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Holiday Inn Select Orlando
Simply Hotel Reservations provides you with a quick and easy way
to find a Orlando hotel whether you are traveling on business or leisure.
ORLANDO , a quiet farming town in 1970, now has more visitors than any other place in the state. The reason, of course, is Walt Disney World , which, along with Universal Studios Escape, Sea World and a host of themed attractions, pulls more than 25 million people a year to a previously featureless plot of scrubland. Few people head to Orlando proper, choosing instead one of the countless motels along Hwy-192 , fifteen miles south, or International Drive , five miles southwest. Despite enormous expansion over the last decade, the town itself remains free of the commercialism that surrounds it.
The city is well known for the tourist attractions in the area, particularly the nearby Walt Disney World Resort, which is in the Reedy Creek Improvement District . Other area attractions include SeaWorld and Universal Orlando Resort. Despite being far from the main tourist attractions, downtown Orlando has recently seen much redevelopment, with many more projects currently under construction or planned. One of the oldest attractions in this area is Gatorland. Orlando sees an estimated 52 million tourists a year. Orlando is the 2nd largest city in the country for number of hotel rooms.
The Orlando area is home to more than 100 lakes, the largest of which are Lake Apopka, Eustis, Griffin, Harney, Harris, Jesup, Monroe, Sand Lake, Conway, and Tohopekaliga. The region Orlando occupies is generally low-lying, the only exception being minor sand hills formed by wave action in earlier geological eras when sea level was higher. These sand hills are found primarily in the western sections of the metropolitan area, especially in Lake County. The area is also very prone to sink-holes due to the large number of underground limestone caverns that are located in the area. Many of the lakes started as sink holes in recent geologic history.
Orlando, like much of the Florida peninsula, has a warm, humid subtropical climate year-round, with occasional cold fronts during the winter. The area does not experience the four seasons of most of the rest of the U.S., the year instead being divided into just two seasons of roughly equal length. The warm season, which largely coincides with the Atlantic hurricane season, is extremely warm and humid with frequent thunderstorms. It lasts from May to mid-October, when it gives way to the cool season, which features balmy temperatures and scant rainfall.
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