What should I avoid in Orlando?

The most expensive mistake in Orlando starts at a roadside kiosk on International Drive or US 192 in Kissimmee, where signs promise Walt Disney World tickets at $50 or more off. The catch is a timeshare 'preview' sold as 90 minutes that usually runs three to four hours in an air-conditioned sales room cold enough to need a sweater. Secondhand multi-day passes from Craigslist or motel lobbies are worse: Disney links each ticket to the first holder's finger scan at the gate, so a leftover day from someone else's pass gets refused at the turnstile. Buy from Disney, Universal Orlando, or an authorized seller such as Undercover Tourist. The same strip's hotels often show a low nightly rate and then add a $25 to $45 resort fee at checkout, so read the total on the final booking screen. The Wheel at ICON Park is the other I-Drive skip, charging around $30 a head for a 20-minute turn above parking lots and a flat horizon.

Arrival day at Orlando International Airport (MCO) is not a park day. Disney's Magical Express bus ended in January 2022, yet first-timers still wander Level 1 looking for it, so book Mears Connect or a rideshare from the Ground Transportation area instead. Spend the jet-lagged first evening at Disney Springs or around Lake Eola downtown, where the fountain hisses and swans paddle past the Thornton Park cafes. Magic Kingdom on day one is the classic error: drivers park at the Transportation and Ticket Center and then wait for a monorail or ferry, which adds 30 to 45 minutes before they reach Main Street, U.S.A. Go on day two at opening, when the line for Seven Dwarfs Mine Train is at its shortest. Leaving after the fireworks is the second trap, because Uber and Lyft prices from the Magic Kingdom pickup lot can triple and the wait often passes 40 minutes. A hotel on the monorail loop or the Skyliner gondola removes that problem.

Outside the Disney bubble you will probably need a car, and the toll setup catches almost every visitor: State Road 528 and State Road 417 run east and south out of MCO and are cashless, so rental agencies bill a convenience fee of roughly $10 to $25 a day on top of the tolls, often for the whole rental even if you drove through a single gantry. Ask at the counter exactly how the toll plan bills. If the agency allows it, a SunPass Mini sticker from any Publix costs about $5 and can be activated online in the car park.

On 14 October the thermometer read 29.1°C, and at 60% humidity it felt like 31.6°C; the air sticks to your shirt by 10am. Hurricane season still runs until 30 November, but lightning is the hazard you will face every day, and Central Florida takes some of the highest strike counts in the United States. Storms usually build between 2pm and 4pm, and the thunder cracks loud enough to rattle a ride vehicle. Typhoon Lagoon and the outdoor coasters at Universal Epic Universe close when strikes come within a few miles, so go to water parks in the morning. Treat every lake as alligator water, including the resort lakes at Walt Disney World: in June 2016 an alligator killed a two-year-old at the Grand Floridian's beach.

Food on International Drive mostly means chain restaurants and $18 burgers. Drive 15 minutes to Mills 50, the Vietnamese strip along Colonial Drive and Mills Avenue, where a bowl of pho at Pho 88 smells of star anise and costs around $13. For a quieter sit-down dinner, Park Avenue in Winter Park is a better bet than anything near the parks. Downtown's Orange Avenue club blocks get rowdy on Friday and Saturday nights after 1am, and car break-ins cluster in the surrounding surface lots. Orlando scores 5.8/10 for solo-traveler safety (see the TTDI Solo-Safety Index), so solo visitors should take a rideshare from the door rather than walk back to a car.