I have been to Florida twice now, last June was with Travel City Direct and I cannot think of a single problem we experienced that affected our holiday. Booking was easy, the staff helpful and polite. Of course they try to sell you more than you want so do some research, I found much cheaper better value insurance, park tickets than they offered for instance.

They are open 363 days a year and on the few occasions I have called have been very informative. They have their own fleet of aircraft and we travelled on a seemingly new 747, it was roomy and compared very well to the many scheduled flights I take. In fact better than some major airlines! They offer pre booked seating on these as well as a range of other offers including an upgrade to what could be considered first class. We wanted this but it sells out very fast as you can imagine.

We arrived later in Orlando somewhat later than we should have done. Walking out of the airport you have the car hire building in front of you and we had the car and the villa sorted within five minutes. We were pleasantly surprised to have been upgraded to an executive villa with an extra bedroom. It was clean and we got the key at the airport. I say key, it was a code for a lock that once you open it gives you the key. If I can make one small complaint it was that we were given a tourist map (no detail) with directions written on. I managed to use my own satellite navigator to find it but I would have thought that without that it would have been a bit of a nightmare as it was dark by the time we set out and quite a distance. (That satellite navigation system saved us many hours that we would have otherwise spent lost)
Failing that get yourself a map before you go, the staff will be more than happy to mark out the location of your villa on that. When you leave the airport I advise using the toll roads into Orlando; they are quiet and easy to drive on for the first time driver abroad. Plus you rarely if ever get any delays, important if you want to catch that plane.

Always pay the extra few dollars for vip parking at the parks, you get to park closer and avoid queues. We also paid extra for the fast passes that help you jump the queues at the parks. If you want to spend 8 hours of your 10 hour stay there queuing then fine, we went on every ride, some twice and never saw a queue with these passes. What price can you put on that? Be early though as these sell out and they limit the amount they sell.

Leaving Florida was a dream. We handed over the car at the airport; this is a very quick and easy procedure as is collection. There was a small queue at the check in but we arrived early so missed any big queues. They were very picky about the weight of our cabin baggage so watch that. Once checked in we went to the Sanford lounge (about £10 each and pre bookable). Watch this as it closes at about 10pm, useless if the flight is delayed for too long but handy all the same. You get two free drinks and as many of those salted snacks as you can eat. There's a couple of pc's with free internet and some ps2's in a room for the kids.

We didn't just spend our two weeks in orlando; I booked a cruise with Carnival Cruises. A weekend in the Bahamas from Miami, booked direct you can save a fortune. You just need an American address but TCD's office in Orlando was good enough for this. Once again, phone them direct in the states before you leave.