Every November, Santa starts to panic a little. The last thing these kids need is more stuff and until Santa figures out how to “gift” the kids things like the monthly dues for volleyball and free-running (we missed an opportunity earlier in parenting…), he’s looking for experiences to plan.
His first bright idea was to head down to Orlando the week after Christmas, since the kids didn’t need to be back to school until Jan. 8. But then he took a closer look at the crowd calendars and moved the trip out to early February. Brilliant. The school attendance office might not agree, but the lighter crowds and still-cool weather was totally worth pushing the trip out a few weeks.
Every family trip starts with breakfast at the DFW Friday’s next to E17. Henry was excited to whip out the library books he brought in his backpack before the orange juice hit the table.
With rainy weather in Atlanta, we had a little extra time to take in the airport experience on our way.
Finally, we made it.
After a quick stop at Walgreens for the essentials (water, snacks, beer), we checked in to the Hard Rock Hotel and walked over to CityWalk. Having missed our dinner reservations, we wandered around during the hour wait for a table at The CowFish. It made for a late night but, on the flip side, the kids went to sleep pretty easily that first night.
They woke up to room service breakfast (first and last time ever; we told them to enjoy it) and immediately began wrestling each other which would become a major theme for the trip.
Waiting for Dad to pull around the rented, White Dodge Caravan, the kids ran around the hotel lawn and fountain.
So. Much. Energy.
Friday was our only Disney day and we went to Hollywood Studios where we were absolutely blown away by the new Star Wars Land. The crowds were higher than expected so we waited in pretty long lines the most this day and fought keeping everyone together as we wandered the park.
Who waits 25 minutes in line to get their photo taken with an animatronic BB-8? We do.
Star Wars Smugglers Run was incredible! During our hour wait, we geeked out over the all of the insane detail that was built into every part of the experience. The ride is a simulator for six passengers, flying the Millennium Falcon with two pilots, two gunners and two engineers. There being five of us, another dad joined our crew. He was probably cool with it until the ride started up, Henry began freaking out, and I spent the ride stretching over to hold his hand while he cried and I assured him everything was fake and it was all going to be okay, over and over.
Note for next time, we needed to better prepare Henry for what was coming up on the rides and it would have been nice of us to slip that other dad $10 so he could buy himself a beer as compensation for being paired up with the Mannings.
After wandering around Star Wars Land, we headed over to the newly expanded Toy Story Land for lunch and hopped in line for Slinky Dog Dash. Michael had never been on a “real” roller coaster and was really excited. The posted wait was 90 minutes, which we were assured would be more like 70.
Fast-forward an hour and a nice lady came on the loudspeaker to tell us the ride would be down indefinitely while they fixed an issue. After hanging around for another 15 minutes, we bailed and headed over to the Astro-something-or-rather ride that would be right up Henry’s alley.
Waiting in line, the kids took a cue from some groups waiting around started playing Heads Up! which turned out to be a life-saver to keep them entertained.
Score! Henry loved the ride. And as soon as we got off, we got back in the line for Slinky Dog Dash which was now up and running again.
Just one more hour in line, and Michael got his dream wish — a ride on a real coaster. He loved it! Wes was a little underwhelmed considering how long we spent waiting in that line all afternoon, but really, it was a good time.
For the rest of the day, we had snacks, treats, more snacks, saw the Frozen Sing-A-Long show (wait, that was in the morning) and Star Wars: A Galaxy Far, Far Away. We didn’t get to see the Jedi Training but we checked everything else important off our list despite the big crowds and had a great day.
Saturday morning, we headed over to Loew’s Royal Pacfic for breakfast with Gru and his crew. This was mostly for Henry and he was all smiles. The big kids loved the buffet with donuts and Ella got an unexpected bear hug from Gru himself. Not a bad way to start the day.
With breakfast under our belts, literally, we headed to Universal Studios where we explored Dr. Suess’ carousel, Woody Woodpecker’s kiddie coaster, E.T.’s ride on a bicycle and Curious George’s playground.
See the pink ball Ella is launching toward my camera? She teaches the boys all kinds of bad habits.
Next we hit Simpson’s Krustyland for more rides and carnival games.
Wes and the big kids hit The Simpsons Ride, we bought a ginormous donut from Lard’s, had our photo taken with Homer, Bart and Lisa, Wes got a Duff Beer, and we did a little shopping at Kwik-E-Mart.
It wasn’t even lunchtime yet.
After exploring the rest of Krustyland, we shot some aliens on the Men In Black ride and went to grab a seafood lunch at Lombard’s over in San Francisco.
