When you see a big, purple bus with cat eyes on the front, it means one thing: The Acro-Cats have come to town!

I last saw them perform two years ago, but this time, but time they were traveling in a different bus, since the previous 1963 model was finally replaced in 2016 through a successful Kickstarter campaign. It’s also a great traveling billboard for the cats.

I was excited to hear that the cat circus was finally returning to Orlando, but the most exciting of all was getting to share it with a kitty-loving friend who had never seen them before.

The Acro-Cats Act

Samantha Martin, an animal trainer, travels the country with her cats, sharing the stories of how the different rescue cats in her group joined her family and show.

Some cats have mastered cute moves, while others show feats of great feline agility as they climb, balance, or leap through hoops.

Allie, one of the performers, is a great cat athlete, listed in the Guinness Book of World Records as the longest cat jump: 6 feet!

Some of the cats even do very circus-like tricks, like jumping through a hoop whose center is covered in paper.

One of the most fun things about the performance is when it doesn’t go quite as planned. As we all know, cats can have their own ideas about what to do and when to do it. At times, the feline performers wander offstage instead of performing.

When that happens, the show goes on with the other cats. Once the kitty returns to the stage from walkabout, they return to their jobs of performing.

It’s hard to believe how much how much dexterity and concentration these cats have.

I’m especially impressed that they perform these feats while a roomful of strangers is watching them, often behaving in ways that my cats would find alarming. For example, there was a woman sitting in the front row during our show who gave a horror-movie scream when a cat lost her footing and fell off a stool. My cats wouldn’t have come out from under the bed for an hour if I screamed like that, but the Acro-Cats are confident professionals, and the kitty jumped right back up to to continue.

The Rock Cats

One of the unique parts of the Acro-Cats show is their  all-cat rock band. It features various cats from the troupe performing on different instruments, like the bell…

… the xylophone…

…or the traditional rock band instruments like guitar, drums, piano, and cymbals. Yes, that’s a chicken playing the cymbals.

Of course, no band is complete without more cowbell, and they have that, too!

Acro-Cats Rescue

All of the Acro-Cats are rescue kitties, which makes these beautiful kitties extra-special.

Even more special, as the Acro-Cats travel around the United States, they foster kittens. When the kittens are old enough, they are adopted into loving homes among fans along the way.

While they were in Orlando, the Acro-Cats had two foster kittens with them. One was adopted the first night of the week of shows, and the second continued to make appearances in the show throughout the week. This little kitten was already doing basic tricks like jumping from one chair to another and sitting up on cue.

Look how small she is, and she is already trained to perform. That really is amazing!

Most of the foster kittens will find their way to loving homes, but a few will stay on with the troupe and become performers who travel themselves.

The Acro-Cats bring a wonderful, positive message about how capable cats are of learning and how much it can improve your bond with your cat to learn together. I left the show thinking “I can teach my cats to do that, too!”

Food trucks have been a big deal for a while. Here in Orlando, they were really, really popular a couple years ago, and there are fewer now.

But who could resist checking out a food truck with a cat theme? Not me! So I went out to see the Hello Kitty Cafe food truck.

Unlike most food trucks I have seen, this is more of an oversized, stretched van. Or a small camper. They don’t cook anything inside, so it doesn’t have the same size inside that food trucks that include various kitchen equipment.

They sell bottles of water shaped like bows and various cookies to eat. In addition to their foodstuffs, they also sell mugs and t-shirts.

I wanted to buy some of the special “Hello Kitty for President” cookies they promised to have, but I hadn’t counted on the size of the crowd. There were hundreds and hundreds of people lined up before the truck even opened for the morning!

I couldn’t spend my whole day waiting to buy a cookie, so I had to leave emptyhanded.

On the way back to my car, I spotted this car parked nearby. I suspect the owner of this car did stand through that whole line to buy special Hello Kitty memorabilia!

If you want to see the Hello Kitty  Cafe food truck near you, check out their upcoming events calendar on Facebook.

Orlando has been waiting eagerly for a cat cafe for a long time, and it has been a long time since the original groundbreaking and open house party for the Orlando Cat Cafe. But the wait is over, and I was fortunate to visit the cat cafe near Walt Disney World less than a week after it opened.

The first confusing thing about the Orlando Cat Cafe is that you don’t enter through the cat cafe itself. That door on the front is sealed to prevent escaping cats.

Instead, you enter through Axum Coffee, next door. At first glance, Axum looks like a regular coffee shop inside.

But you quickly notice a large window into the storefront next door where the cats are.

After you pay for your entrance at the coffee bar, you get a sticker to wear that identifies your assigned time with the cats. When it is your assigned time, you enter a door into vestibule between the two storefronts. The door is so close to the front of the coffee shop that it is hard for the staff to control access to it while also tending the coffee bar. That probably wasn’t thought out as well as they hoped.

