BRITISH HOMES GROUP Florida ~ Specialising in Florida Real Estate

Orlando | Kissimmee | Davenport | Windermere | Bay Hill | Clermont

Residential Luxury ~ Vacation Paradise

New British Homes “Best Buy” Listing!

1,929 square foot pool home

4 bedrooms & 2 bathrooms

Gated Community just 15 Minutes from Disney!

$149,950

FURNISHED, beautiful 4 bed 2 bath home in Hampton Lakes, Davenport.

Spacious detached home with two living areas, a private pool and being sold fully furnished. This home is in a popular ‘short term rental’ community and would make an ideal holiday home. Disney is within a 15 minute drive and there is a shopping center within a 5 minute drive.

The British Homes Group has Florida villas listed at all prices and in all locations.

Let us help you choose the best “value” for you …at the lowest price!

But best act quickly if you are interested in this one – it won’t last long!

Good luck!

Request more information on Florida homes or submit a Custom Property Search Request

The BRITISH HOMES GROUP Florida
2960 Vineland Road | Info@britishhomesgroup.com or (+1) 407 396 9914 begin_of_the_skype_highlighting              (+1) 407 396 9914     end_of_the_skype_highlighting

The Walt Disney Co. plans to build a multi-attraction “land” based on the movie “Avatar” in Disney’s Animal Kingdom as the first step in a broader licensing deal that will lead to similar attractions in Disney parks worldwide.

“Avatar is just a set of worlds that is really rich and offers so much to explore, we thought that offering a land-based approach gives us a much better opportunity to explore,”Walt Disney Parks and Resorts Chairman Tom Staggs said in an interview following the announcement.

Disney said it would begin construction of Animal Kingdom’s Avatar land in 2013 and expects to open it to guests about five years from now. A company executive indicated that the price tag would be approximately $500 million.

Disney said it plans to build multiple-attraction lands based on the film’s fictional world of “Pandora,” including themed shops and restaurants and entertainment. It’s the same approach Universal Orlando has taken with its wildly popular Wizarding World of Harry Potter, which has fueled huge attendance and guest-spending gains since opening in Universal’s Islands of Adventure theme park last year.

Disney will license the rights from Cameron’s Lightstorm Entertainment studio and Fox Filmed Entertainment.

It’s an approach that has been phenomenally successful for Universal and “Harry Potter,” which it licenses from author J.K. Rowling and Warner Bros. Entertainment. In addition to themed attractions, Wizarding World, which opened in June 2010, includes shops and eateries peddling fare from the Potter universe, from magic wands to mugs of butter beer.

Sales of food and merchandise in Universal’s theme parks were up 90 percent during the first half of 2011 to $171 million. Attendance at the two-park resort soared 52 percent.

Find out more about the planned attraction here.

Bill Cowie President

Kissimmee Office 407 396 9914

British-American Chamber of Commerce Advisory Board

Request more information on Florida homes or submit a Custom Property Search Request

The BRITISH HOMES GROUP Florida
2960 Vineland Road | Info@britishhomesgroup.com or (+1) 407 396 9914

Here are some snippets from a USA Today article that covers new apps for smartphones that can help you find your way around in the Park. Not sure how it might function on some UK phones, but worth checking out next time you are in the park with your smartphone or tablet.

The 30,000-acre park has a range of smartphone apps targeting Disney visitors, offering tips that could make your days or days at the park more enjoyable.

Here are the main three that were mentioned (all with nominal costs) but I’m sure there are many more to browse through.

Walt Disney World Pro
Disney World Magic Guide
Disney World Wait Times, Dining and Maps

Disney World Magic Guide has a “Near Me” feature that searches for rides nearby.

Disney World Wait Times, Dining and Maps could be useful for visitors who travel in groups because it has a GPS tool for finding each other at the park.

The three apps contain basic information: wait times for rides, photos, maps with icons, restaurants, hours for parades and fireworks, ride descriptions, hotel information and key phone numbers.

Currently the above apps cost about $3-5.

At 30,000 acres it’s not that much of a “Small World” – so don’t get lost ….. and, as always, enjoy the Magic!

Best!

