Forest City, FL Outdoor Activities

The Jewish Community Center of Greater Orlando was founded to give those who share the Jewish tradition a communal setting in which to exercise, play, and learn with one another. Between them, the two locations boast full fitness facilities, tennis courts, and an outdoor pool. Group exercise classes and a gymnasium aid adults in acquiring fitter bodies, and sports leagues provide a venue for grownups to compete and ceremoniously dump sports drinks on each other. The center also puts on its own full-blown theatrical productions.

The center’s staff tailors certain events to the needs of senior citizens, helping them with exercise regimes such as yoga. Staff members also assist the Senior Nite club in organizing trips to new restaurants or the theater and help pintsize guests by helming a preschool, kids' camps, and extracurricular programs. Staffers can even pick up youngsters from school and ferry them to one of the facilities for afterschool development programs, which, like backyard mazes, are designed by the child’s parents to challenge young ones.

Spun sugar crystals float by spinning horses and pools of docile magnetic sharks beneath the glittering midway lights of Carol Stream Amusements' lively traveling carnival. The nearly 110-year-old fair company's third-generation of stewards bring rides, games, and snacks to states such as Florida, North Carolina, and New York, where it operates the state fair in Syracuse. A 65-foot century wheel soars above the bustle of the music-filled midway, where LED lights twinkle in patterns of white, green, blue, and red around its gondola cars. A merry-go-round sends fantastical steeds cantering around in a stately circle, while bumper cars careen around their nearby enclosure. Carnival games such as squirt-gun races and fishing for magnetized sharks yield prizes such as stuffed animals and inflatable Scooby-Doo, SpongeBob, and Henry VIII dolls, while flurries of corn dogs, cotton candy, popcorn, and taffy apples fall constantly on hungry fair-goers.

Even though flakes rarely brave the Florida sun and Jack Frost will never be grand marshal of the Citrus Bowl parade, some winter traditions are the same no matter where you live. One look at Winter in the Park confirms that. Spanning the holiday-packed days from November 16 to January 6, the festival decks out a portion of Central Park with frosty fun for the entire family. The centerpiece is a chilly ice rink, where skaters loop through delicate figure-8s and wreaths and other decorations help visitors capture the end-of-year spirit without having to find a local polar-bear adoption center. Additional events in Winter Park range from a harvest festival and holiday pops concert to a pancake breakfast, a Christmas parade, and a Hanukkah celebration.

During a round of golf in this region, it’s not uncommon for players to see the occasional alligator sunning itself on the banks of a fairway pond. The same, however, cannot be said for miniature-golf courses, unless you’re playing at Congo River Golf, where the civilized sinking of putts coexists with the visceral carnage of live-alligator feedings. More than 25 alligators wait for patrons to feed them morsels of gator food in an exhibit beside the course. Though the course offers no chance for an encounter with the ancient, scaly species, it enchants players with waterfalls, safari-themed artifacts, and towering rock faces. In addition, Congo River Golf encompasses an indoor arcade and a gemstone-mining station, where guests dig through dirt for fossils, arrowheads, and Neanderthal’s kindergarten time capsules.

To really understand what Fun Spot is all about, you only need to watch the commercial blooper reel by owner John Arie on the website. In this two-minute reel, John flubs his lines about go-karts, mishandles his props, and chides his off-camera director for being a stickler while teacups spin in the background. Despite his mistakes, the smile never leaves his face; it's not surprising that the motto of the action park is "Life is Great!"

The family-friendly amusement park has the charm of a small-town carnival, but the colorful adventure never packs up and leaves. There are activities for kids, such as a bounce castle, a fun slide, and an arcade, but where Fun Spot really makes its name is with its thrilling ride for adults. The SkyCoaster, which is part skydive simulator and part hang glider, harnesses up to three screamers and slowly pulls them up 300 feet in the air before dropping them above the park at 80 miles per hour.

Speedsters can also head over to a series of go-kart tracks that keep riders pushing pedals through banked bowls and hairpin curves on a multilevel track. The park rounds out its attractions list with bumper cars, a tilt-a-whirl, and the invisible waves at Surf's Up.

Placed in the top 10 among the nation's new golf courses by Golfweek and Travel + Leisure Golf, Sugarloaf Mountain sends golfers up and down elevation changes of more than 250 feet. The design by Coore & Crenshaw—Crenshaw, as in 1984 Masters winner Ben Crenshaw—takes advantage of the site's natural characteristics, wandering through verdant oak forests and at one point reaching the highest point in the state. The designers were so loyal to the landscape that they even decided to use native sand in the bunkers rather than trucking in moon dust.

Course at a Glance:

• 18-hole, par 72 course
• Total length of 7,076 yards from the back tees
• Course rating of 74.3 from the back tees
• Course slope of 133 from the back tees
• Four sets of tees per hole
• Scorecard