Hey there…. we are sorry we’ve been a bit lax on the blogging front lately, it’s been a mad few weeks/months for us both and we really haven’t had a spare moment. Mea culpa mea culpa mea culpa….
This week’s blog is part inspired by my little brush with Covid, as I lost my taste and smell for quite a while, and it hit home just how important a sense of smell is – especially while on holiday in Orlando, or anywhere in fact!! It’s taken from December until now (early March) to get my taste and smell back to somewhat normal levels. This leads us into some of the things we absolutely love about holidaying in the Great State of Florida.
To start with the best smell to begin a holiday with is that jet fuel as you navigate the airport access roads on the UK side, the beginning of the journey, you know this is going to be the start of a great adventure. You walk into the departure hall, and you smell the strong cleaner they use – it gets me giddy every time. Passports checked we wander off into possibly the maddest place in any airport, not the pub!! The Duty Free!!! This area is a literal assault on the senses, full of folks spraying perfume samples willy nilly and Tracey getting into a state because she cannot decide what perfume to get or what make-up to buy…. full on first world problems. After that its over to wherever we can squeeze into for our breakfast, this has to be a ‘full English’ or you are not trying hard enough…
Airports have a smell like no other, they always remind me of hospitals for some reason?? That being said I do love the smell of a plane! It’s a smell like no other, and I love it!!
We won’t talk about about airline food as thats been done to death. So has the food! (Bur dum tish!) The main reason for this blog on smells was Orlando. So away we go! If you have never been to Orlando/Florida it has it’s very own ambience…. from the moment you walk on the jet-way getting off the plane it hits you. The air hugs you like a faithful old jumper, wrapping you in it’s warm embrace. It’s a cross between beach, jungle and rainforest, just standing in passport control you get a sense of what’s to come once you go outside…. and that’s when you KNOW you are in Orlando. The moment you walk through the doors by the car rental and go outside to get your vehicle, the warm, muggy, moist air just HITS YOU! ‘Hello Orlando’ is all you can say! It’s feeling like no other, you start to walk slower immediately, no sense in rushing you are going to start sweating anyway. (Tracey here – this is also the point where my hair starts to get bigger and bigger).
The ‘smell’ of Orlando is unique, in our heads it’s a cross between cinnamon, grass, salt air, swampland and the sweet smell of flowers. It smells inviting and friendly and makes you feel at home and very comfortable and relaxed.
My all time fave smell is the one that greets you as you walk into the Cracker Barrel. It’s possibly the most welcoming smell there is. Fact. Warm Cinnamon, Coffee and maple syrup is everywhere and I tell you if they made a candle of it I’d buy a case full. Fact. Again. The shop/cashier area in Cracker Barrel is a joy for the senses, I’d happily sit in there all day taking in the ambience and smells. Whenever we make our own version of the Cracker Barrel pancakes with loads of cinnamon we always get transported back to the store. Happy days.
Another fave smelling store is Publix. This is a mix of Sainsbury’s ( a supermarket in the U.K.) and a restaurant, the grocery shopping part and then the deli and cooked food store, chicken strips, mashed potatoes and green beans, pizza, salads and cakes. What’s not to like. It’s a fun filled time wandering round trying to decide what to take back for tea??? We are always led by our noses in here, me to the meat cooking and Tracey was overjoyed to see a fantastic fridge full of fresh flowers! Little fact – this was where we got the flowers for our wedding from, and they were absolutely perfect, fresh and bright and vibrant. Just like us! (Lol). Tracey grabbed a couple of lovely bunches of roses and then we sat by the pool at our villa while she made them up into a bouquet for her and a buttonhole for me. Anyway – back to Publix – from the sweet treats in the bakers oven to the candied nuts we spend hours walking around here. I for one look forward to stepping through the doors again, if only for the air conditioning blast that hits you as you walk in. OH! We almost forgot! Publix is possibly one of the best places to get your much needed pool noodle!! Love the smell of those too incidentally – pool noodles and lilos and beach shoes – that unmistakable plastic smell when you have a car full of fun for the pool!
The parks and resorts all seem to have their own smells too. We haven’t been to all of the resorts but the ones we have I can tell you seem to have their own unique smell pumped through the lobby and shops and they are welcoming and obviously match the resort – so the Yacht and Beach club does have a very beachy smell around it, and the Polynesian smells tropical and fruity. It’s amazing how they do that, but for those of us who are lucky enough to go to Orlando often you can pretty much tell where you are just from the background smells. The Grand Floridian is another resort that smells unique, its very spa-esq(?) its all essential oils and fresh linen, when you walk in you are immediately relaxed and feel right at home. Who ever creates the smells for each resort is a master mixer. Imagine doing that for a job eh?
The best smells are actually in the parks, especially at the Magic Kingdom, Main Street USA is a kaleidoscope of smells, the bakery, the ice cream parlour and Casey’s Corner reach out to tempt you in…the bakery is possibly my fave, who cannot love the smell of fresh baked goods wafting down the street, and the smell of the cotton candy takes us back to fun fairs when we were young. Casey’s Corner is a meat lover’s delight – hot dogs and onions and all the condiments make it a “for sure” pit stop for me, and for Tracey too as they now do a delightful veggie dog (well they will once it re- opens). The Magic Kingdom is home to some of the best snacks and smells, for example you have the hamburger spring roll cart. This little gem has always got a queue, and you can smell it for miles away. Spring rolls? With hamburger, pickles and mustard??? Count us in. It’s an actual nightmare in a park, no sooner you’ve had your Cracker Barrel breakfast you smell the coffee and danishes in the Starbucks and you say “maybe a little something to keep my blood sugar up?”…. I’m a sucker for coffee as a lot of you know and when I found out you can get a LARGE flat white in the U.S. Starbucks I was overjoyed.
