Although the address is Celebration, the ‘Shack’ is easier to get to than the town itself, right on 192 by the water tower.

The Shack gets very busy and it is well worth booking a table if you can. The interior is a sight to behold – the ceilings are hung with what appear to be the contents of a jumble sale, which all adds to the atmosphere of the place. The music can be very loud indeed, so try to get a table that’s not immediately under a speaker. Our favourite place to sit is outside on the wooden balcony, especially since one of the restaurant’s highlights is a children’s playground housed on a sandpit , so the children can play there safely and don’t even notice they are waiting for their food.

The Shack’s signature dishes are both crabs and shrimp, and the menu is mind-boggling with its choice, with plenty more in addition to the crabs and even some non-seafood choices. We would recommend you order either starters or mains, or at least do one at a time before you decide you have room for both, as the portion sizes are very generous.

Some of the specialist cocktails the bar serves are a talking point in themselves, especially the famous Shark Bite, made from Bacardi, vodka, blue curacao, and grenadine.

The atmosphere in the Shack is never what one would call sedate, in fact it’s probably the liveliest restaurant we’ve ever been to, with loud music and a real party atmosphere. The waiters are more like performers and woe betide if you visit on your birthday and they find out – they are highly likely to break into a song and dance which will soon involve the entire restaurant. This is definitely a restaurant for a large family occasion or a party, not for a quiet, romantic dinner for two. Make sure you don’t leave it until your last night to try it, as you will probably find you’ll want to return!

Once we started to look into it we got more and more excited about the event. It turned out that the Tampa Bay Rays were playing the Detroit Tigers on the second Saturday of our stay. There were tickets available and they seemed a bargain at $11 each. We booked online and arranged to collect the tickets at the gate – all of this was very easily done.

The Tampa Bay stadium was a very easy drive from our villa in Kissimmee and we easily found free parking a short walk away. The atmosphere even before we entered the stadium was really exciting and as we did enter the vast dome, we were stunned by the size, the noise and the colours of the venue. We arrived there at about 6pm and the game was due to begin at 7pm. If there was one downside to the whole evening, the food wasn’t great so we were glad we had spent the day in St Pete first and gone to one of our favourite restaurants there.

Long before the game was due to begin we were entertained by music, colourful characters doing all sorts of crazy things in the seating area, and watching the players warming up. When the game finally got underway we were hooked from the first minute. The game lasted a long time, compared to the sports we are used to in the UK, but there were plenty of breaks with small elements of entertainment thrown in. The whole atmosphere was fun, lively and very, very family friendly. The game was over by about 10pm and we strolled back to our car and were home at our villa, tired and exhilarated, by 11.30.

All in all we felt the evening was excellent value for money, fun for all the family and definitely something we will do again when we are in Florida this year.

We stayed in a hotel room which had no fridge and had to keep his milk in an ice bucket we were constantly topping up; we put him to bed at 7pm and sat in the dark and silence until we thought he was asleep and it was safe to put the TV on (with subtitles, because we couldn’t risk any volume), and we worried ourselves sick about how we were to find healthy child-friendly meals for him while having to eat out every single meal.

What saved our sanity was discovering the huge benefits of renting (and more recently owning) our very own villa.

The standard of villas for rent in Orlando, Florida is truly outstanding. The villas at Cumbrian Lakes are all equipped to a higher standard than our own home. The kitchens include every appliance you could need, meaning as parents we can shop at the local supermarkets and prepare and store exactly the meals that we know our toddler will eat. Villas range from three bedrooms to six (or even more) so no matter how large your family, the children can go off to a comfortable bed at their usual time, leaving you to enjoy a really relaxed evening, watching a movie, savouring an al fresco barbecue or even lapping up a soak in the spa.

In addition, the vast majority of villas have their own private pools, with child guards and child-proof alarms on the external doors, meaning you have the perfect on-site activity for all the family to enjoy. Many villas include a games room, which is ideal for older children, as well as a collection of DVDs, books and board games.

Cumbrian Lakes has its own children’s play area, three lakes which are home to baby alligators, turtles and numerous sea birds, and nature walks and bike tracks – all within a secure gated community.

There are people out there who probably balk at the idea of a holiday where you do your own cooking and washing up, but having discovered the freedom, flexibility and the standard of accommodation this style of holiday affords, we will never go back to hotels – not even after the kids leave home!

In the first couple of days of our holiday we did some internet searching and came up with a couple of options. The first we tried was Kelly Park, north of Orlando itself in Apopka. We read on the internet that Kelly Park was about 20 minutes’ drive away from our villa in Kissimmee and that it was a large parkland containing a naturally fast flowing river which we could whiz down on inflatable inner tubes which we could rent at the site.

Actually getting to the park was not quite so simple as we had anticipated. Instead of a 20-minute drive, it actually took us 40 minutes to get there. We drove straight to Kelly Park (passing a sort of roadside cafe with stacks of inner tubes outside) only to find that we should rent the tubes, not at the park itself but back at the café we had passed five minutes earlier. There was also a sign at the park telling us that it was almost to capacity and could close for entry for the day in the next 15 minutes or so. We were then faced with a dilemma as to whether to go back and hire the tubes, not knowing if we could get into the park when we returned, but we decided after coming all this way, we may as well chance it. We picked up the tubes and, luckily, made it into the park.

And we were delighted that we did!

The whole setting of the park was absolutely stunning and a breath of fresh air after the unnatural colours and plastics of some of the attractions in Orlando. We made our way to the start of the flowing river and meandered our way to the beautiful tiny beach area at the end, and were hooked. We spent about three solid hours doing the same thing over and over and loving every minute of it.

Just a couple of words of warning. There was very little in the way of facilities at the park, and no food options other than a snack bar for ice creams and chocolate bars. Next time we will definitely take a picnic or even a small portable BBQ. There was also nowhere to put valuables, so I would suggest taking a waterproof plastic container which you can attached to yourselves just for the car keys and take as little else as you can possibly manage. Oh, and when you see a roadside café with a stack of inner tubes piled outside, stop and pick up your tubes then, to save yourselves a trip back!