Keeping up with the K-Bashes

Florida Trip- Day 5

Today, we checked out of our hotel really early, got an Uber to our hotel, dropped off our luggage, got an Uber to Disney, and spent the day at the Magic Kingdom! I always envision princesses when I think of Magic Kingdom, but I forgot about all the fun rides they have there. The kiddos' favorite ride was Space Mountain. Thunder Mountain and Splash Mountain were fun too, along with the Seven Dwarfs ride. We didn't have express passes or anything, but Disney did a good job at limiting the number that could come into the park, so we rode everything we had wanted to, some more than once! It was blazing hot today, but we lasted for about 9 hours before heading out.

Eating VooDoo doughnuts at 6:15 AM!

Riding the Monorail to the park

We made it!

Splash Mountain!

Heading out!

Back at the hotel, there was a basketball court that the kids headed immediately to... they stayed there for a couple of hours! Oh, to have that kind of energy after 9 hours at a park!

We flew out the next morning. It was a GREAT trip, but I literally haven't done much of anything in the last 4 days. It's crazy how much 5 full days of parks completely takes it out of you! So thankful for new memories made.

Florida Trip- Day 4

Today, we spent a full day at Islands of Adventure! It's definitely our favorite, between it and Universal, and our day here on Tuesday was cut short from waiting in lines and the bad weather. So, back we went! Today's weather was beautiful, just hot.

Hagrid's Motorbike ride- it was crazy!

Waiting in line

The Velocicoaster in Jurassic Park... Sydney wanted to ride it, and Stephen can't do loops, so it was all me to go with her. O. M. G. I actually cried on it. It was absolutely terrifying!

This won't give you half of the terrifying-ness that it is in person, but it'll give you an idea. You are accelerated up t0 70 mph at two points on the ride, do all sorts of crazy turns, all while wearing just a lapbar. There were so many times you couldn't even feel like you were still on the tracks! Never again. ;)

Stephen and the girls did this one!

They won these doing a basketball shooting game

Chilling at the hotel

Dinner at Antojitos

It's been a joke that Taylor won't smile in pictures!

Florida Trip- Day 3

On the third day, the weather looked the best, so we headed to Volcano Bay, the water park! Man, this place was fun. So many slides, great kid areas, and more! I don't have a lot of pictures from today since my phone was in the locker for most of the day, but we spent about 8 hours here. We ate dinner at the NBC Sports Grill & Brew that night.

Dinner

Proof that Taylor is having fun!

Florida Trip- Day 2

Today, we went to Universal Studios and got there at 7:15 to be towards the front of the line for the 8:00 AM early admission. Universal has 3 parks: Islands of Adventure, Universal Studios, and Volcano Bay (a water park). We had passes that allowed you to do one park per day, but you could come and go... you just couldn't go to another park in the same day.

We headed to Hogwarts (Harry Potter) and did some of the popular rides. At the early hour, you can get on the ride in 5 minutes!

Harry Potter ride

Simpsons Land- eating the ginormous doughnut

Taking the water taxi back to the hotel... the weather looked iffy! We ended up taking 2 hour naps while it stormed outside.

Pool time! Taylor and her "mocktini"

Me and my "not mocktini" ;)

We ran into our friends at the Hard Rock Cafe that night!

Post-dinner

Florida Trip- Day 1

We decided to do Universal Trip, Take 2, this summer. The last time we went was two years ago, when Sydney fractured her leg (and in hindsight, we think it was her first of several knee dislocations) the night before we left. Stephen and Sydney ended up flying back to Atlanta on the second day, because she was in a lot of pain and we needed for her to see the ortho.

We still had their tickets from then, so we decided to put them to good use! We planned to stay at Universal for 4 nights, go to the parks for 4 days, and then stay in a hotel one night and go to Disney for one day.

It was a GREAT (yet exhausting!!) trip! We'd be up at 6:30 AM, if not sooner, each morning, and walked easily 10 miles a day. We were able to do a bunch of rides, thanks to being able to get in an hour early and having "express passes" from staying on site.

Here's what we did each day...

Tuesday: We flew into Orlando, got an Uber to Universal, and left our luggage up front at the hotel, since it was too early to check in. Once we got to the parks, we had to wait in the guest service line to get Stephen and Sydney's tickets (from 2 years ago). It took 2.5 hours (!!) to get our tickets! Our Uber driver was telling us that, in Florida, people are getting longer unemployment checks due to Covid, that a lot of people make more that way than actually working... so they were severely understaffed. So that was a bit frustrating. We went into Islands of Adventure and only ended up riding two rides, due to weather delays and longer lines. We did run into our friends from Loganville! That was a fun surprise! We went back to the hotel since many of the rides were closed down due to lightning, and then came back to go to the City Walk for dinner that night!