The Tomorrowland Speedway has a smell all of its own, it’s a cross between go carts and the quad bikes. They chug along at 10mph with a little cloud following them around, and if you cannot find this ride use follow your nose! You can smell it from a mile away! No word of a lie. It’s one of those smells that lingers on you for about an hour after you’ve ridden it. The sound is like dozens of lawnmowers humming along all together.
Both Splash Mountain and Pirates of the Caribbean have a very distinct chlorine smell about them. More so for P.O.T.C. It may be because they are indoor rides for the main part and the water really needs circulation and cleaning regularly, they always smell like the local pools we used to visit as kids. The queue for Pirates is the stronger smelling of the 2 rides. It’s very much like it’s concentrated due to the low roof and theming.
Another ride with very distinctive smells like these is the Jurassic Park River Adventure over in Universal, this ride really turns the dial up on the jungle smells and senses. It’s ‘seems’ a lot swampier (if thats a word??) – maybe due to the foliage, but you certainly get the impression you are under the canopies of a rain forest with all the associated smells. This water ride clings to you once you leave, not “if” but when you get wet and it’s that sort of damp smell you cannot get rid of. Maybe thats why they sell so many t-shirts in the gift shop?? Don’t get us started about Bluto’s Bilge Rats Barge Wash. Man alive this ride gets you soaked, full on soaked, down to your underwear! This water smell is powerful, and not in a good way, we know its cleaned and sanitised but man you smell bad when you get off. It’s like you have no deodorant on! Or maybe it’s washed it off???
The Mummy ride has a definite smell about it. It’s an old musty, dusty smell like you expect of a museum or recently opened tomb, but to us it STILL smells like the Kong Ride did back in the day! Maybe the ‘essence” has permeated the walls and they cannot get rid of it?? It definitely still smells of the subway portion of the queue for the old Kong ride. The strongest smell is the E.T. Ride, this is bonkers. It’s pine trees and wood and grass and lord knows what else, they should make a car air freshener with that smell, I’d buy it!
It’s funny how smelling something can catapult you back to a memory. We love to discuss what we miss in Orlando with friends and family, and it’s the simple thing like the smell of a churro cart (OMG DELICIOUS) or the famous soap shop in Disney Springs, or the wafting smells of Blaze Pizza tempting you even though you are not hungry… One of the things we love about Orlando is the vast array of things to do and see, and smell…take a ride on the airboats at Boggy Creek and you get a mix of salt, sea air and swamp that keeps swapping depending of which way the wind is blowing. Oh, also throw in BBQ smells from the restaurant there!
The malls over in Orlando have a special place in our heart as well. If you’ve ever been to the Mall at Millenia this place is a delight for the nose, and walking into Abercrombie & Fitch the aftershave has you right away. It’s called Fierce, we can only get it in the States. They do a similar one here but it’s not quite the same… and a bottle of that is an absolute must buy for me. Tracey loves the “Bath and Body Works” store. I can guarantee she will leave with a basket full of stuff! The vast array of testers (back in the days when you could test!) made sure no part of me or Tracey came out smelling the same! We used to run out of places to try different creams etc on… a real first world problem.
We also have this other problem when we visit the outlet malls….one day we were looking for the Under Armour store when Tracey just sprinted off, turns out she had seen the Yankee Candle store! And once again we had to work out just how we were gonna get 4 big candles, room sprays and odds and sods home??? We did though. Who needs beach towels and underclothes anyway – I don’t by all accounts. Back to the candle store, this is a delight, loads of unusual fragrances that we don’t get in the U.K., and they are cheaper, and thats the reason we buy so much.
I personally love the restaurants and coffee shops in Orlando. The smell of Churros and coffee is a personal fave of mine. (Loads of my friends make fun of me for my coffee addiction…I’m not an addict. I just love it!) and my idea of a perfect snack is a Churro and a flat white. Nom nom. The best ever place to sit for a snack though is in City Walk at Universal, Starbucks coffee on one side and Cinnabon on the other. OH MY DAYS. My son and I on our last visit did the divide and conquer trick – one went for coffee, the other popped into Cinnabon. Sharing an extra large flat white and a cinnamon bun. Life sorted – perfection. Such a glorious smell!!!!! We still talk about that to this day! Happy times indeed. Another fave of ours is the Cheesecake Factory Restaurant. This place is the most confusing restaurant in the world and we mean that in a good way. You sit down, look at the menu, then you see/smell what someone else has had, you change your mind, then the next table has something that smells even better…. dammit!!!!! We have a rule now when we are eating you must choose then close the menu and not look again…otherwise you’ll be there all night making your mind up. THEN you have to chose a cheesecake…sweet heavens why is life so hard??
We’ve talked about our fave smells,….but by far the best one is the smell of your own pool back at the villa you are renting. Nothing beats getting home after a long day at the parks, kicking your shoes off, grabbing an ice cold drink and just sitting on the edge of the pool with your all day park walking feet dangling in the warm relaxing water, chatting about the days events and fun. This is my favourite Orlando smell. I hope you agree.
For now, stay safe, keep washing ya hands and hopefully by the summer we will be on the way out of this nonsense. Speak soon! There’s also a vlog on our YouTube channel about this very subject, so feel free to pop over and take a look. Don’t forget to say hi in the comments. Tell us your own favourite smells and memories of Orlando. Please also like us, subscribe to the blog and vlog and tell your friends, it will help us out a lot until we can get to Florida and give you our unique take on all things Orlando.
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