Orlando Trip - Days 3 - 7 in a nutshell

Quick explanation about the Orlando trip posts. As you probably already know, my family visits Orlando, FL every year in late Winter/early Spring. Since my hubby began law school a few years ago, we have started vacationing in Orlando during the week of his Spring Break. It always occurs during the last week of February through the first week of March. Due to my obsession with Orlando, FL, and also my new found discoveries of how to have the best Orlando vacation ever, I blogged during the entire week there last year.

This year, I didn't do that. We were in TOTAL relaxation mode this year, and I just decided not to do anything that would require me to actually have to think and ponder. :-) But, I still want to share the great times and also share a few great tips. What follows is a rushed version of the remaining 4 days of my family vacation; bear in mind that I will add updates to this post for the remaining days of the trip as time permits, but I will mostly likely also move on and start posting about some other things that are going on in my life as well.

Mon, Mar 3 -

On this particular day we ended up going back to Universal Studios. We decided to do things a little differently, though, in an effort to determine whether or not we could provide an even more relaxing, productive day. For starters, we got up a few hours earlier; no sleeping in until noon. We all ate breakfast in the villa. Just a small bowl of cereal for the hubby and I, and pop tarts and milk for the kids. We already understood via experience that by the time we actually leave the villa, drive to the theme park, get through the entrance to the park and get ready to start actually enjoying our day it would be time to eat again within 1 or 2 hours anyway, so why stuff ourselves with the Rooty Tooty Fresh & Fruity? Besides, stuffing ourselves this way previously only made us extremely drowsy by the time we actually got settled in inside of the park. I want to point out that the villa we stay in is located in the Buena Vista area, close to the Walt Disney World manigate. So the villa is not close to Universal Orlando at all. And we love taking the scenic route down International Drive to get to Universal; this day was no exception. On the way to Universal, we pass Pointe Orlando which is an area mostly visited by people staying at the Orlando World Conference Center. It's VERY nice, and there's about a half-mile stretch on this area of International Drive that is really pretty and just buzzing with activity. We thought it would be fun to check some of these things out since we kept driving back and forth past them to and from Universal. Unfortunately, we weren't able to find any activities in that area that were age appropriate for our kids. They were either too small or would have been completely uninterested in any of the things we saw at the time. So we continued on for another 10 minutes until we arrived at Universal.

Our morning breakfast idea definitely paid off. We ended up being able to do a lot more in less time, and we never really felt drowsy at all for the entire time we were in the park. Even the kids, as young as they are, were great the whole time; didn't even need naps. We rode ET: The Ride, one of my classic favorites, watched the Barney in the Park show (the kids' favorite), saw the Animal Adventure show for the first time which I highly recommend, and we also had lunch at my favorite spot Boulangerie. We were already tired of burgers, hot dogs, and fries, and Boulangerie was a great change of pace with its yummy crossaint sandwiches and new potato salad. YUM!

By 4:30pm, we felt content that we had done all that we needed to do for the day. Our tickets are unlimited entry for 7 consecutive days, so we didn't feel the need to pack too much stuff into any one day since we would be in Orlando for another 2 1/2 days.

Orlando Trip - Day 2 (Sun, Mar 2)

The kids didn't go to bed until after 1am on the evening of Day 1. So the hubby and I didn't get to bed until even later. We all sleep in Sunday morning as I feel EVERYONE should do at least one day while on vacation. We don't even get out of the bed until after 10am. Everyone finally gets dressed and we packed the kids carry-along bags for our first day at Universal Studios! We leave the villa and drive across the street to I-Hop. This is as good a time as any to point out that there are a myriad of yummy, delicious I-Hops in Orlando, FL. A couple of them are "meh", but most of the ones I've eaten in have the BEST food ever. Why do ALL of the I-Hops in Atlanta suck so bad??!! The best ones in Atlanta are about as good as the "meh" ones in Orlando. This is a major source of frustration. Moving on. We get a waitress with a New York accent thicker than Debi Mazar. I decide I love her based on this alone. GREAT food and service as always.

We leave I-Hop and drive 15 minutes northwest down I-4 to Universal Studios. (Tip: I bought 2-park, unlimited entry tickets for hubby, son, and myself. Only $83 per ticket, and the tickets are good for up to 7 consecutive days. A total STEAL!) We had a great day. It felt like there was no one at all in the park until later in the afternoon. We spent most of the day just enjoying the gorgeous weather and ambiance, but we also rode the Jimmy Neutron ride, Woody Woodpecker roller coaster, and had lunch at Nathan's Hot Dog stand. The kids got pictures with Spongebob, Dora, and Jimmy Neutron which was also fun! We decided that we would have to visit Universal Studios again the next day to take in some fun shows that we knew the kids would enjoy.

We get back to the villa by 6pm or so. We decide to just have dinner in the villa, and by dinner I mean turkey and swiss sandwiches with chips. We all get to bed much earlier this night, thankfully.

