Our Home Away From Home: Central Florida
Never did I think that Orlando would become our second home. Being a couple who frequent Central Florida Theme Parks, I guess it was the natural flow of things after buying an RV.
Growing up on the West Coast of Florida, the Orlando area was always one of the last places I ever envisioned living, even on a part time basis. The crowds and traffic alone have always seemed unbearable. But, staying at campgrounds in the area has changed me.
Now that we have had more than pleasant stays at a few parks in Central Florida, I grab reservations as much as I can to bide the time before our first multi-state trip coming this late Spring into Summer. So far, we’ve stayed at three Orlando area campgrounds. While we have a clear early favorite, the other two are great options as well.
Since I didn’t get a lot of pictures at the other two parks and didn’t use StarLink or our hotspot at the one of them, I’ll wait until after our next stay to get into a full review. But I’ll share a bit of info about both parks here. The first two are just down the street from one another but have quite different vibes.
Tropical Palms is an Encore Resort located off of 192 behind Old Town in Kissimmee. It is a huge park with all the amenities of a resort campground. It was February, so we didn’t use the pool or any of the outdoor activities. But, we did take advantage of the short walk to nearby attractions. Another note is that Wi-Fi is only offered in their common areas and does not reach individual sites.
KOA Holiday is about four miles down 192 and although the area has a different feel and there isn’t anything to really walk to, the park itself has a much more laid back, cozy comfort to it. All the people we met we so friendly and some of the sites have their own dog play area in addition to the small dog park. And the best part was that Star Link worked great there and we were both able to work with little to no interruptions.
Both parks are on the pricier side but located in the heart of Kissimmee with many attractions at your fingertips. We had a full hook up at KOA, but only water and electric at Tropical Palms as they didn’t have FHU available for our dates. We only stayed two nights there, so the dump station on our way out was more than sufficient.
Although it is too expensive to stay as often as we would like, we both agree that we’d definitely stay at both places again. If you’re looking to go to Old Town for a weekend, you can’t beat the location of Tropical Palms and if a camping membership is something you’re interested in, Thousand Trails has on-site staff and can provide more information (we’re not members but are considering it).
Stay tuned for my next post. I’ll give a full review of and lots of info about (including pics and video) our favorite Central Florida campground so far.
