Tell me about Orlando!

[nashiitashii]

@AntaresJB

This question is probably hopelessly vague, but what would be about the average cost for rent on say a one-bedroom apartment in one of those “surrounding counties”? And is it even vaguely affordable realistically? I’ve got credit card bills and student loan bills and such weighing down my paychecks quite a bit - Am I going to be living on ramen with an hour-long commute even if I find a decently-paying job? What amounts to a decently-paying job down there anyway?

I’m horrible at specific questions. I guess I’m just trying to get a feel for the area. I’m pretty much clueless about the whole state.

Well, I’m planning on moving to Kissimmee in a month or two (it’s just south of Orlando in Osceola County), and we’re going to be able to get a 3bed/2bath house for just under $1000/month. I’m sure you could do, say, $700-800/month and still get a decent condo or apartment in the area. http://www.rentclicks.com is a good place to search to get some initial ideas for the area.

If you’re looking for temp work, it appears that $10/hour is the average. I haven’t really checked out much else right now, but I’m sure I can get more info from my fiance about it if you’d like.

[nashiitashii]

@lalenin

This is what I know, and can share, about Orlando. On the corner of Sand Lake Road and Dr. Phillips sits Corona Cigar company, the best cigar store I have ever seen, and I’m from Cuba. They have almost every kind of cigar, except Cubans, you can imagine, and dirt cheap. It also has a nice bar, nice Cuban music, domino and card tables, and you can smoke inside the store.

Corona is a great cigar store; it smells nice and it’s very well-organized. I don’t smoke, but the fiance occasionally will buy some Drew Estate cigars from there; he loves the place and has never been disappointed by the customer service.

[Ludovic]

@fishbicycle

For the benefit of the OP, can any Orlando residents comment on whether it’s more expensive to buy staples like groceries and gas there, because of it being a tourist trap? How about the toll roads? Do the locals have to use them, or are there alternate routes around them that aren’t obvious to tourists?

IME staples are a bit cheaper than in New York State, even without considering the nickel-a-container deposit in NYS. Don’t know about the cost vis a vis other places in the US.

Toll roads: the toll road situation is good in the southeast corridor but pretty bad elsewhere, and in the north it’s absolutely horrible. If you look on a map there is what looks to be a major highway nearly encircling Orlando to the northeast: that’s 436, aka Semoran. It’s just a 6-lane regular old business road, and that’s the closest thing North Orlando area has to a highway.

There aren’t that many short cuts to taking the toll roads, since most of them are in the extreme opposite cases of either directly paralleling an existing road (e.g. East-West and Colonial, aka S.R. 50,) or going so out on its own that there aren’t really any other faster ways to get to the destination (e.g. most of the Greeneway, if you’re going long distances.)

Two counterexamples to this:

If you are going to west central orlando (i.e. around Semoran and Colonial,) to DIsney, it’s just as fast to get on the East-West Expressway then hit I-4 as it is to take the Greeneway, and it saves you several dollars in tolls. If you do it late at night you can take Colonial instead of the East-West and save even more.

Similarly, if you are in the UCF area trying to get to the east coast, and it’s late at night, heading directly east through Bithlo via S.R. 50, then cutting southeast on 520 when you get to it if you need to, is almost as fast as taking the Beeline (they renamed it the Beachline but it always sounds like you’re cursing when you say that.)

[Lanzy]

Been here two years, I actually find traffic light but I come from DC and have the beltway to judge by. They run red lights here, like crazy. I have been yelled at for stopping at yellow and have been blown at and passed after stopping at RED! I apparently can’t get used to having an 8 second window after the light turns. Think its a custom but it might be a law.
Get the theme parks out of your system then forget about them. It is amazing to me how many outdoor malls there are considering the heat.

[ivylass]

@nashiitashii

Corona is a great cigar store; it smells nice and it’s very well-organized. I don’t smoke, but the fiance occasionally will buy some Drew Estate cigars from there; he loves the place and has never been disappointed by the customer service.

Ivylad likes the Blondies by Acid. The first time he smoked one, he looked at it in wonder and said in a voice of quiet awe, “That is the best cigar I’ve ever smoked.”

When he’s been a good boy, I run down there and get him some…it’s nearish my work.

[Hey_It_s_That_Guy]

Well, if it helps, I moved up here in late 2004 because I got a job. I have since resigned from that job, changed careers, gone back to school, gone through a handful of other jobs in my new field (including two right now), and reinvented my entire life. I love it here – I live in Casselberry, but I mean Orlando as a whole. I was miserable in Miami (where I was born and raised, and moved back to after my first two degrees), and never fit in down there. I think someone the OP’s age, with her interests, can definitely carve out a niche for herself, make a decent living, and have fun around here.

