nouvellefleur
Mouseketeer
- Joined
- Mar 28, 2017
- Messages
- 161
Introductions!
Welcome to our trip report! My sister and I visited Universal Orlando November 14 - November 18 to celebrate our 40th birthday (wow I hate saying 40th birthday haha) and we had a lovely time. To set the scene a little: we’re identical twins and look quite alike, though we aren’t the kind of twins who do that kind of thing on purpose.
For the last few years, we’ve lived in the same small Midwestern city which allows me to be an involved auntie for my two nephews.
This was my third visit to Universal, with previous trips in 2017 and 2021. This was my sister’s second visit to Universal, with her previous trip being in 2021 as well. We struggled with the heat in 2021 and I struggled a bit with my anxiety in the crowds as well (which had unfortunately become a bit more of a ~thing during COVID and our dad’s passing). So for our birthday, we decided to attend an Orlando Informer Meetup. As an after-hours event, we hoped that the lower temperatures and lighter crowds would make for a more enjoyable vacation than the heat, humidity, and press of humanity we encountered in 2021.
Spoiler alert: The Meetup was definitely the right choice for us, but we were a little betrayed by health issues so this is not a trip report of a perfectly optimised Meetup experience. I spent the second half of October and the first half of November laid low by bronchitis, then pneumonia. By the time November 14th rolled around, I had been prescribed a cocktail of meds that were finally working, but I wasn’t quite at 100% yet. While we had a fantastic time, we absolutely could have done more and ridden more rides if I’d been in peak health.
Day 0.5 - Travel Day
Our big birthday vacation officially began on Thursday November 14. I had been ill forever and very busy at work, so it wasn’t really a very auspicious beginning. On the other hand, I really needed a vacation haha. My sister dropped her kids off at school and I drove over to her house to pick her up. Then I actually ended up helping my brother-in-law dig out a sapling from the yard (completely ruined by deer, alas) while she had a bite of breakfast. But once that was taken care of, we hit the road!
It’s a long drive for us to the nearest international airport - around 2 hours. The weather was bright and clear, and the drive was perfectly uneventful. Traffic in Minneapolis was as it always is around the airport - heavy but not insane (unlike some other airports I’ve lived near).
I love the Minneapolis airport. It’s big but it’s well laid out, has great seating everywhere you look, and a wide variety of food and shopping options. The airport also always has great art exhibits, though the best are down the C Concourse and sadly we mostly seem to fly out of G these days. This time we only had time to see some of the winning examples of crop art from the Minnesota State Fair that were on display in the central mall area. We did have time to grab a bite to eat at Stone Arch, one of the few airport restaurants in the world that really understands what travelers really need: a breakfast sandwich available at any hour of the day.
It was also in the MSP TSA security line that we began our official vacation count of how many times we were asked: Are you twins?
Granted, it’s not super common to see adult twins hanging out with each other, but for some reason, despite all the vacations we’ve taken together (and we vacation and travel together a lot!), traveling to Orlando is number one for people asking us this question. Like, random strangers stopping us while walking across the hotel parking lot to ask. In 2021, we regretted not keeping a tally of how many times this came up, so we kept an official count for this trip! We’ll get some pretty good numbers for this trip - our outbound Delta flight attendant was so delighted by our twin-ness that she chatted with us for quite a while and then put together a goody bag for my nephews, including wing pins and First Class snacks.
We had an easy flight and our luggage was quick to appear on the MCO baggage carousel. We decided to take a Mears Taxi from MCO to Sapphire Falls. I’ve only ever had good experiences with Mears before, while I’ve had a few questionable Uber/Lyft drivers... but this was definitely an exception to that experience. The driver manually added an additional surcharge while driving that took the fare above the stated estimate of $30-50 posted at the taxi stand, and didn’t want to explain why. We paid it, because what can you do, but we were less than impressed.
Check in at Sapphire Falls was a breeze and of course the front desk employee was just so friendly, professional, and welcoming. Since it was around 5:30pm, our room was ready and after dropping off our luggage and freshening up a bit, we were ready to hit Strong Water Tavern for dinner!
We ordered a very respectably average Cabernet Sauvignon for me and a Hemingway Daiquiri (quite strong, a little sweet but not overly so) for my sister. As for food, here’s the rundown (x-posted in the Food Pics with Chat thread):
CHEESY AREPAS | $14.00 | Tossed in salsa verde, pico de gallo, fried egg, duck cracklings
The cheese arepas were delicious when hot, but rather stodgy once they'd cooled. I'd order this again if I had enough people at the table that we could quickly devour them and do them justice. The salsa verde was lovely - very bright and lightly spicy. I ended up scooping up the salsa verde and trying it on everything else at the table. The eggs were perfectly cooked for the dish - solid whites, runny yolks.
7/10
GRIOT | $15.00 | Marinated and fried pork chunks, sweet plantains, pikliz, spicy chimichurri. | SPICY
I had mixed feelings about the the griot. I think the pork was overcooked but the flavor was lovely and I did actually really like the crispy edges, it's just that the interior was rather dry - all the fat had been rendered away. The chimichurri and the pikliz were exceptional, and worked beautifully with the pork and plantain. I discovered that I don't actually really care for plantain (I really thought I'd had plantain before but I guess maybe I haven't, which is odd), but my sister does and said they were very good. They were a bit too sweet for me on their own, but if you had a bite of the plantain with pork, or plantain with pikliz, or plantain with chimichurri, then it balanced better for my palate. The pork itself was not spicy.
