Orlando: Kennedy Space Center and Airboat Tour

Less than one hour from Orlando is NASA’s launch headquarters – the Kennedy Space Center. The visitor site offers a fascinating, behind-the-scenes look at the space program. Tour NASA’s launch headquarters, and see space shuttle launch pads from a four-storey observation deck. Walk beneath a massive Saturn V moon rocket, and relive Neil Armstrong’s first steps on the moon. Meet a real astronaut, stroll through the Rocket Garden, and enjoy five-storey IMAX space films.

The center also includes the space shuttle Atlantis, bringing visitors nose-to-nose with the priceless Atlantis spacecraft as only astronauts have seen it before. More than 60 interactive, touchscreen experiences and high-tech simulators bring to life the people, passion and patriotism behind NASA’s 30-year space shuttle program, as well as the complexity of the engineering marvel that launched the Hubble Space Telescope and built the International Space Station (ISS).

Guests can practice docking to the ISS; extract cargo from the payload bay; create sonic booms and glide to a landing on the re-entry slide; experience the sensation of floating in space; explore a high-fidelity replica of the ISS; experience an orbital sunrise; take the helm at the shuttle cockpit, and much more.

On your airboat ride, glide through the grassy marsh of the St. Johns River and Lake Poinsett at speeds of up to 45 miles per hour. As the boat slows down to an idle you will have several opportunities to take pictures of local wildlife, such as alligators, eagles, and several species of wading birds by the hundreds. You will also visit a natural cypress swamp.