4/28-5/5 Daytona Beach, IAO/US and SW Trip report

[tikkipoo]

After an exhausting week of work, I am going to try to get this done.
Cast: Me 29, DH30, DD9 and DH's grandmother 70's

Day 1 - Arrival - Got to MCO around 4pm. Flew Airtran for the first time. They were great. No problems at all. Used 24 hr check in and got seats all together. It was really easy to do. Rented a car through Alamo. Also very easy. There was a line at the counter and no one at the kiosks, so I braved it. The only thing you have to be careful of is to be sure to unselect some of the options (extra insurance). Didn't have to present my coupon to anyone. It printed out my reciept, we picked out our car (Impala-full size-very nice!) and away we went. Now somehow, on our way out of MCO, we never got on the toll road...somehow we ended up in the middle of Orlando But we finally managed to make our way back to I-4 and on to Daytona. We got to see a lot of "interesting" places in Orlando. Our hotel on the beach - Emerald Shores- was very nice. Not 4star or anything, but clean and had a very friendly staff.

Day 2 - Beach day - It is SOOO nice to just lay on the beach, in the nice hot sun, with my book and waste the day away. No phones, no work, no bills...so very relaxing.

Day 3 - IOA - After my trying and trying to get everyone to listen about when we needed to leave, I gave up. So, traffic in Orlando and we ended up getting to IOA around 9:15am. We get there and have trouble locating the lockers. So I volunteer to find them and DH and DD went to ride
HULK. I find the lockers that are neatly stashed out of site, and find them just as they are coming off. DD was just tall enough, but she made it! DH could hardly get the safety strap to snap. It took getting the staff to push down on the bar to get it snaped Then it was my turn to ride it with DD. That ride is FUN FUN FUN! Then to
Spiderman. My first time to ride it. DH's GM rode that with us. Lots of fun for the whole family. Onto
Jurassic Park DD, DH and I rode the River Adventure. This is fun, but seems to need a spring cleaning. Some of the animatronics were a little "off target" during the ride. Pteranodon Flyers were up to a 30 min wait no thanks! We ate at the Burger Digs DH and his GM are both diabetics and it was time to eat. There burgers are gross, but it was food. DD really enjoys the Discovery Center. Nice place to sit, cool off and rest after lunch. Next we went to see Poseidon's Fury - Didn't get to see it though, because it was another 20 min wait and DH's GM couldn't see in the dark where we had to wait. So we took the emergency exit and got out of there! We looked around at the shops in the Lost Continent and off to see
Sindbad Fun show. Sindbad was only mediocre, but the other characters were really good. Then finally we rode
Dueling Dragons First Ice then Fire. This is one of my all time favorite coasters! I think I prefer Ice. No one would ride Flying Unicorn with me I was so ticked! Next we ran to
Toon Lagoon DH and DD rode Ripsaw. I chickened out! Then DD, DH and I rode Bluto's Barges. Got completely soaked! Lots of fun! Then we walked around to
Seuss Landing Got to ride Cat in the Hat - very cute and the new Trolley (only 5 min wait) - Again, very cute, but not if you had to wait 30min for it. Loading is very slow. Time for dinner at
Margaritaville - got my nachos! only ate about 1/4 of them, but they were GOOO-OOOD.

I will make this part one of our trip. Time for softball practice. I'll get back to it later today. I'm not very good at this, but if anyone has questions, let me know.

 

[tarheelmjfan]

Great start! Thanks for taking the time to share your trip with us. I'll be watching for an update.

 

[tikkipoo]