Bill Cowie President

Kissimmee Office 407 396 9914

British-American Chamber of Commerce Advisory Board

Request more information on Florida homes or submit a Custom Property Search Request

The BRITISH HOMES GROUP Florida
2960 Vineland Road | Info@britishhomesgroup.com or (+1) 407 396 9914

Orlando theme parks fared very well in this year’s Theme Park Insider Awards, scoring victories in three of the four categories.

For the second consecutive year, Universal’s Islands of Adventure won best theme park.

Star Tours at Disney’s Hollywood Studios was named best new attraction.

Epcot’s Bistro de Paris earned the best theme park restaurant for the second year in a row.

The Theme Park Insider Awards are based on average reader ratings on www.themeparkinsider.com over the past 12 months.

No doubt Wizarding World of Harry Potter contributed to IOA getting top reviews.

Busch Gardens in Tampa was a runner-up for best theme park. Cheetah Hunt, the new coaster at Busch Gardens, fell just short of the best new attraction prize.

In the restaurant category, multiple winner Mythos at Islands of Adventure, and Epcot’s Via Napoli were runners-up.

Universal’s Portofino Bay and Disney World’s Beach Club Resort were voted runners-up in the hotel division by the website’s readers.

Yet another reason we love Orlando!

Enjoy!

Bill Cowie

According to Sara Clarke’s recent artcile in the Orlando Sentinel, signs point toward a good summer for Orlando’s primary industry, as hotels look to fill more rooms and theme parks are riding on a wave of pent-up demand.

With Memorial Day weekend the unofficial start of the summer travel season, Orlando is expected to be one of the top spots on travelers’ minds.

“We’re doing great compared to the rest of the country,” said Abraham Pizam, dean of the University of Central Florida’s Rosen College of Hospitality Management. “The hospitality and tourism industries are recovering and are seeing some good times – I wouldn’t say the best of times.”

Pizam attributes the positive momentum to people giving into their desire for a vacation even though the overall economy is still struggling.

“Those who can afford … will dig into their savings and spend money in order to get away from all the bad news,” Pizam said. “The question that is the most important one: Is that sustainable?”

For this summer, at least, that appears to be the case.

Orbitz.com said in April that Orlando ranked top on its list of most popular summer travel destinations for 2011, ahead of cities such as Las Vegas, Seattle, Los Angeles and Denver.

SeaWorld Orlando said last week that it is expecting attendance growth this summer, while Universal Studios is awaiting the release of the final movie installment of the Harry Potter series in July, which could bump attendance at its already wildly popular Wizarding World of Harry Potter.

Disney officials expressed more caution, saying recently that hotel bookings through the end of June are slightly behind those of last year, although they said their rooms are commanding higher rates than a year ago.

Tourism businesses will have to battle the continuingly sluggish economy and high gas prices to make this summer a success story.

With gas averaging $3.79 a gallon nationwide on Sunday, the federal U.S. Energy Information Administration has said it thinks prices have peaked. Still, the cost of a gallon of gasoline remains about a dollar higher than at this time a year ago – something that could have a psychological effect on travelers.

Orlando’s hoteliers say they’ve got their eye on gas prices but aren’t sounding the alarm yet.

“We’re monitoring the situation, but we’re not as concerned as it relates to gas pricing at this point,” said Richard Maladecki, president of the Central Florida Hotel & Lodging Association.

One concern Orlando won’t have to deal with this year: the threat of oil on Florida’s shores. Leading into last summer season, tourism officials still had their eye on the millions of gallons of crude oil that had poured into the Gulf of Mexico as a result of the Deepwater Horizon oil rig that exploded in April.

This year, Maladecki said, hoteliers are expecting to see a continuation of the positive performance they reported during the first three months. In March, hotels recorded their best occupancy rate in years and slightly higher prices.

“We’re seeing our advanced bookings at a considerably higher pace than they were last year at this time,” said John Brost, general manager of Mystic Dunes Resort & Golf Club. “Still not up to the 2007 years, but significantly better.”

For Orlando’s tourism market, looking past Memorial Day and into the summer isn’t an easy task. While many in the industry are feeling good about the upcoming leisure season, travelers are still planning their vacations with relatively short notice, making projections difficult.

