Murder Packs a Suitcase (28 page)

         

Dinosaur World is located at 5145 Harvey Tew Road, Plant City, off Exit 17 on I-4 (Phone: 813–717–9865;
www.dinoworld.net
).

Pirate's Dinner Adventure
         

Shiver me timbers! The pirates are coming!

The real pirates who terrorized the seas in the late 1600s were basically street gangs who knew how to tie knots. Yet there's no need to fear any of the muscular marauders at the Pirate's Dinner Adventure, one of the many theme dinners that continue to thrive in and around Orlando. These pirates are too busy singing, dancing, performing stunts, and swashbuckling to do much pillaging, much less any plundering. They put on a spectacular show that demands audience participation, at times even more than audience members might prefer. There's a plot hidden in there somewhere, something about evil Captain Sebastian the Black kidnapping the fair-haired, white wedding dress–wearing Princess Anita. But with a spectacular, life-size pirate ship that floats in real water, nonstop action, and all those hunky pirates, who needs a story?

Other theme dinners in the Orlando area transport tourists to a multitude of other times and places: Chicago during the Roaring Twenties at Capone's Dinner and Show, a castle during the Middle Ages at the Medieval Times Dinner and Tournament, and Hawaii during tourist season at the Makahiki Luau Polynesian Feast and Celebration. There's also a Sleuths Mystery Dinner Show, Arabian Nights, Dolly Parton's Dixie Stampede Dinner and Show…in short, an evening that caters to every imaginable fantasy a kid—or, let's face it, an adult—ever had.

The Pirate's Dinner Adventure provides a wholesome evening of adventure, fun, music, and stunts that would have been as at home in the 1950s as they are today.

         

Pirate's Dinner Adventure is located at 6400 Carrier Drive, Orlando (Phone: 407–248–0590;
http://www.piratesdinneradventure.com
).

Cypress Gardens Adventure Park
         

Seventy years ago, Cypress Gardens was nothing more than a swamp. But visionary Dick Pope, Sr., saw the thirty-five acres of marshland for what they could be: a lakeside park famous for both its well-tended gardens and its world-renowned waterskiing show.

During the forties and fifties, Cypress Gardens featured gorgeous flowers, photo ops with young women in antebellum gowns, and a sprawling banyan tree that Pope planted himself. But the highlight of every visit was the spectacular waterskiing show that included daredevil stunts, like human pyramids on water skis; the lovely Aquamaids, who danced on water; and the antics of water-borne clowns.

Today, Cypress Gardens Adventure Park has two separate identities: Kids will enjoy Adventure Grove, which has rides with names like the Okeechobee Rampage, Storm Surge, and Swampthing, as well as Splash Water Park; but the other half of the Park retains all the charm of its original incarnation. Plantation Gardens features manicured gardens and paved walkways with lovely views of Lake Eloise and Wings of Wonder, a butterfly house. The Topiary Trail weaves among huge animals sculpted from bushes, including a scarlet cardinal, a seal balancing a ball on his nose, and a colorful peacock. In the manicured Botanical Gardens, curving pathways wind past tall, graceful trees, fragrant rose gardens, and even a swamp that somehow manages to look as pretty as the rest of the place.

Cypress Gardens has been forced to update by adding shops in the unfortunately named Jubilee Junction, roller coasters, carousels, and train rides. Yet this one-of-a-kind attraction remains true to its original mission, offering breathtakingly beautiful botanical gardens and a waterskiing show that is as thrilling as it is original.

         

Cypress Gardens Adventure Park is located at 6000 Cypress Gardens Boulevard, Winter Haven (Phone: 863–324–2111;
http://www.cypressgardens.com
).

Acknowledgments

I would like to thank Liz Langley for her hospitality when I visited Orlando in order to see it through Mallory Marlowe's eyes. I would also like to thank Carolyn Jeffries and the members of the Whodunit Mystery Book Club at the Winter Park Public Library for both welcoming me and encouraging me. Their enthusiasm about Orlando is contagious.

And special thanks to Susan Breslow, my editor at
Honeymoons.about.com
, for sending me off on travel writing adventures of my own, as well as to Lyn Dobrin for suggesting it in the first place.

I would also like to acknowledge the enjoyable book
Weird Florida: Your Travel Guide to Florida's Local Legends and Best Kept Secrets
by Charlie Carlson, which clued me in to the fact that there really is a dark side to the sunshine state—albeit an entertaining one.

About the Author

CYNTHIA BAXTER
is a native of Long Island, New York. She currently resides on the North Shore, where she is at work on the next mystery in the
Murder Packs a Suitcase
series,
Too Rich and Too Dead,
which Bantam will publish in April 2009. She is also the author of the
Reigning Cats & Dogs
series—look for a new mystery on sale in Summer 2009. Visit Cynthia's website at
www.cynthiabaxter.com
.

Don't miss Mallory Marlowe's next mystery!

The intrepid travel-writer-turned-sleuth takes on glamour—and murder—on the ski slopes of Aspen in

         

Too Rich and Too Dead

A
Murder Packs a Suitcase
Mystery
by

Cynthia Baxter

         

On sale in April 2009

Also by Cynthia Baxter

The
Reigning Cats & Dogs
Mystery Series

DEAD CANARIES DON'T SING

PUTTING ON THE DOG

LEAD A HORSE TO MURDER

HARE TODAY, DEAD TOMORROW

RIGHT FROM THE GECKO

WHO'S KITTEN WHO?

MONKEY SEE, MONKEY DIE

^*1
Since my visit, Titanic: The Experience has moved, and is now temporarily located at the Orlando Science Center at 777 East Princeton Street (Phone: 407–895–2610).
Return to text.

MURDER PACKS A SUITCASE

A Bantam Book / November 2008

Published by Bantam Dell

A Division of Random House, Inc.

New York, New York

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved

Copyright © 2008 by Cynthia Baxter

Bantam Books and the rooster colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.

www.bantamdell.com

eISBN: 978-0-553-90571-7

v3.0