Day 4 - Sea World - Well, after I nearly begged for us to wait a day before returning to any of the parks, again I was out voted and they decided to go to Sea World. (Just a side note - You would thing that since I am the Queen of Trip Planning - at least in our family - that my input would be valuable, but no.) Once again, we got there around 9:15. Now this is a tricky park to get everything done in. In my opinion, you must be well rested , be there at opening and have a plan of attack. Nope, not how it went at all. When we got in and settled, it was time for the
Clyde & Seamore Show I love this show! Although, it was funnier the last time we were there to see it. Still very very cute. We saw the sea lions and the pengiuns and the DH and DD rode the
Kracken Now I rode this last time we were here, but I was TIRED and didn't feel like it. SO I sent DD and DH and I sat with DH'sGM. Well, we waited and waited and when they finally came out, they had decided to do front of the line. Then had to ride again. Lunch time arives and we eat the the Smoky Creek. Good BBQ. Next off to feed the
Dolphins DD really enjoyed this one. The fish to feed were $5 per tray that contain 5 fish (I think) We bought here 4 containers and she went through them like there was no tomorrow. Just a note - The dolphins wont come to you unless you have fish to give them, so if you run out of fish, just forget it. By this time it was getting close to the Next Believe show, so we start off that direction. I get to see my manatees and DH and DD ride Atlantis. - Also a fun ride. When DD gets off Atlantis, she is whining about how tired she is and about how hot it is. So, we all decide that the day is about to end. But not before
Believe I was not all that impressed with the show. My opinion is that it is too sappy and cheesy. I can definitely do cheesy...love the cheese, but along with the sap, too much! But everyone else in the party seemed to enjoy it, so it might just be me, and my mood at the current time. So that ended our day at Sea World. LOTS we didn't see, because we were all TIRED. Sea World is not a park to take lightly. There is lots of walking, and lots to see. But what do I know???

Day 5 - Another beach day - Did I tell you how much I love the beach?

Day 6 - US - This day was on a Thursday. Arrived around 9:15am We got to do just about everything here except the shows. But there were a LOT of schools here. I looked like there was a cheer something going on, along with several regular school outings. The kids were all pretty well behaved, so it wasn't all bad. The only wait we had was on the
Mummy They only had one side operating and there was a breakdown while we were in line. So it was a while before we got on. But it was a very cool ride. Not long enough, as ususal, but very cool. Wanted to ride it again, but as I said, the line was too long.

After we rode everything in the park DD and DH decided they wanted to ride HULK and Dueling Dragons again before we left. I stayed with DH's GM since she spent a good deal of the vaca waiting on us alone. When they got to HULK, they decided that DD wasn't tall enough to ride it anymore. She was heartbroken So they ran over to Dueling Dragons and got to ride it once again. And that ended our day at US.

Day 7 - Beach day - DH decided on our first beach day that he wants to live down in FL. But we picked up a realty mag at the store and looked at the prices of the homes in the area OMG I just told him he'd have to get a better job if we were going to live there! He tried to push my buttons by saying "honey, if we lived down here you could go do Disney World any time you wanted"...Yeah right...like we could afford to go anywhere if we bought one of these places

Day 8 - Departure - Non eventful day. Car return was painless. There were "bellhops" (I'm not sure what you call these folks) waiting to help us with our luggage to the ticket counter. The hotel helped us 24 hour check in the night before, so it was cake. Then it was Back Home Again in Indiana!

Final notes - Next trip, I will let everyone know that I AM the Queen of Planning, and they WILL follow my trip "advice" I don't think that we will stay at the beach and do the parks too. Or we might just split our stay. Just too much travel time. I will use Airtran and Alamo again.
All in all we had a really good trip. DH and I were talking about planning our next trip to include my 2 nephews - 8 & 16 . This will be a trip to DW, so please ask for some for me. I will need it.

Thanks to all of you who helped me plan this trip. I do so love the DIS!

 

[tlinus]

I looked like there was a cheer something going on, along with several regular school outings. The kids were all pretty well behaved, so it wasn't all bad.

That Cheer thing was probably the filming of Bring It On 4 ......they started filming on Monday (5/1) and were supposed to be there all week (in the parks HRH and CityWalk-we saw HOT SET signs all over the place). In my next installment I have 2 shots from the window as they were on the HRH front lawn !

Great report! Thanks for sharing with us!

 

[Minniespal]

Excellent ~ Thanx for posting

 

[irky416]

I was curious about your Daytona Beach experience. We were thinking of driving over there or to Cocoa Beach for a day when we're in Orlando in two weeks. Did you like it? How far was the drive? Was it really crowded?

Sorry for so many questions! Thanks!

 

[bubba's mom]

thanks for the report tiki....your family should know who's boss i guess your beach daze made up for it!

OT: DBIL lives below Daytona Beach...it's a nice area!