A lot of great vendors and we had perfect weather today. We managed to get a good parking spot -…read morebest reason for going early. The craft fair (Fiesta in the Park) at Lake Eola has lower prices. One vendor even admitted they raise their prices for mount Dora. But there were a lot of vendors with lots of great crafts Best kettle corn I e had in years

Will NEVER spend another dollar in this town again! We took our Therapy Dog to the Craft Fair with…read moreus for having a Certified Therapy Dog, training is never over and felt this would be perfect environment to have him around a lot of people and distractions for Therapy Dogs need to be able to ignore distractions. Therapy Dogs are Not Service dogs, so they have to special access that a service dog has, in fact a Therapy Dog is used to provide emotional support to OTHERS not it's owner. The police told us to leave for dogs are not welcome in Mt Dora. Rude ass police officer that didn't have an ounce of tact in his veins. He suggested that it could be dangerous if someone stepped on our dog. Are you kidding me? We've had our dog all around downtown Orlando and Winter Park, which are both dog friendly. He's been in airports, city buses, hospitals, retirement homes and many many other "more dangerous" environments than Mt Dora. This town is NOT a dog friendly town and I wouldn't spend another dollar in this town or any business in this town again. The officer said it's posted on their site: no dogs. Well if you didn't look up their site to decide if you wanted to drive 50 miles to attend their craft show, I guess you just drove 100 miles round trip for no reason!

Love the park but the sprinklers came on just about noon time…read moreWish they would reset it too turn on when no one is there My mom is in her 70s and got soaked for our mile walk home

5 Stars for one of Orlando's most beloved Main Streets (National award-winning, in fact) that marks…read morethe convergence of Downtown Orlando, Winter Park, and Baldwin Park. Audubon Park is the perfect buffer between Mills 50 (rough around the edges and legit) and Baldwin Park (highly-planned and bougie). It's your granola-making, Birkenstock-clad aunt. You know, the one with the long tunics and butterfly garden, who also keeps beer and kombucha batches brewing at all times. What differentiates this Main Street to the point that it won a National Main Street Award a few years back as America's best Main Street? I'd say it's all about the people and businesses. It's certainly not about the looks. But what this Main Street lacks in curbside appeal (looking at you, Virginia Drive), it makes up for in best-of level businesses. I'm talking best beer bar in the country (or at least known among the best-- Redlight Redlight), best local farmers market (big ups, Monday night Audubon Park Market), best sushi in Central Florida (Kadence, not to be missed), best homemade ice cream (Kelly's), best record shop in town (Park Ave CDs), best indoor market (East End Market), best quintessentially hipster coffee shop in that the baristas will shoot you dirty looks while serving you chai and a salad (Stardust Cafe), etc. I could seriously go on and on about the incredible spots in this little 'hood. Suffice to say, it ain't much to look at, but you're going to want to spend a Saturday hopping from biz to biz for the most epic day date ever.

