Will be gong to Disney world in may, 2005. would like to look around other points of interest in orlando area besides theme parks. understand that disney has some shopping areas and other interesting ventures in the area. Can anyone help me to identify what these and/or others might be? thanks
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There is Downtown Disney with shops and the Cirque D Soleil show. Attached to that is Pleasure Island which is a LOT of restaurants and clubs. At Universal Studios there is City Walk which is also a collection of shops, restaurants, and clubs. For LOADS of info on anything having to do with Disney and Orlando, go to www.disboards.com

There are lots of places to shop in the Orlando area. Several outlet malls are located there, as well as regular type malls. I think you could easily find yourself busy with shopping at all these places if you aren't always in the parks. If my memory is correct, some of the outlets are located off of I-4. I'm sure someone else here good give you better information on location and directions. Have a great trip!

Here are a couple of great websites that will give you more information than you can ever use:

www.wdwinfo.com & www.allearsnet.com

Take a day trip to Winter Park, just north and east of downtown Orlando off the interstate. Great little town, some high-end shopping, go to the Morse museum of Tiffany glass.

AOL has a great message board. If you're not an AOl member I found allears.net to be a tremendous help. Have fun!

A little over an hour from Orlando is the Space Center, certainly worth a good part of a day to see everything they've got. Add to that a short drive to Cocoa Beach, and you've got a good day trip.

Daytona Beach isn't too far away either, easy to do for a day.

If you've got kids and want to do something un-Disney for awhile, there are a number of Pirate's Cove miniature golf courses. For regular golfing, the area is loaded with courses.

If shopping interests you, it's endless at the Belz Factory Malls or any number of regular malls in town. Their newest mall, Mall of Millenia, has a great food court for lots of lower-cost eating options. But we really like the Italian gelato place there - so many flavors to choose from!!

Hope this helps.
Happy travels!