What an adventure this turned out to be! What was originally planned as a theme park vacation with a Florida villa chillout tagged on the end, turned out to be a round-the-state mega roadtrip.

Orlando is theme park excessiveness defined! I had in mind tall Disney turrets everywhere, but much of Florida reminded me of regular ol'USA with its million fast food outlets, life revolving around the automobile, huge food portions, flag flying and bizarre shops that just didn't make sense. One notable exception is their obsession with the biggest and best mini-golf parks ... superb!

Crystal River didn't turn out to be the chillout / scuba diving capital that we'd hoped for. In fact there was minimal diving and it was too quiet for us. Seeing the manatees though was a life altering experience though.

The Everglades, fantastic, but once you've seen the alligators, ridden the airboat and perused the jungle, you're ready to move on.

The Florida Keys were a blast! They have their own vibe down there and the least stars and stripes of all the places we visited. The scuba diving in John Pennekamp Reef was a great experience. Special memories of diving down to the Duane Wreck, down the guide line in cloudy waters and then seeing this huge ship just appear, standing upright, intact ... eery, almost Titanic-like.

As for Miami, well nice beach ... huge beach! But not much else to say. We didn't get a chance to see the famous bars and nightlife ... maybe next time.