To paraphrase Ricky from Trailer Park Boys: WestArt District used to be so f*ckin cool and now it's…read morebig time fucked up! Maybe I'd think this was better if I hadn't experienced the glory of WestArt in 2017 and didn't know it's now a shadow of it's former self. Maybe I'd give it more than 2 stars if they even allowed me onto their property to take photos on an overcast Saturday afternoon in February when half a dozen people were hanging out by somebody's car and nothing much at all seemed to be going on. I knew this place was too good to last. It was this total laissez-faire anti-elitist explosion of positive energy last time I was down in the City Beautiful. WestArt 2017 had highly detailed murals, abstracted conversation pieces, stencils, cartoon graffiti characters, wild style graffiti, more basic 2 or 3 color tags, hollows, throwies, Folk art, child-produced flowers and stuff. A wide variety of styles and skill levels was present. No wall was left plain and boring. A thousand wildflowers bloomed. Walls were painted and repainted and re-repainted. Even the ground was gradually getting painted up. The afternoon I was there the place was a beehive of activity. A couple of women barbequed chicken and were selling it for cheap. 2019 WestArt looks to have less than a dozen murals. (Hard to tell since I was quickly shooed out of the parking lot by a guy who, to his credit, clearly felt sheepish about the owner's directive.) Many walls are plain white, bearing only some spraypainted labels that read "no tagging". (Ironic, since this anti-graffiti graffiti technically counts as a tag itself.) Any graffiti-looking work is gone, apart from 2 well known character pieces. Rap letters have been hunted to extinction here. All the work looks to be technically proficient and alive with bright colors. And a mural of MLK is, well, pretty much immune from criticism. But there's just too much empty space these days. And it's damn sure in no way inviting like it used to be. I can't imagine people teaching kids how to paint here now. I've stayed in touch with the guy who used to run the place, so I had already gotten a heads up and didn't expect to just roll up and paint like before. But I thought I'd at least be able to walk around and take photos. I'm told most of this is due to the city. I imagine the old WestArt was too feral looking to certain people, and too much of an encouragement to go produce similiar looking work elsewhere around town. It's deeply disappointing but sadly understandable. I just hope this never happens at Recycle Here! and the Lincoln Street Art Park back home in Detroit.

Awesome art area about the size of a block with several warehouse type buildings all painted up…read more There's a fence around the entire thing so I don't know it's closed up or how to get in. I did see a gate you could probably push open that was unlocked but didn't want to chance it plus it was raining. Cool to drive by and look at though.

Art festival located in Maitland's lake Lily, full with a lot of vendors selling there arts and…read morecraft but also there is music and food and if you go before the Sun goes down you can have a romantic site seeing with your love one by the lake looking at the fountain and the sun setting down. Nice event to support local businesses and to get people to see what kind of art and crafts there is out there. Live music and food is also available, the event goes on during the weekend and I came the first week of October. Nice event but nothing I was to much in to,I did see some nice paintings and arts and craft. Nice place to walk around and feed the ducks.

Oviedo has certainly grown in the last few years and has certainly stepped out of the shadows of…read morebeing known as a quiet, sleepy place outside of Orlando, Florida into a vibrant community complete with restaurants, shopping, parks and a personality all its own. I remember when I moved down here in 2001 and woukd bring my kids to the Town House Restaurant and we would see chickens out on the streets. These chickens can be traced to the 19th century when settlers brought the birds with them as they settled in Florida. The chickens are a beloved part of Oviedo and are adorned on shirts and are represented on a mural of Oviedo in Oviedo on the Park. Speaking of Oviedo on the Park, I recommend this park. It is a great place for the community to gather. All in all, Oviedo is a great place these days to visit or call home. I would recommend a visit here.

The city you've been dreaming Ov... if, that is, you like suburbs of a very suburban place, namely,…read moreOrlando, and I don't mean Bloom, or indeed Orlando Calrissian. Sleepy little suburb that is so far away from Orlando that it's almost not Orlando anymore. I once played a concert around here, which low key went well even though it was miles away from everything. I met my friends Todd and Julie here, I hope they're doing well. Definitely a sleepy nice suburban leafy area which is good for you to live in if you want to be away from the hustle and bustle and have some peace and quiet. A decent place to raise kids. Lots of unfriendly people though. There's really not too much out here and there's a lot of Republicans which I don't appreciate. Perhaps the worst element is the abundance of toll roads here, meaning Oviedo is actually quite hard to access from several different directions without paying tolls.

Every major city has a "ChinaTown". This is the West sides'…read moreanswer to "little Nom". There are plenty of spots in the shopping center to eat and explore. I usually go to the boba spot here, and one of the restaurants. I miss Sapporo ramen, but they were replaced by a nice Dim Sum spot. I also want to eventually check out Tofu House and Walala Noodles. When I was in college, I would make coming here a whole day trip! Plenty to do! There's an Asian grocery store in the plaza too!

