USA - Disney World

So why do people travel? Many hope to experience different tastes, different cultures, many aspire to an inner journey in which some internal turmoil may be resolved or expect a new life path to be revealed.

For others, and it could be a majority of the 55 million UK residents who go abroad, the desires are more basic: they want to enjoy themselves for two weeks of the year, they want the family to be happy, they want to escape the humdrum of the norm' and they want to feel sunshine on their backs.

We were on a package deal to Disney World, Florida, which included our flight, accommodation in a Disney Resort Hotel and access to all the theme parks. We were also given a Mickey Mouse credit card that you use to pay for food and gifts. This made it very easy to spend money, especially as everything you buy is delivered to your hotel, so you don't have to cart round your three-foot high Winnie-the-Pooh. It does also have the advantage that you do not have to carry round wads of dollar bills.

For some this sort of holiday means that you are effectively living in a Disney bubble. This need not be the case, you can easily arrange car hire and explore Orlando and the rest of Florida, but, if you are there for just seven days there is an obvious desire to get your money's worth, and to do that leaves little time for exploring. In the spare time I had, the desire to sit round the pool and actually relax and rest my weary feet was overwhelming.

The Movies Hotel was fine, the rooms were actually fairly spacious, even if the décor gave you a headache. The swimming pool was on the small side, but there were two lifeguards on duty between 8am and midnight. The catering arrangements were good: you could eat any time of the day, but otherwise the food was grim: if you wonder why you keep reading stories about American obesity, wonder no more. In the theme parks themselves the range of food was even worse - do you really fancy eating hot food including the obligatory fries when it's in the mid-90s?

On our penultimate evening we ate at Fulton's Crab House at Pleasure Island. This operates aboard a replica 19th century Mississippi river boat. We were up on the third floor (deck?) and had a superb view of the sun going down on Lake Buena Vista. The food was very good indeed, we actually caught sight of our first wine list, the service was not too cheesy, and the bill was expensive.

The organisation of the whole place is very, very impressive. The Disney buses take you everywhere, we had only one bad experience of standing in line. We stayed late at the Epcot Centre to watch the firework display and there must have been 5,000 people exiting to catch buses, but within 15/20 minutes the place was clear. Somehow I just can't see this happening back home. The firework display was awesome, by the way, and they do it every night.

So what about the theme parks? We did Magic Kingdom, Animal Kingdom, Disney-MGM and the Epcot Centre. The best advice has to be to get up and out early, and organise yourselves to take advantage of the fastpass tickets. You will save huge amounts of time and derive considerable pleasure from this. All the theme parks have a multitude of toilets, all with baby changing facilities. Parents can hire big two-seater shopping trolleys/prams at all the parks, that make life a great deal easier for transporting the kids. There are water fountains in abundance so you do not have to carry bottled water round with you, though with the temperatures in the 90s it is always advisable. Even when we managed to lose a young child during the very popular firework display in the Magic Kingdom, the Disney organisation impressed.

It is very easy to be cynical about the whole experience, but can the 32 million people who visit Disney World be wrong? Actually I do not think they are. It is pure escapism (and pure commercialism), the family will love it (or most of it), you will feel the sun on your back (unless you're very unlucky), and yes I did enjoy it.

We took with us the Brit's Guide to Orlando, Florida and Walt Disney World by Simon Veness. This guide is considered the best for this area and is encyclopaedic in depth. It proved very useful and is highly recommended.