More tips: Most visitors to Orlando (and Florida in general) come from all over the country, not just the surrounding states. According to the Florida Bureau of Transportation, since most people have to work Monday through Friday, most of the travelers to Florida get on the road on Friday evening/Saturday morning. Most vacationers don't get settled in until early evening on Saturday. This means that if you were to visit the Orlando theme parks on a Saturday, the park would be a lot less crowded than some other days. Most vacationers wake up in Florida on Sunday morning ready to hit the parks. Sunday will be your most crowded day at any theme park. There is a different formula to take into account for Walt Disney World based on the fact that it consists of 4 separate parks. I'll get into detail in the *tips* section of the Day 3 post.

Orlando Trip - Day 1 (Sat, Mar 1)

My hubby got up at 7am and took Dutch to the kennel on his way to his 9am Saturday morning class. I got my lazy butt out of the bed, showered, and retrieved my "To Pack" list. I threw everything on the list into my suitcase. The hubby's suitcase was already packed so I brought everything downstairs. I got the kids dressed and fed, and finished a little spot-cleaning here and there while waiting on the hubby to get home from school. He got home around 12:3pm and immediately began loading the truck with our already packed suitcases.

We finally hit the road at approximately 1:30pm. We made 4 stops before we got out of metro Atlanta: 1) Gas from QuikTrip, 2) New portable DVD player from BrandsMart in Morrow (the Titan doesn't have a DVD player and the kids need movies, movies, movies), 3) McDonald's in Jonesboro for the kids, and 4) Zaxby's in Jonesboro. (*Note to self, never consider living in Jonesboro - when did that area become so friggin' ghetto?)

We finally hit the road out of metro Atlanta at 3pm'ish. On the way down, we made a couple of stops at little gas stations in one-horse towns. After making a wrong turn off of the turnpike almost to Orlando, we finally got to the villa in Lake Buena Vista around 10pm. The kids ran inside and were SO excited! We let them run around until about midnight, and then everyone called it a night.

Name of villa: Cypress Pointe Grand Villas in Lake Buena Vista.

It's 5:30am...

...and I haven't been to sleep yet.

My hubby picked me up from work at 4:15pm today, and we drove straight to our tax accountant's office. Our appointment was at 5:30pm and we actually got there by 5pm on the dot. We walked in to face about 10 people already waiting. The receptionist asked us if we wanted to go eat, shop, watch a movie...something to kill the time. We gave her our cell number so she could call us while we were out and let us know when we should head back to the office. Oh, by the way, my hubby has been getting sicker and sicker with each passing hour of the past couple of days. Bad time to get sick.

Even so, we went ahead to get dinner at my favorite restaurant...Pappadeaux!! YUM!! I hadn't eaten there in years! I looked at my watch after we finished eating. It was 7:30pm. No call from the receptionist yet, so we decided to chance a movie. We watched a 7:45pm showing of "No Country For Old Men". Please don't get me started about that movie...that is a whole post in itself. We decided to go to Starbucks afterward. Although I'm usually against having caffeine after 5pm, I figured we'd probably be up until at least 2am. I was right.

All's well that ends well. We left the tax accountant's house a little over an hour ago. It is now 5:21am. I will sleep for 3 1/2 hours, and wake up to call Chris's classmate(s) to let them know that he's too sick to go to class. Then I will try to get in another 3 1/2 hours and call my mom to see if she will keep my kids for the rest of the day. Then I will try to get another 2 hours of sleep.

Oh, in other news, the countdown to Orlando has officially begun. 2 weeks from now we will be waking up the kids, getting dressed, and ready to leave the house on our way! We are staying for 5 - 6 days. We really need this trip, and I hope that it's all I think it will be for the four of us.

Planning a trip to Orlando

My family visits Orlando every year. Our kids are age 4 and 2 now, so this definitely factors in to the how's and what's of our trip planning. Each year I try to plan the trip so that it's better than the last. But at some point during every trip something happens that causes me to think to myself "I wish someone had told me to expect this!"

Here is how I plan to help others like me. My next few posts will be write-ups useful for families of young children visiting the Orlando, Florida area. I will divide the posts up so that they are topic specific. The very first post will be entitled "Where to stay".

Enjoy!

Back to the Future: The Ride

The classic attraction at Universal Studios, based on one of my all-time favorite movies is no longer. BTTF the ride took it's last trip through time on March 30, 2007. Half of the Delorians throughout the ride had already been removed last September to make room for a new attraction based on "The Simpsons". What kind of garbage is that, by the way?

As you know, the hubby, kids, parents, and I all visited Orlando together back in early March. We had heard the rumors, but had no idea that this would be our last time riding Back to the Future. :-( Another classic removed to make room for something new and improved, I guess. It'll definitely be new.

Goodbye Back to the Future: The Ride.