Out standing service. Every one very friendly. I do plan.on making appointment for a massage. My…read moreprimary style is Lena.

This mural is located on the side of the City Centre building, which is located on the corner of…read moreEast Central Boulevard and Rosalind Avenue in downtown Orlando. It is not far from Lake Eola Park and is a vibrant piece of art that enhances and beautifies the downtown Orlando, Florida area. Public art shows the underlying personality of a city, it adds soul to the concrete and steel that define most large cities and shows us the community rather than simply the population in terms of numbers. This piece of art is a wonderful addition to the downtown Orlando area and I definitely encourage you to come check it out.

5 stars because Orlando Soup is a great way help different community projects in Orlando. For a…read moredonation of $10 you receive bread, salad and a bowl of soup. How it works, you listen to 4 different presentations about things happening in and around the Orlando area and how hey will use the funds for their projects if the win the final vote. That evening we had the pleasure of listening to 4 great projects: - Game changer: helping kids break out of their shells through gaming and educational curriculum - the dinner party project:bringing people from Orlando from different backgrounds around the dinner table for great conversations - source codeb46 foundation: building children self confidence through software coding and story telling - explore theater and dance company: allowing community members to participate in the creative production process. The presentations were not very long giving us the audience a chance to ask questions on what they will do with the donation. It was very moving to see how every presenter was passionate about their project. After listening to the presentation we cast a vote on the project we think can benefit from the donation. Basically, a percentage of your $10.00 will go to the project that gets the most votes. This was an overall very inspiring evening and would urge people of Orlando to attend Orlando Soup so they can find out what is going on in our community.

This is what community is about and why I adore Orlando so much…read more Ask yourself: What project could you do with $500-800 to make your community better? That is what these presenters answer while you sit back and decide where your donation for the evening should go! How cool? That's right. For a donation of $10, attendees receive soup, salad and bread and then choose where most of their donation goes! So this is not a profit maker for Orlando SOUP, the profits go to feeding everyone during the event and then to the ideas! Even the planning team for the event is donating their time. How cool? What a beautiful concept. I am so happy I got to attend an Orlando SOUP night last evening. It was the 3rd installment of the fabulous series that is based off the successful Detroit SOUP: a micro-granting dinner celebrating and supporting creative community improvement projects for the city. Before dinner is served, attendees will listen to four short community project proposals covering a range of topics such as art, urban agriculture, social justice, social entrepreneurship, education, technology, and more. What is a city improvement project? We last night it consisted of: - Buy Local Orlando: Food Edition - guide that promotes local farmers, local markets, etc. I like the idea of having a highly concentrated guide but in reality, I use Yelp for this - but love the idea and that people want to push local love. - Portable urban food forest (P.U.F.F.) - to assist with the fast traffic along Corrine Dr. in Audubon Park, it's proven that visual distractions automatically make people drive slower. The idea was to fill the back of a trailer bed with a green sanctuary, compost bin, bird feeder, etc. Then, park it in a spot that would be visually appealing and a smart spot to help with a blind spot when exiting one of the shopping centers. ACE Day (achieve a college education day) - To help assist with getting 500 5th graders a chance to tour UCF as their field trip for an interactive day of fun with students, faculty, and campus life. Currently, the higher education trips are non-existent and they go to the local prison during their "field trip" to see where they shouldn't end up. So sad. Ride around the town: Fixit Orlando - With the new bike share program, this group would like to add a self-repair bike station at lake eola. It was so cool to see how everyone presented as they only had 4 minutes and were not allowed to use technology. Some had passionate stories, some had amazing creative visuals. Really inspiring overall. During dinner, attendees cast a vote for their favorite project and, at the end of the night, the project that receives the most votes is funded by a % from each attendees' donation. Winners will appear at future SOUP dinners to report their project's progress. I did appreciate hearing updates from the two previous Orlando SOUP winners. So happy to see so much positive, local, movements happening. Props to everyone who organizes this, presents their ideas, and attends. Such a fabulous cause! Props.