As for apartments, a lot of the affordable places once aimed at students are converting to condos, which is not a comforting trend. I would look around the UCF area, maybe out east by Waterford Lakes, maybe around the University Blvd./Goldenrod Rd. area. A lot of the student-focused apartment complexes offer multi-bedroom apartments with individual leases (so you wouldn’t be responsible for flaky roommates being late with rent and the like), but you may not want to deal with roommates at all, especially not college students. I second the idea of getting a job first, and then trying to move somewhere reasonably close.

The traffic CAN suck, but being from South Florida, I scoff when people complain about the rush hour gridlock on I-4. I commute on I-4 every day, and it is NOTHING compared to the Palmetto Expressway, the 836, I-95, and even suburban streets like North Kendall Drive in Miami, which turn into literal parking lots every afternoon like clockwork. I-4 is very convenient for me, but you may find yourself having to take the major toll roads, the 417 (Greenway) and the 408 (East-West Expressway). Get yourself a SunPass for your car so you can zip through the tolls and have them bill you automatically, rather than having to wait in lines and always worry about having enough money on you.

As everyone has said, there are LOTS of service jobs to be had, and not just in the southern, touristy parts of town. The best venues for live music are the Hard Rock Live at Universal Citiwalk and the House of Blues at Downtown Disney, which both host national acts. I love them because they are non-smoking venues, but YMMV. As someone else said, the Social is the best live music club in downtown Orlando, which isn’t that great otherwise. I hate the club scene, though.

If you need any other recommendations – restaurants, bars, comic book stores, anything at all – let me know. I’m not a native Orlandoan, but perhaps I can offer a semi-newcomer’s perspective you’d find just as useful (especially since I’m still – barely – in my 20s). Since I travel so much for work, I have gotten to know several different areas of the city.

[AntaresJB]

Wow. I guess I didn’t realize there was just so MUCH. So many areas, so many roads, so much… stuff. ::blink:: You guys are great.

I’m a little scared about the rent pricing. Right now I pay $325 a month for a walnut-sized semi-efficiency-ish 1 bedroom, and I’m barely scraping by on $9.85 an hour. I guess I’d better plan on crashing with my dad for a while until I get a reeeeally good job. The job-first-then-apartment thing sounds like a very good idea, especially with such a large area to deal with. That rentclicks site is awesome, nashiitashii, that will be really helpful.

The one thing all my friends and co-workers keep mentioning is hurricanes. Does Orlando really get many of them? I’m clueless about all that, I usually have to worry more about blizzards… at least I don’t have to shovel rain off my car. But if I have to shovel, say, a palm tree off my car, that’s not all that much better.

[Hey_It_s_That_Guy]

@AntaresJB

The one thing all my friends and co-workers keep mentioning is hurricanes. Does Orlando really get many of them? I’m clueless about all that, I usually have to worry more about blizzards… at least I don’t have to shovel rain off my car. But if I have to shovel, say, a palm tree off my car, that’s not all that much better.

Orlando got hit by three mid-sized hurricanes almost back-to-back in summer 2004: Charley, Frances, and Jean. I moved up here the day after Thanksgiving that year, and my roommate’s house STILL had no kitchen ceiling. Eventually he got the roof replaced and a new ceiling and all was well. Hurricanes can happen, but at least we’re two hours inland (as opposed to most of the other major cities in Florida that are on the coast). And unlike tornados, at least with hurricanes you get a few days warning to gather supplies, prepare, and vacate the area if you so choose.

[Improv_Geek]

The other thing about the hurricanes is that Orlando is far enough in land that they usually lose a bit of steam before arriving. That is not to say that they don’t still pack a punch, but the major damage done by them is on the coast. Hurricanes happen, Orlando deals with it. That being said - if the news says to evacuate - get the hell out of dodge.

– IG

[BrainGlutton]

Peruse this earlier thread.

[Translucent_Daydream]

No one around there can drive. And man alive, there is some horriffic traffic.

[Ludovic]

@Big Bad Voodoo Lou

I would look around the UCF area, maybe out east by Waterford Lakes, maybe around the University Blvd./Goldenrod Rd. area.

[…snip…]

The traffic CAN suck, but being from South Florida, I scoff when people complain about the rush hour gridlock on I-4. I commute on I-4 every day, and it is NOTHING compared to the Palmetto Expressway, the 836, I-95, and even suburban streets like North Kendall Drive in Miami, which turn into literal parking lots every afternoon like clockwork.

Ironically, you recommended the area where I experienced the worst traffic I have ever personally experienced: rush hour in the Waterford Lakes area to UCF area commute.

What normally is a less than 15 minute, 3 mile commute turns into a more than 30 minute stop and go nightmare, going into the UCF/Research Park area in the morning and coming back in the evening. And Og help you if you are planning on turning left onto Colonial at Alafaya: around half the time you can’t make a left when you have a green arrow due to either Colonial being backed up or blocked from gridlock from Alafaya. So people tend to go into the intersection anyway, waiting for an opening, causing further gridlock. It backs up from behind the last Research Park light solid to Woodbury.

That said, rush hour is literally once about an hour twice a day, for once, and traffic is managable other times of day.