Aww, sad panda is sad.
I live here, and I don’t really have anything to add. You can buy a resident’s annual pass for Disney and go there quite often. That’s fun for a while. There are plenty of fun things to do if you have money, but culturally-speaking, it’s a dead zone IMO. I much prefer my hometown of Boston.
For almost $500, it better be fun every dang day for a year.
$500? When I lived there you could get a 4-park seasonal pass w/ blackout dates (when you probably wouldn’t want to go anyway) for under $200. Even now I think that pass is under $250.
I looked it up to get that number. For about $250, you can “Enjoy all four Theme Parks during selected times of the year.” For $170 you can “Enjoy all four Theme Parks Monday through Friday during selected times of the year.” For $370 you can “Enjoy all four Theme Parks 365 days a year.” And for almost $500, you pretty much get into whatever Disney has to offer.
“Selected times of the year” this past year meant you could NOT go:
So, no spring break, summertime, or Xmas.
Just to bump this one more time, and to really help your friend make an educated decision, there was a news report here last night that stated there are 138,000 people unemployed in Orlando ALONE. I have friends that moved down here after they got married (from NY) in November and she is STILL looking for a job, 7 months later.
It’s not a pretty picture here. It really makes me thankful I have to job I do. 
**
Sigh. Why do people think this? I live just outside Orlando and am constantly busy doing fun things that have nothing to do with theme parks. This weekend, for example, I am going to both of the plays being performed by the Orlando Shakespeare Theater–All’s Well That Ends Well and Hamlet. I regularly go to poetry readings, poetry slams, writing workshops (including great workshops at Kerouac House), free outdoor concerts, the Philharmonic, the Ballet, great wine bars and restaurants, fun pubs with raucous live music, 5K races, triathlons, art festivals (the renowned Winter Park Art Festival is in a few weeks), gallery openings, the Fringe Festival (where I volunteer).
There are tons of things to do in Orlando that have nothing to do with theme parks, and in fact, most of my friends haven’t been to a park in years.
We have a Philharmonic? and a Ballet? It’s true, there is a lot of theater stuff here though.
In a sense, fun stuff is wherever you make it. Orlando has opportunities, but I still think it’s got less than a lot of other major cities.
Orlando International Fringe Festival
And that’s just scratching the surface. There’s so much to do here I can’t fit it all in.
Of course there’s more to do in other major cities–Orlando is not a major city. Comparing it to Boston, New York, San Francisco, Chicago is absurd.
Damn straight 
But seriously, thx for all the info. This should be the first link on any Orlando thread. They come up a few times a year I’d say.
Point taken, kapri, but if that kind of stuff isn’t your “thing,” well, there really isnt much to do BESIDES the parks. Personally, I’d rather sit on molten glass than sit through a poetry reading/slam. So I don’t do it. I think that people that are native to the area (yes, they DO exist) tend to have a more favorable view of Orlando, than those of us that have transplanted from major cities (NYC, Chicago, etc.). Maybe I’m being unintentionally snobby, but I can’t get the image of the Orlando Ballet and Shakespeare troupe and Philharmonic performing in Mouse regalia. It’s just so pervasive.
But I think when you take the City of Orlando itself, not the outlying towns (Winter Park, Kissimmee, etc) there isn’t a lot of stuff there. The smaller towns have their fairs and festivals, but the City of Orlando? Eh. To find non-park things to do, you usually have to travel a bit. OUT of Orlando. But that has been my experience here, of course, YMMV.
Winter Park (which is where I live) is what, three or four miles from downtown Orlando? I’m kind of surprised that you can’t find anything to do in downtown; lots of my friends/coworkers (many of whom are in their 20s and therefore considerably younger than me) live there and are always busy doing fun things.
As for your mouse comment–sorry, I don’t get it. Disney/Mickey Mouse is so far from the Orlando I know. And I am definitely not a native–I lived outside Philadelphia and then right outside NYC for years, so I’m familiar with what goes on in large cities, too. But Orlando isn’t a large city, and it’s only been in its present incarnation for a few decades, so you just can’t compare it to cities with centuries of history and so on.
Seems to me it’s very picky to only want to do things in Orlando and not the other local towns that are close by.
Hey, I live in WP kapri. We should hang out sometime! Do you ever go to RedlightRedlight or Stardust?
I have been to Stardust a few times, Auto, and Redlight when it was in WP, but not since it moved. I have a feeling I’d be too old and stodgy for you, but maybe I’m making unnecessary assumptions. I don’t hang out in bars too often. Usually I have wine on Park Ave or WP Dexter’s or, if I’m feeling in a bar mood, go to Fiddler’s or the Red Fox; a few weeks ago after a few drinks I ended up at Wally’s, but that was an aberration.
(I’m guessing you know all those places.)
Because sometimes driving 30min to an hour each way isn’t always the most appealing option. Like I said before, it’s a very spread out city with traffic control issues.
ETA-this is after it rained on and off today http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/local/breakingnews/os-orlando-traffic-20100218,0,4715295.story
Yup I know them all. Not too many bars I haven’t at least heard of. I used to go to the Wine Room a few times a week, but I haven’t been so much lately. I still love it though. Old and stodgy is just a negative way of saying mature and sophisticated 
My friend and her mother are retired so they won’t be concerned with the job market, so we can remove that as a consideration.