Once you enter the tiny room between the two storefronts, you get instructions from a staffer from South Lake Animal League about the cats: no chasing, no picking up, no flash photography.

After I entered the cat area, there was a nearly-immediate demonstration of why they used the vestibule for entry and exit as a Siamese-type cat who was in the cafe made a break for the door only to be caught by the staffer.

For anyone who wasn’t listening carefully, the rules of the cafe are posted on the wall inside, too.

The cafe serves as an off-site adoption center for the South Lake Animal League, so they provide a way to sign up for newsletters from the organization on site.

There is also a bulletin board that tells you more about the adoptable cats currently in the cafe. There were two cats who had just arrived, and their fliers weren’t up yet.

Cat litter is tidily kept out of sight in a staff-only area, and cats can access it through a cat door. I’m not sure why the symbol for the male cat has no eyes. Maybe he is mid-blink.

The place makes really good use of vertical space on the walls, with walkways, shelves, and cubbyholes mounted directly to the walls to make space for the cats to rest or observe.

There were also some very nice cat trees scattered around the room for the cats to climb. This little guy really wasn’t sure about making the leap down to the next level of the cat tree.

Since it was mid-afternoon, I caught a lot of cats during naps.

While I was visiting, a volunteer from the animal rescue league arrived to give the staffer on site a lunch break. The volunteer was a retiree, and I thought it was interesting that she was wearing a “Team Dog” t-shirt. Thankfully, the cats couldn’t read to be offended by it.

While I was taking a photo of this kitten, a retired woman with no sticker indicating she had paid to be in the cafe let herself in the door. As I mentioned above, the location of the entry door isn’t well-controlled in the coffeeshop, and that makes it fairly easy for someone to wander in. The retiree asked the volunteer if she had to pay if she just wanted to look around. “If you’re going to stay,” the volunteer replied.

A moment later, the retired lady asked, “So are they all declawed and everything?” It’s a good thing my back was to the conversation, because I am sure my expression wasn’t neutral. The dog-shirted volunteer said something about only if they arrive declawed. What a missed opportunity for education!

The retired lady wandered out and I continued taking photos. A few minutes later, she was back, this time with her husband, who also didn’t have on a sticker indicating he had paid admission, either. They circulated around a few more minutes before leaving. I’m sure the newly-opened cafe will find a better way to monitor the entrance door, or work with the volunteers on how ask people to leave who haven’t paid their fee, but it was interesting to see the early growing pains of the place.

The original staffer emerged from the back room a little later, and I took the opportunity to ask her about whether they had seen adoptions from the cafe yet. “We’re still going through lots of applications,” she told me.

I think this could become a valuable adoption location for the rescue organization, and I recognize that when I was there, they had only been open 5 days. It takes longer than that to get everyone trained in the processes and procedures.

In the meantime, it’s a fun place to visit to say hello to the cats available for adoption. Who knows, maybe you’ll fall in love! I’m sure it will also be popular with Disney visitors who miss their cats back home, since it is the closest cat cafe to Walt Disney World.

Just be careful when you leave. They already have one escape artist cat, and you don’t want to be the one who lets her out!

Update: The Orlando Cat Cafe announced their first adoptions today, including one of the cats pictured in this article.

Getting to the Orlando Cat Cafe

Although the Orlando Cat Cafe says they are “about 4 miles west of Disney’s Animal Kingdom,” that distance is only useful if you are a bird. The rest of us have to use streets!

How Far is It?

The closest Disney resort to the Orlando Cat Cafe is Animal Kingdom Lodge, and the drive is 7.9 miles, so walking isn’t a realistic option to see the cats.

If you are staying somewhere else on Disney’s vast property, the distance could be much farther. The Contemporary Resort, close to Magic Kingdom, is a 14.5 mile drive.

Resorts around SeaWorld are about 16 miles and Universal-area resorts are around 19 miles away, so set aside travel time accordingly.

Transportation Options to the Orlando Cat Cafe

The easiest way to get to the Orlando Cat Cafe is to drive. If you arrived on vacation by air and didn’t rent a car, you’ll need ground transportation. Taxi service in Orlando tends to be expensive, and the biggest local transportation company’s fare estimator says that a trip from Disney’s Contemporary resort to the Orlando Cat Cafe will cost a $39.06 fare one-way.

A less-expensive option is Uber, which estimates  $15-19 each way to get from Disney’s Contemporary Resort to the Orlando Cat Cafe. If you haven’t tried Uber before, you can sign up through this invitation link to get $10 free credit for your first ride with them (disclosure: I also get credit if you do).

The least expensive option is using the local Lynx bus system, at $2 each direction. Plan for up to two hours travel time due to transfers. You can use the Plan a Trip function on the Lynx site to see the bus schedules available for your visit.

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Photo credit: depositphotos/funny_cats