The Watersong Villa Rental | Vacation Villa in Orlando Blog
This November, 2024 it has been 10 years since we have owned Florida Delight. Many cities have investment and growth but the extent of growth and development in Orlando constantly amazes us. I thought I would share with you the changes we have seen since 2014 because they are either local to our villa or they are places that we have personally seen or visited in the Orlando area. There are no doubt many other changes that have taken places that we aren’t even aware of. I am not going to attempt to go through all the new rides and shows that have been added to the theme parks during this time because they are too numerous to mention and happen every year but in themselves they are all major attractions to the area.
Firstly, near to Watersong Resort. There is now a major road called Ernie Cauldwell Boulevard between the 1792 highway (off of which Watersong Resort is located) which leads to Posner Retail Park. This road with the final link to the 1792 opened in 2017. Posner Park itself initially opened in 2008 with just a few stores but since then, especially since 2019 the growth has been massive and every time we go over to Florida we see new additions to Posner Park.
When we first had the villa the nearest Publix supermarket was about 5 miles away. Now there is a large Publix less than 2.5 miles from Watersong which opened in 2019 as well as a new gas station, a bar, a restaurant called Mayaki Sushi (2024) and a new school!
The main supermarket we use in Orlando is Aldi and we had a new one open in 2020 approximately 5 miles from the villa on the way to the I4. Also down the road from this Aldi, approaching juction 58 of the 14 we have seen various large restaurants open in the past couple of years. These are all major chains and tend to be very popular (Longhorn’s Steakhouse 2022, Olive Tree 2022, Ford’s Garage Restaurant 2023 and Keke’s Breakfast Café 2021).
A big change locally, just over 8 miles away, has been the opening of the train station at Poincianna in 2018. We have used this many times since it opened and always prefer to get the train (which is a double decker) rather than drive up to Winter Park which is one of our favourite places to visit in Orlando. The train is also good if you want to visit Downtown Orlando as just with Winter Park the station is really conveniently placed right in the heart of things.
Another place that we visit most times that we are over now is Margaritaville. This is a resort but it also has Sunset Walk which is open to the public and has various restaurants, bars and shops one of which being another branch of Ford’s Garage which we like to eat at. Margaritaville opened in 2019 along with a new waterpark based there called Island H20.
Talking of waterparks the very spectacular Volcano Bay (part of Universal) opened in 2017 and is an amazing day out.
Disney Springs which is a major attraction in Orlando opened in 2015 and is a real hot spot for dining and entertainment. There is a purpose built theatre based there for Cirque du Soleil and since 2021 the Disney and Cirque du Soleil collaboration “Drawn to Life” has been showing. We have seen this show now three times!
Disney’s gondola system Skyliner opened in 2019. The Skyliner is a really unique transportation system for Disney guests to travel between some of the resort hotels, Epcot and Hollywood Studios. It is free to ride, a lot of fun and even non Disney residents can use it. We went this November with friends and had a wonderful evening flying on the Skyliner, taking the free boat service around some of the Disney resort hotels, walking on Disney's Boardwalk where we had a really great ice cream, seeing the fireworks at Epcot at 9 pm (albeit from outside the gates of Epcot but was still spectacular) and having a drink sat outside on rockers at one of the Disney hotels. A fantastic night and didn’t cost anything apart from the food and drink we had.
Finally if you head up to International Drive the attractions up there have been greatly added to too over recent times. The Orlando Eye at Icon Park opened in 2015 and Pointe Orlando which is another major retail and restaurant spot opened in 2020 and has been continuously added to since.
So the list of changes and new attractions keeps on growing and I am sure will continue to do so for a long time yet. Just think next year there is a whole new theme park about to open in the form of Universal’s Epic Universe! Orlando is definitely one of those cities where you shouldn’t get bored because you can never really “see it all” and even the things you have seen are usually so good that you just don’t mind doing them again. I just wonder what the next ten years will bring!
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