“It’s still a very short-term-booking market,” said Gary Sain, president and chief executive officer of Visit Orlando, the local visitors’ bureau. “I think as we get into it, we’ll have a little bit of a better understanding.”

Happy (US) Memorial Day!

Sincerely,

Bill Cowie President

Orlando office 407 396 9914

Looking for a home in Florida? We do vacation rentals or can help with the purchase or finance of a Florida property. Request more information or submit a Custom Search Request for a listing of homes available in your price range.

The BRITISH HOMES GROUP Florida

ORLANDO – A theme park built with millions of Lego bricks, a cheetah habitat with a zero-to-60 mph roller coaster at Africa-themed Busch Gardens, and the first new killer whale show in five years at SeaWorld Orlando are among the big new attractions opening in central Florida this year.

The world’s fifth Legoland park, and the first one on the U.S. East Coast, is going up on the site of the old Cypress Gardens in Winter Haven, a 45-minute drive from the other large parks in Orlando. It is scheduled to open at an unspecified date in October.

Legoland Florida planners say 50 million of the iconic plastic building bricks will be incorporated into rides, statues and attractions geared toward children ages 2 to 12 and their families. The lineup will include four gentle roller coasters, but the park retains its famous botanical gardens and water ski show from Cypress Gardens, which was one of Florida’s first theme parks.

“Kids go crazy over Legos, and this is what kids anticipate seeing in a Lego world,” park manager Adrian Jones said recently. “It’s about rides, it’s about playing with Legos, it’s about building, it’s about interacting” with their surroundings.

The new environmentally themed Shamu show at SeaWorld called One Ocean debuted at the Orlando park in April, replacing the well-worn Believe show. Similar whale shows are scheduled to open at SeaWorld San Diego on Memorial Day weekend and at SeaWorld San Antonio in June.

According to SeaWorld, the show “features majestic killer whales as ambassadors of the sea, and the ocean as the center of the universe. … At the core of the show is the unifying message that both animals and humans are part of one world, with one ocean, and its future is in our hands to cherish and protect.”

One of the orcas that visitors to the Orlando park will see exhibiting his talents in the new show is Tilikum, the whale that killed drowned 40-year-old trainer Dawn Brancheau last year. Tilikum spent more than a year away from the exhibits but returned to the shows in April.

Trainers have not been in the pools with the whales since the accident in February 2010, but the parks are upgrading facilities with safety equipment and readying the animals for trainers to get back into the water. A firm date for that has not been announced, but SeaWorld officials said the new show was planned to incorporate “water work” with the trainers when the time was appropriate.

An hour away from Orlando, in Tampa, Busch Gardens is promoting its new Cheetah Hunt roller coaster that uses the force of repelling magnets to launch riders from zero to 60 mph in a matter of seconds, three different times during the ride.

Opening this summer, Cheetah Hunt will be the longest of the park’s coasters with 4,429 feet (1,350 meters) of track. It is the centerpiece of a new animal habitat area called Cheetah Run that will allow visitors to get up close to the lithe cats living there. They also can witness the world’s fastest land animal in action during daily sprints conducted by trainers.

Sticking with the Africa theme, new this year at Walt Disney World is an add-on experience at Animal Kingdom that allows guests to join a small group on a guided expedition to see the park’s wild animals on foot and by special vehicles. The cost of the Wild Africa Trek starts at $189 per person (in addition to park admission) and will vary seasonally. It is open to guests 8 and older.

Disney’s Hollywood Studios park reopened the venerable Star Tours ride this month with a new 3-D element and Star Wars-inspired story line for the deep space flight simulator. Also new at Disney World is a nighttime show during which photos of guests taken by park photographers during the day are projected in a huge slideshow on the outside of Cinderella Castle. The show is accompanied by music and fireworks.

Discovery Cove in Orlando debuts a new 2.5-acre (1-hectare) saltwater environment called Grand Reef, featuring white-sand beaches, underwater grottoes and a palm tree-lined island. Guests can don wetsuits and an underwater breathing apparatus to take an underwater walking tour along a path 10 feet below the surface through schools of tropical fish and past a 1 million-gallon (3.8 million liter) aquarium with 125 species of fish, rays, and sharks.

