Universal and Disney.
As you can see from the way Jules is bundled up, it was FREEZING. I sent this photo home to my friends who were dealing with the blizzard, they might be getting snow but I swear I was the colder one as they were bundled up warmly inside their homes! The wind chill was 38 degrees THIRTY EIGHT! In FLORIDA! I had been watching the forecast and it was supposed to be 51 that day, and I had packed accordingly. The crazy wind, however, made it seem much colder, and we quickly dropped a bunch of cash on wool hats and hot butter beers (it really is a magical place, you get there and money just starts flying out of your wallet ;)). The kids were total troopers. This was a Saturday, and I think that the cold kept a lot of locals away, as the crowds weren't nearly as bad as I had anticipated. Fast Passes are an absolute must, we were walking on rides that had 45-60 minute rides, oftentimes going 2 or 3 times simply because we could just walk right on again. I don't know how people survive the lines without them. The Park to Park pass is another must do, not only because it allows you to ride the Hogwarts Express, but because on a day like we hit, where it was too cold to ride the water rides, we could experience both parks and the rides at both. Knowing we were coming back on Tuesday when it was supposed to be 75 we were happy to save the water rides for then.
The kids are all thrill seekers like their parents, thats for sure. There wasn't a ride they didn't love. The Rock It, the biggest, craziest roller coaster was probably Lukes favorite, and he rode it three times in a row. The mix of traditional roller coasters and 4-d simulator rides such as Revenge of the Mummy or Spiderman meant that you got a huge variety of thrills to experience. Shows that intermingled rides, such as Shrek were a very unique experience, and we loved simply walking around Old Hollywood or New York and seeing the sights. We all really loved Universal. I had my fitbit on, and we walked 12 miles on Saturday. Thats a LOT of miles for a 5 year old. We cleared out of the park around 5:30, and I think that Jake was asleep before we left the parking lot. I couldn't even rouse him to walk into the hotel, so I carried him up. We all took the hottest showers of our life as I think that we were chilled to the BONE, and I knew that there was no way we were going to be able to kindly be able to wake the poor child to take him out to dinner. In fact, I thought there was a distinct possibility that he might not wake up until the morning. We watched the blizzard that was still raging at home and put on our warmest pajamas and ordered room service. Jake did manage to wake up to eat, and they all passed out early while Nate and I rented Everest. Having read the book I knew what I was in for, but I had forgotten exactly how horribly sad it would be.
Of the three parks we visited Universal was the unanimous favorite. This was luck, in that this was the park I had chosen to visit two times. A hot shower, a hot dinner, a huge down comforter and a bottle of red wine renewed finally got me warm, as I prepared for another cold day the next day at Disney.
We woke early the next day and again had breakfast at the hotel. We were parked by 8:30 and took the snake to the boat that took us across the lagoon and entered the park by 9. The boat ride was pretty terrible. It was about 35 degrees, the sun was in and out, and the kids were doing their best not to cry. All that kept going through my mind was "HAPPIEST FREAKING PLACE ON EARTH". RIGHT? HAPPY WE ARE HAPPY. SO HAPPY.
Disney. We headed straight to our first Fast Pass ride, Big Rock Mountain (or something), which was a great roller coaster. The kids were near tears though due to the cold, so again, hot drinks were in order. We rode that a couple of times, then decided that an indoor ride might be fun. We opted for Pirates of the Caribbean. A nice ride, pretty much exactly like I remembered it as I remembered it from my childhood….and the ride stopped. It was funny, at first, watching the pirate prisoners keep asking the dog to bring them the key, over and over……and over. They announced that we should stay in the boat as the ride would begin momentarily. They announced that about 4 different times. We warmed up, that was nice. Then it started to be….not nice. About 20 minutes passed. People started to grumble. We were about 5 feet from a place where we would have been able to step off of our boat onto the side and walk off. They turned off the sound (finally! That damn pirate dog got old, fast!) as 20 minutes became 45. Finally they turned on the lights. They announced that they were going to begin "evacuating the boats"! Nate and I just started laughing. After an hour we weren't laughing. At this point we had missed our next fast pass ride, and were wondering what the hell was going on. Finally 2 people came out in hip waders and started pushing boats forward to evacuate people. We were annoyed…..one day at Disney (ever…..I don't think we will go back) and we spent over an hour sitting on this one ride! We ended up being "evacuated" off of the boat and out the back of the ride, and had to walk wayyyyyyy around the building to get back into Disney. We went to talk to someone as we had missed our Fast Pass (you only get 3, and cant reload your rides until you've used your last one, which for us wasn't scheduled till late afternoon. Poor planning on the planners part and I would have done that differently had I understood this). Long story short they ended up handing us 15 fast passes, which we basically just kept with us and essentially had for the entire rest of the day, and used on every ride. Total classic case of what seemed like a black cloud having a gigantic silver lining. That hour we spent on the ride let us get warm, let it get warmer out, and probably saved us 2 hours of standing in lines.
The morning was totally manageable at Disney. By afternoon I had what my planner called "crowd fatigue". I called it "I hate everybody". It was SO CROWDED. HOW do people do Disney with babies and strollers? I give them credit, to me it looked like hell on earth. We had a nice lunch, did more rides (space mountain and the 7 dwarves ride were really fun, again don't know how people do it without fast passes), and by 2 or so when the parade started it was almost warmish in the sunshine.
It was the perfect time to get some ice cream and sit down and watch the parade, which was pure Disney awesomeness. We pretty much hit every ride at Disney, the good ones several times, did a little bit of shopping, and by 4:45 were ready to roll out. A call to my planner taught me how to get where we were going, which was to the one show we had planned for our stay. A boat took us over to Wilderness Island, where there was a great playground, and a great bar, where Nate and I watched the NFL playoffs and had some cocktails while the kids played before we saw the Hoop De Dee Review.
This was the one show I remember seeing as a kid, and we kept getting recommendations to go see it, so it was the one evening plans we had made.
This was awesome. Its interactive dinner theatre, with homestyle served food. The kids were mesmerized. I don't think that a thing has changed since I saw it 30 years ago. The seats weren't bad either, Jake's eyes were as big as saucers and of course Luke, who gets picked for everything, all the time, got picked to participate in the show.
This was a late night, and we decided to take it a little easier the next morning and let the kids sleep in as late as they wanted and make it a later start the next morning. As they had been on the go from 6:30 am till almost 10 PM on our Disney day, they slept till almost 8 the next morning and we all ate breakfast sandwiches in the car en route to Epcot.
Disney is something. I'm so glad we did it. We will probably not go again. The rides are good, but not earth shattering, and the crowds are…..crowded. We aren't the type to stand in line to see characters, and honestly for that type of thing you can do it at Epcot or really the Disney Cruise is wayyyy better. I'm glad we waited till the kids were at an age to remember it, and I'm glad that we have checked off that box. I definitely recommend the Hoop De Doo review as its super cute, the food is good, and they keep on filling your wine glass, if you are into that sort of thing (which, after a long day at Disney you probably will be). All in all day 1 and 2 were hugely successful. Lots of exercise, lots of rides, and lots of memories. I loved seeing my kids experience it, and I couldn't believe their stamina.
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