Luxury Bahama Bay Resort Condo Near Disney World

In our day jobs and for family holidays Ian and I have travelled widely across the globe, from the tiniest cheapest room with a shower curtain in the corner and a two-ring hob on the other to much more luxurious hotels and apartments with every convenience imaginable. But those we go back to and strive to emulate are the ones where we walk in, after a long and often tiring journey having turned right when boarding the plane, and smile. It's the ones that make us feel we're on holiday straight away, the ones where everything just works – the easy check-in, where the door lock or code works first time, the one where there is a little welcome pack that invites us to enjoy a refreshing drink, that has sufficient hangers to sort out our travel creased clothes and somewhere comfortable I can sit and sleep in peace. We don't remember those amazingly luxurious anonymous rooms that you know the next guest will also forget as quickly as we already have. Neither do we revisit those crammed with personal mementos completely irrelevant to your stay or those with the overly attentive but distant host that constantly messages or WhatsApp's to check if they can help. I guess in summary the ones we remember are the ones where the holiday feels effortless, that the apartment or hotel room morphs into our personal memory space – it's easy, with things we didn't think we needed at hand and we dream of coming back to before we've even left. Who knew that family waffle Sundays would become a thing in our house until we stayed in an apartment that had a waffle maker!

That's the feeling we wanted to create when we purchased our little piece of Florida in 2019 and why we named it Dreaming of Florida Holidays. We'd travelled to Florida a few times and always stayed in condo's – we liked that there was usually a choice of pools, some sports facilities and other children for our daughter to play with. We loved the relaxed Caribbean feel of Bahama Bay straight away, it's close enough to Disney and Universal but there is so much more beyond the parks that really makes the area sing for us. The coast is an easy drive – Clearwater (home to Winter the Dolphin), the space station on the east coast along with the Daytona Speedway and it's only a 4-hour drive or a fast train journey to Miami the gateway to the Everglades and the beautiful Keys. But there is so much close at hand too – our favourites include Titanic: the Artifact Museum (that ice is so cold when you walk the Promenade), The Showcase of Citrus – you have to try the honey and jams, ride the monster trucks and marvel at the store and idiosyncratic vibe, the hot rod and muscle car cruises in Old Town Kissimmee on Friday and Saturday nights, the town of Celebration built in the 1990's by Walt Disney to encapsulate the quintessential small-town American feel created in his movies. Oh, and don't forget the World Food Trucks near Disney World in Kissimmee and those on a budget can experience Universal City Walk and Disney Springs for the price of parking – we love, love, love the Toothsome Emporium at City Walk but do book ahead and the music at the House of Blues at Disney Springs! All this is before getting back to nature with kayaking, airboat rides and being at one in the local parks and the walks around Bahama Bay itself.

Justine ☺