Florida theme parks have high hopes for 2011 after seeing modest attendance gains last year as the U.S. economy continued to recover from a crippling recession, said David Mandt, spokesman for the International Association of Amusement Parks and Attractions.
“Certainly the conditions and consumer confidence are improving, and that will drive attendance to parks and attractions,” Mandt said. “There’s a lot to look forward to.”

One attraction that hopes to maintain its initial success is The Wizarding World of Harry Potter, which was an immediate sensation when it opened last year in the Islands of Adventure park at Universal Orlando. The mini-park, featuring Hogwarts castle and a state-of-the-art coaster ride that simulates flying on brooms with Harry and his pals, gave Universal a big attendance boost last year while the crowds at the other central Florida parks stayed flat.

For Universal visitors, Aug. 18 will be the last chance to ride the Jimmy Neutron Nicktoon Blast, which is closing to make room for a 3-D ride based on the Despicable Me animated movie. And the popular Amazing Adventures of Spider-Man ride at Islands of Adventure is closing soon for a state-of-the-art retooling. The 3-D experience will be updated with high-definition animation and other details riders will be able to feel.

Enjoy!
Bill Cowie President
www.britishhomesgroup.com
Orlando Florida
Kissimmee Office 407 396 9914
Direct (Mobile) 407 620 7777

British-American Chamber of Commerce Advisory Board

Disney’s Magic Kingdom…THE BRITISH HOME GROUP is most proud to announce that British Homes Sales, our Orlando-based International Estate Agency, has been appointed to represent the new Golden Oak community at Walt Disney World ® Resort in Orlando, Florida.

Golden Oak is Disney’s brand-new super luxurious residential community right in the heart of Walt Disney World, between the Magic Kingdom, Epcot and the world-famous nightly fireworks display!

As our friends at Golden Oak put it: Golden Oak at Walt Disney World® Resort is a resort community where families can live in the embrace of luxury, privacy and the magic of Disney.

This new, gated community will feature distinctive neighborhoods of exquisite homes, expansive natural preserves and inviting amenities – including Concierge & Resident Services, a private proposed clubhouse and a unique opportunity to experience most of what Disney has to offer.

Also planned for Golden Oak is the Four Seasons Resort Orlando at Walt Disney World®, with an 18-hole golf course, spa and restaurants. To learn more about this one-of-a-kind opportunity to bring together family, friends and cherished Disney traditions, visit www.disneygoldenoak.com or call us on (+1) 407 396 9914.

• Prices – Range from $1,500,000 to $8,000,000 (multi-currency financing available)
• Less than 30 New Golden Oak Homes Available
• Each to be designed and built in line with your specific individual requirements and dreams!
• Reservation Deposits Must Be Received by January 21, 2011

So why not fly over for a day or two in the sun, warm-up, select the location for your new Golden Oak dream villa and return home …before the neigbours know you are gone!

Multi-Currency Mortgage Financing Available. For those preferring to finance up to 50% of their purchase price we can arrange low-interest mortgage financing through our colleagues at Lloyds TSB Bank International.

Over 20,000 Other Holiday Homes to Choose From!

If Golden Oak does not fit your requirements or your budget we have a vast and varied selection of other Florida homes and investment properties to choose from – from bargain-priced condos in Orlando’s current, but temporary, distressed property “buyers market” (with prices down some 70%) to luxury upmarket beach-front villas throughout the Sunshine State – from Tampa to Miami!

Please let us know immediately if you are at all interested in this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to own a Florida home at Golden Oak.

There are less than 30 luxury villas available and Reservation Deposits must be received by next month.

We can arrange a quick “mini-holiday” inspection trip, site selection, purchase details and, if you wish, purchase financing.

It’s all part of our renowned “one-stop” shop service for our international clients.

To a “Magical” New Year!

Bill Cowie President

www.britishhomesgroup.com

Orlando office 407 396 9914

Request more information on this home or submit a Custom Search Request

The BRITISH HOMES GROUP Florida

Theme park showdown: Harry Potter vs. Mickey Mouse

The eye-popping success of the Wizarding World of Harry Potter has been a shot in the arm for Orlando-area attractions.

