The Orlando Eye!
We finally got a chance to check out the Orlando Eye last week during our time off. It was pretty amazing! We got a great deal being AAA members – $25 for all 3 attractions: The Orlando Eye, Madame Tussauds wax museum, and the Sea Life aquarium. Normally it’s $49 in person or $39 if you purchase ahead of time online. We were so excited to ride the Eye that we must have missed the fact that each attraction has different closing hours. We ended up trying to visit the aquarium too late – by about a minute, but more about that later.
Here are the hours so you know ahead of time and can plan accordingly.
Madame Tussauds and the Orlando Eye: 10am-10pm weekdays, 10am-12am weekends
Sea Life Aquarium: 10am-8pm weekdays, 10am-10pm weekends **NOTE: they stop letting people in 1 hour before closing, so really it’s 7pm weekdays/9pm weekends**
First impressions of the Eye: a great area with lots of room to walk around, and best of all, FREE parking in the parking garage! This was a pleasant surprise after coming from a theme park mindset where you have to pay for every little thing.
Inside, there was a small food court with various fast food places I’ve never heard of. There was also a replica of the Eye made out of Lego’s, enticing people to come and visit their partner attraction Lego Land. Next to the ticket booth for the Eye was even a ticket booth specifically for Lego Land tickets! Another neat thing they had was a currency exchange.
Once we got our AAA tickets transferred to actual tickets, we entered “The Eye” where we posed for pictures against a green screen for what turns out later were 2 photos they put inside a souvenir book you can purchase for $35 (or just the 2 pictures for $15). I’ll show you these later.
You then watch a short film about Central Florida, which felt to me like a commercial for a place I’m already at. It was cute though, and showcased the theme parks, the beaches, the Cape, and just the natural beauty of the area.
We were gathered into small groups of 6-8 and boarded a capsule. They don’t stop (except to load handicap) so you have to be quick and jump on (kind of like Spaceship Earth, or Popeye’s Barges).
Once inside, there is a small bench with a pole to hold onto, as well as handrails all around the capsule. It moves very slowly, so even if you are afraid of heights (Mr. Roamer is a bit on that side; he doesn’t like low heights), it goes so slow you can hardly tell you’re moving.
As you make your way up, you can see all 3 theme parks!
Once we made it to the top, it was time for the obligatory picture before making our way down.
As with all great attractions, it let us out right into the gift shop! The shop had shirts, magnets, cups/mugs, weird-eye bears, and other normal gift-shop-type things. There was also someone waiting to show us the pictures we took earlier on the green screen, one of which was us in the Eye and the other was us looking up with a 360 view of Orlando around us. They put these in a book which shows the various Orlando attractions, as well as a code to download the pictures digitally, for $35.
After our trip on the Eye, we decided to take a break at one of the restaurants at the bottom. Right now there is Tin Roof, PretzelMaker, Great American Cookies, and Ben & Jerry’s. A bunch of other restaurants are still being built.
Mr. Roamer, being not so comfortable with heights, wanted to stop to get a beer. The cashier at the Eye told us earlier they were planning on building a bar inside the Eye building, and it appeared the construction near the entrance doors might just be a bar in the making. We decided to try out Tin Roof. He got his beer and I got the Orange Blossom Special. The girls got sodas and we all split an order of the Spiced Bacon Popcorn which was delicious! If we hadn’t eaten lunch before coming over we definitely would have tried out more things. We’ll have to come back as the menu sounds amazing.
After our break we headed back in to check out Madame Toussads wax museum.
