But I was moved to find that Tiffany had a dark, philosophical streak. His Lunette (circa 1900) is a leaded glass fixture with an organic, unfinished quality. It's gritty, not pretty.
But perhaps the most startling and rewarding of Orlando experiences is the nightlife. While the clientele at Parliament House is mostly gay, its renowned drag shows draw hundreds of customers of all orientations. People line up 20 deep to give the drag queens cash, which they toss in crumpled piles behind them on the stage. I was there on a recent Monday morning at 2 a.m., and as revelers danced their way through I Kissed a Girl, I couldn't quite believe I was in the home of Disney World. Orlando, it turns out, isn't G-rated after all.