By Mitch Stacy, Associated Press

ORLANDO – Craig Taylor wasn’t much interested in vacationing in Orlando with his parents this month – until he and his girlfriend plugged into the hype swirling around the new Harry Potter attraction.

So Taylor, 23, a police dispatcher who lives near Manchester, England, and girlfriend Katherine Lucarz, 22, both fans of the wildly popular books and movies about the boy wizard, decided they had to tag along to experience The Wizarding World of Harry Potter at Universal Orlando. That’s where they were on a sunny, cool weekday afternoon in early December, taking a break among the other Muggles in the shadow of the towering Hogwarts castle.

“It’s brilliant,” says Lucarz, adding that the steep, snow-covered rooftops, crooked chimneys and shops of Hogsmeade village are even more like the movies than she imagined. Other visitors queued up just to get in the door at Ollivander’s Wand Shop, and waited an hour for the centerpiece ride, a fantastic state-of-the-art flight simulator/robocoaster called “Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey.”

That sort of devotion to all things Potter is precisely what Universal hoped to tap into when it debuted the $250 million attraction in June in a corner of its Islands of Adventure park.

IF YOU GO: How to get the most out of a Disney/Universal theme park visit
Harry has conjured all the magic Universal expected, and then some. In the quarter after the attraction opened, crowds at Universal parks swelled by 36% over the same stretch last year, while attendance at Disney’s Orlando parks stayed roughly the same.

But the big question is, can Universal keep the edge and take a bigger bite out of the Mouse’s historical dominance as more families shake off the recession and come back to the parks?
That’s hard to tell, industry analysts and tourism officials say, but everyone agrees that the eye-popping success of the Wizarding World of Harry Potter has been a shot in the arm for all the Orlando-area attractions.

Thanks to the new attraction and an improving economy, hotel occupancy rates in Orange County shot up nearly 21% in July over the same month last year, and through September were running nearly 7% ahead of 2009 totals.

“Harry Potter certainly has been a very powerful motivator,” says Gary Sain, president of the Orlando/Orange County Convention & Visitors Bureau. “I believe that it has helped to drive additional visitation to Orlando. And then no one just comes for one attraction, they come to visit several attractions.”

But Disney, historically good at keeping extended-stay visitors on its properties, is losing more park days to Universal now because of the Harry Potter attraction, says Dennis Speigel, president of International Theme Park Services Inc., an independent industry consultant. He believes the Potter attraction has also taken a considerable bite out of attendance at SeaWorld Orlando, whose image – and attendance – is still recovering from the violent death of a whale trainer in February.
“(Harry Potter) has had an enormous impact, and we believe it has legs,” Speigel says. “I don’t think you’re going to see a 36-percent increase at any theme park for a while. But we believe that Harry Potter has enough story line to carry forward for the next 15 years, if it is properly executed in the parks.”

Moody’s Investors Service said last month that Universal’s boost from the attraction should last several years.

Steve Baker of Baker Leisure Group, a theme-park industry consultant, predicts a two-year benefit for Universal, but Disney’s dominance and skill at keeping visitors on its properties is too hard to crack for Universal to gain any permanent and significant ground on the mighty Mouse.

“I think what’s happened so far is that (Harry Potter) hasn’t brought new business to the market yet, it’s just enjoyed a bigger market share of what exists,” Baker says. “And I think until Disney comes out with something new, that’s probably going to be the case. Harry Potter will be a big influence on the attendance at all the parks for quite a few months. I know Universal is hoping it’s everlasting, but nothing is everlasting.”

For now, though, there’s no mistaking what’s bringing people to the park.

On a late morning in early December, typically a slow period for all the Orlando parks, the wand shop at the Wizarding World wasn’t the only one with a crowd. Wannabe witches and wizards also stood in line to get into the gift shops, belly up for a butter beer and eat at the Three Broomsticks Inn. The hubbub at the Wizarding World didn’t spill over into the other areas of Universal’s two parks, where crowds were sparse and wait times for rides were no more than five or 10 minutes.
Universal spokesman Tom Schroder says the new attraction has “been great for everything we are.”

