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Dear Sir/Madam,
On a trip to Florida at the beginning of this month, my wife and I made extensive use of your Florida, 3rd Edition, guide, mainly in and around the Orlando area. As always with Lonely Planet, the information was excellent.
However, I discovered two things not in your book which I think would be enjoyed by a lot of visitors;
1) Warbirds Adventure Flights, Kissimmee; although you mention the Warbirds Museum at the airport on N.Hoagland Blvd, you don’t mention that for a relatively modest outlay you can take a flight in a T6 WW2 Harvard trainer; I paid $300 for a half hour of stunt flying at up to 6000 feet, experiencing up to 4Gs, and during which I got to take the controls, and which included in and out of cockpit video and a complete 24 roll stills film. Although the Kraken ride at Seaworld about which you enthuse on page 323 was very good, Warbirds, while more pricey, was much, much better. My pilot was a Londoner, Jon Hedgecock, a great bloke. They also do flights in the little “M*A*S*H*” helicopters, although not at present, as both their machines were damaged in the recent hurricanes. Tel (800) 386 1593 or (407) 870 7366, or go to www.warbirdadventures.com.
2) Secondly, at Crystal River, which doesn’t seem to rate a mention at all in your guide, we went swimming with manatees. Before we went I had been slightly worried that we might be contributing to the “endangerment” of these wonderful animals, but the trip was arranged with extreme care and consideration for the manatees. We were very lucky with the weather, and that there were not many other snorkellers around, and had a magical encounter lasting over an hour with two adults and a young one. We did the trip with Captain Andy Fischer, through the Crystal Lodge Dive Center, located behind the Best Western Lodge, at 525 NW 7th Ave, Crystal River FL34428, tel (352) 795 6798, or go to www.manatee-central.com. Email him on manateetrips@atlantic.net. Andy also has his own website, www.captainandy.com. The website contains many fantastic pictures sent to Andy by people he’s taken out. Unfortunately, although my wife and I had a brilliant encounter, the water was quite murky, and none of the photos I took were of a reasonable quality. Andy was informative, entertaining, and very protective of the manatees’ welfare. Crystal River is about 90 miles WNW of Orlando, on the Gulf coast – from Orlando take the Florida Turnpike west, then SR44 – travelling in the early morning, before rush hour, it took us about 1 hour 40 minutes from Seaworld in Orlando. And it was very reasonable; the manatee experience lasted in all about 2 hours, dock to dock and, including hire of wet suits, masks, flippers and snorkels, cost just under $35 each!
Both these experiences were great fun, and I think they should be recommended to your readers.
Sam Weller