My family has been visiting the Kissimmee, FL since 1972, when we took our first of hundreds of trips to Walt Disney World. My most recent stay in Kissimmee was in December when we were in town for the taping of the Disney Parks Christmas Day Parade. Yes, I am a Disneyphile but today I want to share with you some of the other great stuff you can do in and around Kissimmee.

If you are looking for affordable accommodations near all of Central Florida’s theme parks and attractions Kissimmee is the place to stay. In December we stayed in a decent budget hotel for $29.99 a night!! It even has FREE Internet! There are hotels, resorts, rental homes and time shares in the area to meet every budget.

I can’t wait to visit SeaWorld Orlando and take another ride on Manta! (I’m the one one the right). My favorite show at SeaWorld is Blue Horizons-make sure you catch this beautifully artistic dolphin show.

My family includes me and 3 car guys-my hubby and 2 teenage sons so when in the area on a Saturday we have to go to Old Town for the Saturday Night Cruise, the largest weekly car cruise in the United States, with over 300 classic cars, hot rods, street rods and antiques from 1974 and before! It’s FREE too! Why not check out the UK’s longest running antiques website here if you’re an antique collector?

Table and glasses made of ice!

Do you want some night life while in Central Florida? Check out ICEBAR Orlando. I was there as part of IZEAFest ’09 and we had a great time.

Another favorite thing to do in the Kissimmee area is SHOP! There are tons of outlet malls and flea markets as well as traditional malls. In December we visited Festival Bay Mall where my 3 guys were in heaven shopping at Bass Pro Shops and watching the skateboarders at the in mall Vann’s skatepark!

There are things I still have never tried in Kissimmee. I want to get to Arabian Nights which happens to be the most honored dinner show in the world! I have lived in Florida for 30 years and I still haven’t ridden in an airboat-it would be cool to do that right at the headwaters of the Everglades.

I know you are already thinking about what fun you could have on a Kissimmee vacation so click on the link and get started! Have you visited Kissimmee? What are your favorite things to do while you are here? Is there something you’ve always wanted to do but haven’t tried…yet? Let me know that too. I love reading and responding to your comments!

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alone well. This was going to stretch me and kick me out of my comfort zone right off the bat. But, I left Izeafest on Sunday knowing I made 5 new good friends and a lot of acquaintences.

I’ve already told you about the trials of my Thursday getting to Orlando and checking into the hotel. As a follow up to that post I will tell you that today they finally charged me for my room and they put it on the wrong card so I was doing some creative financial moves this morning!

I can’t go into detail about the sessions because I am still digesting all the meat we were fed by the amazing line up of speakers, and trying to figure out what it all means for The Mom Maven. I will say Ted Murphy encouraged us to define our personal brand and solidify our identity. Brian Clark gave us a 3 step blog traffic strategy. The screen gems were, ahem, “hot” and entertaining. Rae Hoffman and Michael Gray are amazing at SEO but I didn’t understand a thing they were talking about! Sarah Evans is an amazing, passionate speaker. Lucretia Pruitt can keep a strong panel in order and share about Social Media Promotion. That was all day 1!!

Friday night brought to a VIP party at IceBar Orlando. I don’t normally do the bar scene but this was a networking opportunity and I had to experience the ice room. We had a lot of fun and relaxed as we networked and listened to some interesting karaoke.

Saturday was again filled with great learning opportunities. The day’s keynote was given by Aaron Brazell who inspired us to be better people and better bloggers. Brett Bumeter moderated a panel on “What Advertisers Want” and I think the key is authenticity. Chris Brogan spoke on “Go Deep or Go Home” and being self-aware not self-involved. Then the entire conference was taken over by a 14 year old boy who, while walking into SeaWorld with his family, saw the Izeafest banner and asked to spend the day at the conference instead of in the park! That eloquent teen entrepreneur is Tommy Fishback. Pay attention to that name. He will be famous someday soon. Ted Murphy and Dan Rua closed out the conference with the introduction of Izea’s latest offering, Sponzai-sponsored guest posts.

Saturday night found us at Howl at the Moon. I must admit, this party was a let down. Our VIP party was about 100 Izeafest attenders all dressed up, sitting outside in rickety folding chairs in the hot Florida night, listening to 2 pianists and a drummer bang out requests. The night wasn’t a total loss though, I got to speak with our MC for the weekend-the amazing Bob Kodzis and “The Crocs Guy” George Smith. We left the party early so we could pack and get ready to hit SeaWorld Orlando Sunday morning. I’ll share more about SeaWorld in another post though.

I am thankful that Izea Insider Corrin chose me as one of her ticket winners so that I could attend Izeafest-but I am more thankful that after last weekend I can call her “friend”. I am also thankful to Hotels Combined for sponsoring my hotel stay. It was a wonderful weekend that I won’t soon forget.

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