by Rachel L. Miller

The last time I saw my friend Leigh-Anne, I was hungover and exhausted, waving goodbye from a shuttle bus window the morning after her wedding in June 2002. She, on the other hand, was glowing and smiling, the diamonds on the left finger glinting in the mid-morning sun as I was whisked away to the airport. Keeping in touch since college was a breeze with the easy accessibility of e-mail and free weekend minutes on my cell phone - actually seeing each other, however, was more of a challenge. With my hectic schedule in Detroit and Leigh-Anne's move to Connecticut a few years ago, we discovered firsthand the difficulty (monetary and otherwise) of keeping a friendship afloat. And when we had seen each other after she left Michigan, the moments were rushed and wedding-related, not giving us much time to do the girly (and yes, sometimes silly) things we used to do back in college.

We figured since we initially met while traveling (in London during a travel abroad course), it might be fun to reconnect in the same vein. So we chose Orlando - an easy-to-reach sunny vacation spot known worldwide as the premiere family destination…and home to that infamous larger-than-life mouse. But instead of dodging in and out of theme park queues, we were going to see a different, more sophisticated side of Orlando.

Spa Time

The Ritz-Carlton spa at Grande Lakes. photo © Rachel L. Miller

Our vacation started out with a bonding experience - catching up at 8 a.m. in the whirlpool hot tub of the Ritz-Carlton's 40,000 square foot spa. We roamed lazily from the whirlpool to the dry sauna, all the while exchanging her philosophies on newlywed life for my dating horror stories. We parted ways for our massages - perfectly relaxing and invigorating - and met up again to check out the spa's lap pool.

Swim with the Fishes, er…Mammals

One opportunity in Orlando that we simply couldn't pass up was at Discovery Cove, a theme park that differs from others in the city. Although related to Sea World, Discovery Cove limits the number of guests to 1,000 a day and focuses on one-on-one interactions with animals of all species. The main attraction, though, is an up-close meeting with one of 30 Atlantic bottlenose dolphins. Ours, a cutie named Diego, let us pet him and give him kisses - and then he performed a number of tricks for us while we clapped and exclaimed in awe. (CONTINUE...)