This pic is actually from the next day when we were back in the Dr. Suess land to ride The High In the Sky Trolley Ride (so proud of Henry for being game for the ride!). In the background, you can see the Hulk roller coaster which Ella would ride later that afternoon. Another first of many big, brave firsts.
With lunch in our bellies, we walked over to Diagon Alley in The Wizarding World of Harry Potter. After going around an unassuming brick wall, our jaws all dropped. Michael started wandering around in a daze and shouting out all of the things he recognized from the Harry Potter books and movies and we eventually made our way to Harry Potter’s Escape from Gringott’s.
Just like the day before at Hollywood Studios, we were bowled over at the incredible level of production at Universal. It’s crazy to imagine what went into conceiving and building these experiences.
At this point on Day Two, my back started to go out (grr) so there’s a little gap in my photos but we rode the Hogwart’s Express train over to Universal’s Islands of Adventure, spent some more time wandering around Hogsmeade with our mouths hanging open and grabbed dinner at The Three Broomsticks.
Leaving dinner to check out more rides, we lucked into queuing up right as the Nighttime Lights at Hogwart’s Castle show began.
With crowds dying down, we rode the Flight of the Hippogriffs and Harry Potter’s Forbidden Journey before calling it a night.
Sunday! We started at Universal’s Islands of Adventure. There was more riding of rides, many that Henry wasn’t up for so I was suckered into buying him a $55 magic wand so he could perform spells in the Wizarding World lands.
Lunch was at Mythos, easily the best meal we had while on our trip. The inside of the restaurant resembled something like Antelope Canyon.
We found that lines for Hagrid’s ride died down a little at lunch time, down to about an hour. I honestly would have waited three hours for that ride. It’s THAT good. I want to gush some more about it, but don’t want to spoil it either. The surprises are…surprising. LOL
Taking advantage of Child Swap since Henry didn’t want to ride, Wes rode with the big kids first. When it was my turn, we got stalled in a few spots and we were allowed to get right back on after exiting. So Ella got to ride three times in a row! She could have gone for a fourth after we got stalled again right at the end of the third ride, but we agreed we needed to go rescue Dad and Henry who had been waiting on us.
After so much excitement, we cut the afternoon a little short to squeeze in time at the hotel’s pool.
Ahhhh, toes in the sand.
Then back to the parks before dinner for the Mardi Gras Parade. Which was excellent.
But maybe twice as long as it needed to be? Could be that Mom and Dad were ready to sit down to dinner with some cold drinks…
The kids collected a couple of beads.
Monday was another full day, split between the two Universal parks.
We went back to Hogsmeade to re-ride Hagrid’s, hit up HoneyDukes sweet shop, and cast some more spells.
By Monday, Ella was full-on obsessed with the bigger coasters and was working to get Michael to ride them, too. We managed to find a lot of fun stuff for Henry along the way, too.
Worst idea of the trip: That’s Ella and Michael getting completely soaked. Well, they thought it was a good idea up until that part happened. Wes and I watched and laughed from the bridge while Henry ran around Popeye’s playship, The Olive.
Henry insisted I take the photo on the right to share with his teacher, Mrs. Marquez. He was missing his teacher and his friends, but was pretty happy he was in Florida having fun with us.
Our last full day at the parks was finally done so we cleaned up at the hotel and headed back over to CityWalk for dinner at the NBC Sportsbar where our dinner table was also a Foosball table. So fun.
Side note: Wes takes Foosball really seriously. Watch out.
His kids might have caught his bug.
And because our day hadn’t been quite long enough, we went to see Blue Man Group after dinner. While Ella and I hit the potties, the boys got our seats upgraded to the rows that require wearing ponchos. Thankfully they weren’t super necessary — and the show was FANTASTIC and hilarious. Just right for our kiddos’ (and our?) maturity levels.
On our last morning, we had about three hours to spend in the parks before hitting the road to the airport. It was full of roller coasters — including the Rip Ride Rocket pictured above, right, which even Michael rode and loved! — and more carnival games.
Because the kids needed more stuffed junk to bring home.
Henry insisted we go back to the Despicable Me ride for the third time but we didn’t complain too much. All morning we just walked up to every attraction we wanted to ride.
It was hard to leave but we were also ready to get home to Brisket and our own beds. With walls and doors in-between all of them. :)
I’ll call this one Pensive Teenager in a Pocket of Airport Light to close out this post.
All in all, it was an exhausting, exhilarating, much-needed family break for us all. Wes and I are so proud that each of the kids pushed themselves to try new and scary things and had such a great time together. That, and we didn’t get kicked out of any rides or restaurants.
They agree this was the best vacation we’ve ever had and already want to go back. Us old people might need a minute to recover before that sounds like a good idea, but we did love our time in Orlando.
Night-night!