First: Photodump!
I did go on several water slides (the ones where you are on a raft) and lived to tell the tale.
(Not a lot of pix from Volcano Bay because we locked up our phones while we were on the rides!)
Dinner that night was at Strong Water Tavern (at the Sapphire Falls resort) – if you go to the Universal Studios area I highly recommend this restaurant! Josh and I were so impressed. They had a menu featuring cuisines from different countries and we were a little bit skeptical about whether they could do so many different cuisines well, but seriously – they delivered!
(My kids are not picky eaters but at most places G picked something off of the kids menu whereas the other two have graduated to ‘regular’ fare. We tend to order a bunch of things and share at most places, though. This place was “small plates” style which was perfect for that.)
That night we all came home and went to bed at 9ish, tired out from the day.
Our second day was spent at Hollywood Studios. We bought our tickets that morning and initially the “Lightning Lane” choices were slim, but we ended up getting to do basically all of what we wanted to do, so it worked out!
We went on:
- all the Star Wars rides (Rise of the Resistance, Millennium Falcon, Star Tours)
- Slinky Dog Dash
- some Mickey and Minnie runaway train ride that did not seem worth the wait
We did not go on:
- Tower of Terror (J, A and G were in line for it but G got scared at the last minute and A didn’t want to go alone, so . . . it didn’t happen. C and I did that Mickey ride while they did that because I had no desire to free fall)
- Rockin’ Roller Coaster – we actually had a Lightning Lane pass for this but then all 3 kids opted out (I wasn’t going to do it anyway; Slinky Dog is riiiight at the level I can handle, haha).
That was plenty – we loved all of the Star Wars rides (especially Millennium Falcon – tons of fun!) and Slinky Dog. Our longest wait was 80 minutes for Slinky Dog. It went reasonably quickly.
We have a great pic of all 5 of us but . . . you get this instead 🙂
We ate Mickey ice cream bars, obviously:
And some weird Star Wars themed snacks:
We headed out around 6 pm (~8 hours is like . . . about our family limit for a theme park? I know this is low. What can I say? By that point all 5 of us had enough and were ready to head out.)
We stopped for some souvenirs (bah, but the kids were super happy to get something – A got a bracelet, C got a pin, and G got a Woody doll).
Dinner was at Boma (at Animal Kingdom Lodge). Bonus was getting to see their animals while waiting! Boma was pretty good but . . . the other two dinners were better, and less expensive. Universal has Disney beat handily on food/restaurants in my opinion (is this a hot take?).
So long, Orlando!
We are home now. The last time we went was in 2022 so . . . back in 2028? Maybe sooner, we will see. It’s not that hard to do a 4 day trip. I think I prefer Magic Kingdom or Epcot to Hollywood Studios (just more nostalgia?) but everyone had fun (even though some kids were skeptical on the way there for whatever reason!).
It was REAAAAAALLY good for me to get away and I’m really glad we went!!
10 Comments
I’m so glad you had a great getaway! The pictures are all great! And 8 hours is a long day! I don’t know how families last longer than that! I don’t have that kind of stamina and my kids definitely don’t either!!
Hopefully you can carry these vacation/fresh start vibes into the coming week!!
So glad you had fun! I am seriously thinking to take the girls to go this summer. I’ll DM you for tips as I may have to do it by myself with the girls.
any time!!! though I am by no means any kind of expert Disney strategist (there are many people who are!)
Oh yay! This sounds like a perfect getaway. I’m so happy it went well.
I also think that it is really good for your to get away, Dr. Sarah Hart-Unger. I’m also rooting for you to experience less AM vs PM mood change roller coasters this week.
I just listened to today’s BOBW episode, and since you were discussing “planning one’s weekends”, I think it is great that you’ve just got an example right here from last week. Of course, I know what happened last week from Thursday to Sunday is not typical for most weeks, but it still was an example of the “One Big Adventure, One Little Adventure” principle from the 9 Tranquility-by-Tuesday principles.
thank you Yukun!!
PS: from your question about A’s bday -it was a delayed shopping trip because we didn’t go right around her actual birthday!
Thanks very much, Dr. Sarah Hart-Unger.
And I also need to correct something: I just listened to today’s Best Laid Plans episode, not BOBW episode. The BOBW episode is scheduled to come out tomorrow.
Oh, good! Glad it was so fun. And- my daughter also does not want ANY pictures of herself on my blog, sigh! Sometimes I blur out her face, but she’s not even happy about that, so I don’t do it often. It’s kind of funny though- I feel like I have to reassure people that I do still have two kids sometimes.
Orlando!! I love a good Orlando weekend but I rarely visit the parks these days. So expensive! But it sounds like you had a good time. 8 hours at the parks sounds like MORE than enough time!