Day 9 on our Focus on Florida tour found us facing a Merlin marathon! Located at I-Drive 360, no fewer than three Merlin Entertainments attractions offer families a more relaxed experience and in our case a little break from all of the excitement at Orlando’s theme parks.
The sun was shining and our first of the three attractions would be The Coca-Cola Orlando Eye.
Built in 2015 this huge white Ferris wheel towers over International Drive at a massive 400 feet! For scale, The London Eye in the UK stands at 443 feet so this wheel should certainly not be under estimated. The ginormous ride takes passengers on a 23-minute journey whilst housed within glass pods and offers some truly unrivalled views of Orlando.
With good visability you can see Walt Disney World, Universal Orlando, SeaWorld, all the hotels and resorts along International Drive, downtown Orlando’s skyline and if you are lucky the Kennedy Space Center at Cape Canaveral.
Small touch screen displays have been installed in the pods so you know exactly what you are looking at, and pleasingly, Merlin haven’t shied away from showing you where rival attractions are located too. For an extra charge, guests can upgrade their experience to be placed in one of the few red coloured Coca-Cola pods; where you are treated to a cool box containing miniature cans of the world famous branded drink.
Before boarding the ride, passengers have several photographs taken by Merlin staff against green screens in a variety of poses, and it is only when exiting the attraction (through the gift shop) that you get to view the hilarious images. Of course, these images are optional for an additional charge, however if this is to be the first and only visit to the attraction they can serve as a great memento of your trip.
Although we initially visited I-Drive 360 during the day it’s interesting to note that the wheel itself is lit spectacularly at night, with unique styles and themes for each evening throughout the year, which we were delighted to see when we returned for a meal in one of the many restaurants a few days later.
Before moving onto the next of the Merlin attractions we stopped off in the central building for croissants and coffee. Well, one of us had coffee, the other a super smoothie at the fresh smoothie bar! The food was great and the smoothie even better, but if this isn’t your thing, there is a small selection of food stalls located internally within the building. Should this not be enough there is plenty more on offer outside on the rest of the I-Drive 360 complex.
Our next attraction was SEA LIFE Orlando. From the outside, it was difficult to imagine that this aquarium was going to be particularly large however we were very quickly proven wrong! The huge aquarium had a small but attractive entrance complete with a little exhibit tank and shortly after entering guests are lined up against the wall for more green screen magic!
The aquarium itself follows a similar format to most other SEA LIFE centres, with guests walking through different themed areas of the world. Along the way there were plenty of educational videos, messages and impressively interactive screens integrated well with the aquatic wildlife. Feeding times and general educational talks were also on offer for guests that wanted to know that little bit more about their favourite underwater worlds.
What really took our breath away about this aquarium was the huge variety of tank styles. So many unique shapes and sizes of tank, with different holes and walkways allowing visitors to experience entirely different views of the animals within the exhibits.
There are more than 5,000 creatures to see including fish, seahorses, jellyfish, octopus, sharks and turtles in displays inspired by the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian oceans.
The massive shark tank was incredible! And unlike most other tunnels, this one appeared to float, allowing fish and sharks to swim to the side, above and below the visitors as they travelled through the mammoth tube.
Pleasingly the aquarium itself also didn’t seem to get too crowded like many similar sites, meaning that we could really take our time to explore each of the areas without feeling the need to continue moving or that we were getting in the way of too many other guests.
As we approached the end of the tour, there were even interactive tanks where guests, under the supervision of trained Merlin team members, were allowed to handle animals such as starfish and peculiar under water plants. The water was freezing cold! But don’t let you put you off, it was great fun for us and would be even more magical and enjoyable for the little ones that may think starfish are a thing of nursery rhyme or Disney film.
Two attractions down and it was time for our third. Madame Tussauds would be our final Merlin attraction for the day, and for anyone that has visited an attraction like it before you will know that they are a lot of fun! On entry through the red showbiz entrance guests are greeted with yet another green screen photo opportunity and by this time we had well and truly worked out what to expect. Amusingly though, for this photo we were provided with a table full of hilarious props which helped add that extra enjoyment to the pictures – again sold as part of an upgrade package.
The attraction itself is split into the following experiences; History & Leaders, Film, TV, Music, Sports and finally A List Party. The first few waxwork 'models’ were presented in more of a photo opportunity way which did unfortunately mean that you could find yourself standing and waiting for other guests of the attraction to finish their own photos before moving on. What was good to see, however, was that with each major exhibit, such as Neil Armstrong, small props were available to help bring your photographs to life. In this case, it was small USA flags to wave on the moon!
As we continued around the attraction, the rooms became larger meaning that we had plenty of time to view each of the waxworks in our own time and take our pictures without feeling rushed. The rooms themselves had been cleverly themed to add to the immersion and well-designed photo opportunities such as the bicycle scene in E.T. did add an extra dimension to the experience.
One particular section that we were really impressed with was the photo-op with the football player Neymar Jnr. Guests first enter their email address into a touch screen monitor before standing in position next to the player. After a short countdown, around 30 cameras all fire in synchronisation creating a 3D time lapse style image that is immediately emailed to the guest free of charge!
For anyone that has visited a Madame Tussauds before, you will know that the quality and accuracy of the models is incredible and with the vast number of themes and exhibits that they have, there really is something there for the whole family.
There was also an activity where you could create a wax mold of your own hand, a good interactive element and for the extra charge it's a great souvenir. With the final photo opportunities behind us, we made our exit – as all three Merlin attractions had been completed!
If purchased individually each of the attractions are not cheap, however Merlin do offer bulk offers with entry to two or all three of the attractions on site at reduced rates. As a tip from us, we would strongly recommend taking Merlin up on one of these offers. Although we didn’t take as much time as many would, we had finished all three experiences in around three hours meaning that if you want to make a day or even a half day of I-Drive 360, you will really need to do more than one of the attractions on site.
This being said, the attractions themselves are great and really do offer guests a more relaxed experience to those of neighbouring parks, not to mention the views that The Orlando Eye offers that really can’t be rivalled unless you’re in a plane. For visitors like ourselves, that were staying in Orlando for 14 days, I-Drive 360 is definitely a worthwhile experience, and it is certainly worth spending your time enjoying what it has to offer.
