Weather was predicted to be wet today so we elected to go shopping rather than the parks. As it happened it only rained once and that was as we were walking from the car to the shops – hey ho.
There is nothing like the British High Street here in Orlando but outlets are big business with many recognised shops offering their wares at a discount. This includes the likes of Gap, Ralph Lauren, Nike and more shoe shops than you can possibly imagine.
Our favourite outlet has to be the Lake Buena Vista Factory Stores close to Disney. It is a relatively small collection of shops with a great little independent coffee shop selling British tea and Daily Mails (well, you can’t have everything).
One thing that I find really annoying is that the prices shown do not include tax so having carefully got the correct amount out I then have to fish around for that extra amount at the till. In fact I don’t even know what the tax rate is here – I think it is about 7% but it isn’t displayed anywhere so I cannot be sure. This practice means that prices seem cheaper than they really are as you never remember to take the tax into account until it is too late. I much prefer the the UK system – although I would prefer the US tax rate!
In the slightly less exciting world of grocery shopping we have discovered that the food is better at Publix but if you are after clothes and non-foods then the mighty Walmart is your place.