GadlingTV’s Travel Talk – Orlando, Florida

by Stephen Greenwood on

GadlingTV’s Travel Talk, episode 17 – Click above to watch video after the jump

It’s no secret that Orlando is the top city for tourism in the United States – but Orlando has more to offer than theme parks & thrill rides. If you’re planning a trip to Orlando this summer, then tune in this week as we sample Orlando’s high life – and the younger, wilder side that draws families in from all over the world.

In this episode, we discuss Orlando’s history as a tourism destination and why Walt Disney chose to build an empire in central Florida. As we explore the finer side of the city we’ll show you where to practice your golf swing, how to properly cut a cigar, and we get a special tour of the Macallan from brand ambassador Eden Algie.


Stay tuned on Friday as we witness a live Shuttle launch, ride rollercoasters, and teach Stephen how to wakeboard!


If you have any questions or comments about Travel Talk, you can email us at talk AT gadling DOT com.

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Links
Want to get instruction from a PGA Pro while in Orlando? Check out the Brad Brewer Academy at Shingle Creek.
For an introduction to everything about Cigars, check out the Corona Cigar Club in downtown Orlando.

And a special thanks to Eden Algie and the Macallan for taking us through a tour of some of Scotland’s finest whisky!



Hosts: Stephen Greenwood, Aaron Murphy-Crews, Drew Mylrea
Special Guests: Eden Algie, Brad Brewer.

Produced, Edited, and Directed by: Stephen Greenwood, Aaron Murphy-Crews, Drew Mylrea

All music used in partnership with nonstopmusic.com

New hotel in Rome made of garbage from Europe’s beaches

by Melanie Nayer on

That’s right – this hotel is, quite literally, garbage.

In an effort to raise awareness about the trashy state of Europe’s beaches, Rome erected a hotel covered with over 26,000 pounds of debris. The building, located on Capocotta Beach, is aptly named “Save the Beach Hotel” and is spear-headed by Corona. According to the website, the Save the Beach Hotel is a reminder to people about how filthy their beaches have become.

The website states:

“Our Corona Save the Beach campaign builds on the project by launching its own initiative to help preserve Europe’s beaches. Teaming up with environmental artist HA Schult, best known for his extraordinary ‘Trash Men’, we have created a pop-up hotel in the centre of Rome made almost entirely from rubbish collected from beaches across Europe. Our first visitor at the hotel was supermodel and eco-warrior Helena Christensen, as well as competition winners from Italy, Spain and the UK staying the night.”

It’s fascinating the amount of filth that can be discovered on a beach, and turned into a standing hotel. Corona plans to make this impression on other coastal cities around the world, and you can vote for the next endangered beach that the organization will clean up by clicking here.

Ok, Florida… how about it? While BP works to stop the oil spill, maybe we can build the world’s first crude oil hotel?

It’s a Small World after all: Walt Disney World vacation photo captures familiar face

by Leigh Caldwell on

In their very own Lost flashback moment, a Florida couple has discovered that they crossed paths much earlier in their lives — on childhood vacations at Walt Disney World.

Days before their wedding, Donna Voutsinas was showing her then-fiance Alex old family photos, when she came upon one of her and her siblings posing with the pirate Smee at Walt Disney World.

But, as the couple told WESH TV, Alex was more interested in the man pushing a stroller in the background. Turns out, it was Alex’s father pushing the stroller that Alex was riding in.

At the time, Donna’s family lived in Florida, and Alex was visiting the Sunshine State from Montreal.

The Voutsinases met decades later at work, not at Walt Disney World. Today, they live in Boynton Beach, Florida.

“Just to be in the same picture with my wife when we were basically toddlers, it’s unbelievable,” Alex Voutsinas said.

Watch the crazy video, courtesy WXII.com, below.

London mayor rails against Wizarding World of Harry Potter’s Florida location

by Leigh Caldwell on

London’s mayor wants a piece of the Harry Potter pie.

With the Wizarding World of Harry Potter set to open at Universal Orlando next week, Boris Johnson is appealing to British children and their “Potter-fiend parents” to writ to Potter movie studio Warner Bros, Universal and Potter author J.K. Rowling to “bring Harry home to Britain.”

In a column in the London Telegraph, Johnson points out that the teen wizard is British. His Wizarding World is inextricably linked to London. And Johnson knows “somewhere that’s even better than Orlando at looking like London – and that is London.”

He makes a valid point. But the way he makes it is so… British.

Why, oh why, would anyone come to Florida to scamper through “the Styrofoam turrets of Hogwarts” and see “vast latex-covered Hagrids rolling bonhomiously down the street?”

Perhaps because they can walk the streets of Hogsmeade in November without an overcoat and galoshes?

“I want you to know that I have nothing against Orlando, though you are, of course, far more likely to get shot or robbed there than in London,” Johnson writes.

Ouch.

The mayor rails against the idea that the British would allow Americans to make money off a British invention. Of course, there’s no mention that they already left it to the American film industry to make the movies the Wizarding World is based on.

For what it’s worth, a Harry Potter attraction is coming to London in 2012. Warner Bros announced last month that it has bought Leavesden Studios in Hertfordshire — the filming location for all of the Harry Potter movies — and will open a Potter-themed tour attraction there that can accommodate up to 5,000 visitors a day.

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Jimmy Buffett’s Margaritaville Hotel will open despite oil spill

by Melanie Nayer on

Jimmy Buffett isn’t going to let a little oil spoil his fun. The margarita-loving crooner is set to open his 162-room Margaritaville Hotel in Pensacola, Florida and said the threat of the BP oil wreaking havoc on his beaches isn’t of concern.

Buffet’s $50 million hotel sits on the Gulf near the main section of Pensacola Beach, on land where Hurricane Ivan destroyed a previous hotel in 2004. Clearly not phased by the potential threat of the oil spill, Buffett told news sites he has no plans to delay the opening of his hotel.

“This will pass,” he said as walked along the city’s beachfront and fishing pier with Fla. Gov. Charlie Crist.

“Here’s an opportunity to be a real Floridian, because if we have to shore up here, we can do it.” Buffet told South Florida’s CBS4 reporters this weekend. He has his own marketing campaign in mind to get people to come to the panhandle. “It might be more fun to come down and help clean up than just lay around on the beach.”

Well put, Mr. Buffett. Grab your margarita, find your cheeseburger and sit back in a new kind of paradise in Pensacola. Cheers!

[via CBS4 South Florida]