Kennedy Space Center, Orlando day trip destination
If you live in Central Florida, or visit Orlando often, it’s not uncommon to find yourself looking for something to do that doesn’t involve the Orlando attractions area. Anything gets old with repeat exposure – even Mickey Mouse.
A day trip to Kennedy Space Center provides added value (and welcome variety) to any Orlando vacation.
Kennedy Space Center: Orlando, but not quite
Located along the space coast, John F. Kennedy Space Center is about 45 miles east of Orlando. From the theme parks or the Orlando airport, you’ll head east on Highway 528 (look for signs for Kennedy Space Center, Titusville or Cape Canaveral).
Plan to spend at least 6 hours at Kennedy Space Center. Or, if you’re determined to see absolutely everything Kennedy Space Center has to offer, spend the night at a hotel in Titusville, Florida and take advantage of the free day you get with your general admission ticket to the Space Center.
If it’s your first excursion to Kennedy Space Center from Orlando, you’ll want to start with the bus tour of the grounds. The bus tour is advertised to take two hours, but I have yet to do it in less than three and a half. How long it takes you will depend on how long you spend at each of the three stops along the route.
What you’ll see on the bus tour of Kennedy Space Center:
Alligators – in theory.
Kennedy Space Center - Orlando alligator nirvana. Allegedly.
Kennedy Space Center is located on a natural wildlife reserve and is home to hundreds of species of endangered animals, including the most alligators you’ll see outside of the Everglades (and certainly more than you’ll see in Orlando). At least, that’s what the tour guides and everyone else who has ever been to the space center tells me. I always seem to find myself on the space coast on a cold, rainy day – when alligators hide out and try to stay warm. That picture up there is the closest I’ve come to seeing “alligators everywhere! Big alligators up and down the sides of the road!”
But on a typically warm and sunny Florida day, you can see dozens of alligators right outside the window of the bus as you travel from one building to another. (You can also see them as you drive into Kennedy Space Center along the road locals refer to as Alligator Alley.) At least, that’s what they tell me.
I suppose my travel tip of the day here is: stay in Orlando if it’s cold. Head to Kennedy Space Center when it’s sunny if you’re into seeing alligators.
Launch Pads – kind of.
You do not get to walk around on the launch pad and take home launch pad sand as a souvenir. Apparently security is kind of a big deal with NASA. You will, however, drive along the causeway where they roll the space shuttle and rockets out to the launch pads. And on your first stop, you should be able to climb the ridiculously tall and windy observation tower (or LC39 Observation Gantry as it’s officially known) to get some great pictures of all of the launch pads.
This view is hit or miss depending on a) how big of a space buff you are and b) whether or not there is anything on the launch pad. It is pretty neat to be able to see where history began, but it is exceptionally neat to look with your own eyes on a massive piece of equipment that is actually going to be in space.
Kennedy Space Center launch pad empty
Kennedy Space Center launch pad with a shuttle on it
Apollo/Saturn V Center
This is one of my favorite part of Kennedy Space Center. Here, you’ll watch a few movies about the Apollo and Saturn programs and the United States’ involvement in the Space Race and relive our first steps on the moon – and everything it took to get us there. You can relive a launch in an actual launch room that was used during the Apollo/Saturn missions.
Kennedy Space Center mission control room
But the biggest highlight of the Apollo/Saturn V Center is the real Saturn V rocket that is suspended overhead. Pictures cannot possibly do justice to the massiveness of the rocket and the awesome engineering that is evident even to a casual observer like myself. Standing beneath the Saturn V rocket really puts the entire experience of the Kennedy Space Center – and what they’re accomplishing there – in perspective.
Kennedy Space Center - the underbelly of a Saturn V rocket
International Space Station Center
The last stop on the Kennedy Space Center bus tour is the International Space Station Center. Here you can stand inside replicate pieces of the space station. But the coolest part is the observation deck overlooking the working floor of the Space Station Center. This is where people who work for NASA build the parts and pieces that will become part of the Space Station, and you get to look at the real thing (from way up high, behind multiple layers of plexiglass).
Look Ma! I'm in a piece of the international space station!
(So cool is the part of the Space Station Center where actual work takes place that I always forget to take any dang pictures of it! *sigh*)
That’s it for the bus tour, but is by no means all that Kennedy Space Center has to offer. If you dare to leave Orlando behind for a day, you can experience a shuttle launch in their simulator, visit the iMAX theater or walk through the cleverly named Rocket Garden.
If you can tear yourself away from Orlando for longer, Kennedy Space Center is the only place in town to have lunch with a real astronaut.
I wouldn’t recommend planning a week long vacation on the space coast unless you’re really, really interested in the space program (and even then you’ll probably want to hit Cocoa Beach while you’re over there). But a great change of pace from the amusement parks is a day trip to Kennedy Space Center. Orlando will still be there when you get back.
All pictures by Britt Reints, which is why you do not see more alligators.