“The Wizarding World of Harry Potter has helped us reach a new audience, and we’ve used that opportunity very strategically to help people understand everything they can experience when they come here,” Schroder says.

Overall, though, 2011 is expected to be another soft year for the theme park industry with only modest growth, analysts say, with much higher hopes for 2012.

“We’re not a recession-proof industry, but we’re a recession-resilient industry,” Speigel says. “We bounce back faster than a lot of industries. People want to escape, they want to get out, they want to have fun. In 2010 we saw a lot of pent-up demand that had carried over from ’08 and ’09.”

Sincerely,

Bill Cowie

President

www.britishhomesgroup.com

Looking at buying a home in Florida? Use one of our easy contact links below. 

Request more information on this home or submit a  Custom Search Request

570 Room Radisson Hotel For Sale Near Disney

We don’t normally circulate Florida resort properties to our residential real estate investors but we happen to have a little inside scoop into the recent availability of a world-class hotel here on Disney’s door-step – The Radisson WorldGate Resort Orlando!

www.WorldGateResort.com

And this spectacular, ideally-located hotel priced to sell quickly!

Amenities include:

· 1 mile from Walt Disney World® Resort off Highway 192
· 570 spacious guest rooms and 4 Executive Suites
· Ample and complimentary On-Site Parking
· Banquet and Catering Service
· Fully-Equipped Fitness Center
· Full Business Center (over 25,000 square feet of meeting space)
· Two outdoor heated palm-draped Swimming Pools and Whirlpool
· Poolside Dining and Lounge
· Grille Restaurant & Bar with Special Children’s Menus
· Scheduled Shuttle Service to Walt Disney World® Resort
· Sports Court (Basketball and Tennis)
· Wireless Internet in Guest Rooms and some Public Areas

If you or any of your hospitality industry associates are interested in this unusual investment opportunity here in our “Sunshine State” please contact me personally, info@britishhomesgroup.com – as soon as possible!

Sincerely,

Bill Cowie, President

www.BritishHomesGroup.com

Orlando, Florida

ORLANDO BUSINESS JOURNAL

Disney selling new dreams – homes

Walt Disney Parks and Resorts announced June 23 it will sell 30 single-family luxury home lots this year in a new residential community on Disney property near the Four Seasons Resort Orlando.

Homes at Golden Oak, a 450-home gated residential resort development, will be priced from $1.5 million to $8 million, said a news release. Three types of homes will be available: village homes on one-fourth-acre lots, estate homes on half-acre lots and grand estate homes on three-fourths-acre lots, the release said. The first homes are expected to be completed in 2011.

The resort community will include a private clubhouse, concierge services and Walt Disney World Resort benefits, the release said. It also features conservation areas taking up almost half of the development’s 980-acre footprint. “Golden Oak is something totally new: a residential resort community, right in the heart of the magic,” said Matt Kelly, vice president of Disney Resort Real Estate Development, in a prepared statement.

Disney Resort Real Estate Development began site work nearly two years ago on the site and the main road and gatehouse have been completed, said Marilyn Waters, spokeswoman for Walt Disney Parks & Resorts Business Development. Disney is finalizing its list of custom homebuilders for the community, which will be made up of seven experienced builders from Florida, Waters said. Home construction could begin later this year, depending on how quickly buyers are able to work with builders and architects on designing their homes, Waters said.

Golden Oak also will include the previously-announced 445-room Four Seasons Hotel Resort at Walt Disney World Resort. Community residents will likely be offered access to select Four Seasons’ future amenities, such as the spa, restaurants, golf course and event space, the release said.

The development isn’t the first residential real estate development for Disney (NYSE: DIS) in Central Florida. The company developed Celebration in the mid-1990s, a town that is now home to more than 9,000 residents. Those wanting to purchase homes must pay a $25,000 refundable deposit and sign a lot release priority agreement to secure a spot on the community’s priority reservation list, the release said.
 
The Dream Continues!

Why not let us help yours come true?

Sincerely,

Bill Cowie  President

Member: British-American Chamber of Commerce