Florida Mall is located on the intersection of Sandlake Road and Orange Blossom Trail. It’s a covered and air conditioned mall, so it’s ideal for hot days to cool off or wet days to keep dry.
It’s the largest mall in central Florida with some 250 stores and a food hall. It’s open from 10 am to 9pm Monday to Saturday and Noon to 6pm on Sundays. So depending on your shopping threshold you can spend anything from a day to a few hours in the evening shopping. We normally go late afternoons for a couple of hours and then for a meal in one of the local restaurants.
The mall has 3 major department stores Dillard’s, J C Penny and Sears. All three are very much like Debenhams in the UK, in fact Debenhams has models its self on one of them. While these department stores carry similar stocks, be sure to visit them all to compare prices before you buy, as unlike the UK, there is often a price difference between them for the same product. Compared to the UK prices for clothes are very competitive, I buy my casual trousers (Hagger or Dockers) and shirts (Hagger checks) there at one third to half of prices in the UK. Levis are also a good buy, but you’ll probably get a better price at the Belz or Premium discount Malls (however beware as these discount Malls can carry seconds and ends of lines).
Two must visit stores for teenagers are “Abercrombie & Fitch” and “Old Navy” who sell fashionable casual clothes. Abercrombie & Fitch, are quite expensive but very fashionable, the music in the store is great, but loud. Be sure to check the sales rack, normally at the back end of the store. Old Navy are much cheaper and carry some good quality clothes. Tee shirts, shorts, trousers and jeans are the better buys.
There are many many other stores selling everything from CD’s, sweets (candy) to the latest fashions. There is even a Clarks Shoe store. So, shoppers will happily browse for hours.
The food hall is large and very noisy at busy times. It has a wide choice of types of food with everything from a Subway Sandwich to Thai food to Pizza, so there will be something for everyone. Alternatively try Ruby Tuesdays, which is adjacent to the food hall. They have a good bar with draft and bottled beers for those that have a low shopping threshold. The food is good and they have a great self service salad bar. Alternatively try the Olive Garden which is just outside the Mall on the opposite corner of the Sand Lake Road/Orange Blossom trail intersection, for Pasta and Pizza.
Some tips
- The car park is huge. Ensure you remember what entrance you used and where your car is in relation to the entrance – otherwise you will struggle to find it again
- Films are released on DVD in the US before the UK. However, don’t buy DVD’s unless your home player is multi regional. The US is DVD region 1 and the UK is region 2.
- Don’t buy games (i. e. Play station games). The US TV standard is NTSC and UK is PAL, so NTSC games won’t work on UK TV’s.
- US music CD’s work fine in the UK
- Take a tape measure to measure clothes if you are buying for someone else as US sizes are different to the UK’s.
- Goods can be bought with Credit or Debit cards. Also most stores will accept US Dollar Traveller Cheques as if they were cash, and will give change. I’d suggest carrying some form or picture ID as stores sometimes ask for these.