Fall into Autumn

Fall, or Autumn in the UK, is one of our favourite times to go to Orlando. Orlando always has a certain smell and feel about it, but it seems even more beautiful in the Fall. Colours and smells change and the weather takes a turn for the better – not that we don’t enjoy the Orlando/Florida weather anyway, but it does turn drier and less humid around fall.

So let’s start with that. Florida is known for year round sunshine anyway, and it does definitely deliver on that, but of course there’s the dreaded stormy season, the crazy crazy humidity and the occasional hurricane! Orlando in the summer is not the place to be if your hair is as frizzy as mine, it kind of gets bigger as the day goes on – baseball caps are my go to hair tamer! The heat in the summer is absolutely intense and it rains every single day – sometimes for just an hour sometimes for longer. There are fierce storms too and they can sometimes ruin the best of plans, or postpone them or rearrange them, but that’s part of the fun and unpredictability. When Fall starts the weather starts to dry up a little, the storms get less, the risk of hurricanes gets less and the humidity goes away. It’s glorious and warm and sunny during the days and then the evenings are more bearable. Perfect in fact for lovely long park and pool days, and comfortable evenings wandering around Disney Springs, or CityWalk or just relaxing outside a restaurant enjoying the sunsets and the ambience.

Next great thing we love about the Fall in Orlando – the snacks!! The food in general really, but especially the themed snacks and treats. Both Walt Disney World and Universal up their game in Fall. There’s the new autumn/fall flavours and fruits and then to add to the fun there’s Halloween. So there is a combination of fall flavours and colours, and then there’s the spooky and fun theming. Everything from cupcakes, to pies, ice creams, cookies, dole whips, drinks and everything else you can think off. The theming is amazing, villains, skeletons, monsters and characters, bright colours, flowers, leaves, pumpkins and autumn fruits. The flavours are unbelievable, cinnamon, pumpkin, fruits, rich spicy and salty, comforting and above all fun fun fun! What a joy, what a treat. Everywhere smells like cinnamon and apples and pumpkin spice. We wander in and out of candle stores, the Christmas shops, Cracker Barrel and cake and pastry stores, to get that smell – it’s comforting and wonderful and we love it. To be fair those smells are year round, but somehow when the decor everywhere is so autumnal it seems even more lovely. The Epcot Food and Drink Festival always offers a fantastic range of foods to try and you can wander from country to country tasting smaller trial size portions of lots of different foods from around the world, as well as the drinks – alcoholic and otherwise. So much to try and Universal also have lots of Halloween snacks and treats and the fantastic looking Halloween Horror Night pop-up Store is selling a fantastic array of Halloween themed scary treats and cookies and cakes. It all looks amazing and we are sure tastes amazing too – we’ve certainly watched enough vlogs this week of our lovely Orlando friends munching their way through a vast collection of yummy looking goodies. You lucky sausages – make sure you eat our share too.

That brings us nicely on to the decor and the Halloween stuff! The parks are so so pretty during Fall, as also are the stores, restaurants and malls. Our friends over the pond really do go all out during Fall, and you can buy so many pretty things for your home – candles, beautiful fall garlands and door decorations and anything else you can imagine. They really “do” Fall. The parks go pumpkin heavy and the Mickey shaped pumpkins with garlands which are all along the lamp posts in Main Street USA are a delight, as are the displays at Disney Springs – so so pretty. On top of the glorious Fall decor there’s the whole Halloween shenanigans too. The Disney characters all pop on their Halloween costumes – gotta love Tigger dressed as a pirate and Pooh as a bumble bee – glorious. This year the character cavalcades have turned into Halloween themed cavalcades, with villains and costumed Disney characters and the Boo to You music playing and everyone singing along and clapping and waving, it’s pure joy. Over at Universal they have opened two Halloween Horror Night houses, and they are open during the day at weekends as part of the normal ticketed entry, as there are no separate HHN evening events this year. This has increased park activity greatly and is a fantastic move by Universal – fans of the HHN nights are at least getting their fix of the fantastic horror houses – the fun and the scares, because from what we’ve seen this week they are still as terrifying during the day time! Universal are also running Trick or Treating during the day at Islands of Adventure and then over at Universal Park there’s a Scarecrow hunt – scare being the right word as the Scarecrows are all skeleton and Halloween themed. Adults and children can join the hunt, and you get a stamp on your card for each one you find. At the end of the hunt you can pick yourself a lovely bag of sweets. What a treat! Fun and sweeties and what a great way to get your kids to walk around the park without moaning about getting tired.

So there’s the great weather, the food and snacks, the decor and the Halloween fun. Perfect right! Finally, and one of our most fun things to do in Orlando (let’s remember we are pretty easily pleased) is visit supermarkets. Boy do they go Fall and Halloween mad. So many pretty things to buy. Home decor, home fragrance, trick or treat sweets and candy which you can in the largest bags you can ever imagine and then the best bit – the costumes. There are kids costumes, cute and funny obviously, but the adult costumes are hilarious. We spend many an evening in Walmart or Target trying on costume heads, hats and heaven knows what else. We look at the sweets, the treats the pies and cakes, and we run the gauntlet of the aisles full of animatronic scary things that people put in their houses and front gardens for Halloween. An aisle full of screeching, laughing, cackling scary looking creatures – and that’s just us! Fall in Orlando is amazing.

We are here at home in the UK trying to recreate the Orlando Fall smells, and tastes and warmth and comfort. All of the Yankee Candle plug ins have changed from summer florals to Cinnamon Stick and Home Sweet Home and a freshly baked apple pie awaits us for an evening treat. We do what we can!

Have a great week all – stay safe, have fun and enjoy the change of seasons. Florida continues on it’s upward track with the Governor taking them to the next phase which allows more things to open, and higher attendances at parks and restaurants and events. We are delighted to hear it and hope things continue to go forward, steadily and safely so that we can all enjoy the Fall, the Winter and look forward to the Spring and Summer.

Warm and fuzzy and super cinnamony (it’s a word!) – just like Fall/Autumn.