Orlando

Not sure what we'd expected. Came down here as the most direct route from NYC and booked a Hilton next to Universal. Very muggy weather with thunderstorms. Looks like one giant Butlins. Hotel is superb ($60 a night) and they're totally geared up to entertainment. Went to Sea World (90 quid to get in) and saw just the one show by the time we'd seen some of the sharks, dolphins, penguins (think Happy Feet when he gets caught and put in the enclosure - in fact, they may well have been animatronics). Then the heavens opened up so we headed back to the hotel pool whilst Oscar fell into a deep sleep as his jet-lag got the better of him - he did almost 13hrs last night).
It's clear that Orlando only exists to service the 4 big parks and for that its fine. Not what we wanted with the boys' so young - it was merely a tick of the list exercise. Today we drive up in a huge car to Panama City and the beach villa we've hired for the next 8 days. I then need to figure out how we get from Florida to Houston before heading off to San Diego - plane/train or automobile.
Food - British, middle class, educated parents - don't come to the USA and think about the food. When they say "Healthy" they mean not fried - but still full of sugar and fat. The boys' fascination with multi-coloured cereals, sweetened fruit juices, etc has increased. Portion sizes - after a pastrami sandwich (10cms thick with fried pastrami - my guts nearly fell out an hour later) - are now down to the boys' sharing a meal and we're forgetting about starters - a look of disbelief hits the waiter/ress as they hear we're just taking a mains course with nothing on the side.
So far, only Oscar and his jet-lag are the concern. Seba has acclimatised. We've blown the US budget with internal flights (getting from A to B ain't that simple in this country) but we're enjoying the freedom and people are amazed that we're heading across the States with two young kids. Next week will be more chilled as we have our own place and can control things a bit more.