7/10 (8/10 rating from sister)
SURF & TURF PINCHOS | $18.00 | Chimichurri-marinated steak, shrimp, yellow squash, zucchini, bell pepper, kalamata olive oil, garlic bread
This was lovely. The steak was cooked to well done (though we both prefer medium-rare), and everything else on the skewer was beautifully seasoned and cooked. No notes tbh, it just really hit the spot.
9/10
Our server was very sweet and did her best to check on us regularly while also juggling a table of 10 or 12. Sadly we were too full for dessert, but we did get a second round of drinks and sat on the Strong Water patio for some fresh air, relaxation, and a little FaceTime with the kids. We had big plans to return to Strong Water again during our trip but unfortunately we didn't manage it.
We also needed a little walk after all that delicious food, so we took a stroll and toured the grounds. We poked our noses into New Dutch Trading Co then located the pool and sat there for probably 45 minutes or so just chatting and enjoying the beautiful evening. It was 76°F at 9pm and just beautifully mild and lovely out. We were so lucky with weather for the entire trip - the highs ranged from 78 to 81, every day was sunny to partly cloudy with a nice breeze, the humidity was negligible, and lows dipped to the mid 60s or so. Just absolutely stunning weather across the board.
I’m not really sure what time we went to bed that first night. One of the things we were most excited about with the OI Meetup was not worrying about bedtimes and alarms and jumping out of bed in the morning. So, we settled into our nice little lagoon-view room, closed the curtains, turned off all of our phone alarms, and drifted off to sleep.
Day 0.5 Are You Twins Count: 4
To Be Continued!
Welcome to our trip report! My sister and I visited Universal Orlando November 14 - November 18 to celebrate our 40th birthday (wow I hate saying 40th birthday haha) and we had a lovely time. To set the scene a little: we’re identical twins and look quite alike, though we aren’t the kind of twins who do that kind of thing on purpose.
For the last few years, we’ve lived in the same small Midwestern city which allows me to be an involved auntie for my two nephews. This was my third visit to Universal, with previous trips in 2017 and 2021. This was my sister’s second visit to Universal, with her previous trip being in 2021 as well. We struggled with the heat in 2021 and I struggled a bit with my anxiety in the crowds as well (which had unfortunately become a bit more of a ~thing during COVID and our dad’s passing). So for our birthday, we decided to attend an Orlando Informer Meetup. As an after-hours event, we hoped that the lower temperatures and lighter crowds would make for a more enjoyable vacation than the heat, humidity, and press of humanity we encountered in 2021.
Spoiler alert: The Meetup was definitely the right choice for us, but we were a little betrayed by health issues so this is not a trip report of a perfectly optimised Meetup experience. I spent the second half of October and the first half of November laid low by bronchitis, then pneumonia. By the time November 14th rolled around, I had been prescribed a cocktail of meds that were finally working, but I wasn’t quite at 100% yet. While we had a fantastic time, we absolutely could have done more and ridden more rides if I’d been in peak health.
Day 0.5 - Travel Day
Our big birthday vacation officially began on Thursday November 14. I had been ill forever and very busy at work, so it wasn’t really a very auspicious beginning. On the other hand, I really needed a vacation haha. My sister dropped her kids off at school and I drove over to her house to pick her up. Then I actually ended up helping my brother-in-law dig out a sapling from the yard (completely ruined by deer, alas) while she had a bite of breakfast. But once that was taken care of, we hit the road!
It’s a long drive for us to the nearest international airport - around 2 hours. The weather was bright and clear, and the drive was perfectly uneventful. Traffic in Minneapolis was as it always is around the airport - heavy but not insane (unlike some other airports I’ve lived near).
I love the Minneapolis airport. It’s big but it’s well laid out, has great seating everywhere you look, and a wide variety of food and shopping options. The airport also always has great art exhibits, though the best are down the C Concourse and sadly we mostly seem to fly out of G these days. This time we only had time to see some of the winning examples of crop art from the Minnesota State Fair that were on display in the central mall area. We did have time to grab a bite to eat at Stone Arch, one of the few airport restaurants in the world that really understands what travelers really need: a breakfast sandwich available at any hour of the day.
It was also in the MSP TSA security line that we began our official vacation count of how many times we were asked: Are you twins?
Granted, it’s not super common to see adult twins hanging out with each other, but for some reason, despite all the vacations we’ve taken together (and we vacation and travel together a lot!), traveling to Orlando is number one for people asking us this question. Like, random strangers stopping us while walking across the hotel parking lot to ask. In 2021, we regretted not keeping a tally of how many times this came up, so we kept an official count for this trip! We’ll get some pretty good numbers for this trip - our outbound Delta flight attendant was so delighted by our twin-ness that she chatted with us for quite a while and then put together a goody bag for my nephews, including wing pins and First Class snacks.
We had an easy flight and our luggage was quick to appear on the MCO baggage carousel. We decided to take a Mears Taxi from MCO to Sapphire Falls. I’ve only ever had good experiences with Mears before, while I’ve had a few questionable Uber/Lyft drivers... but this was definitely an exception to that experience. The driver manually added an additional surcharge while driving that took the fare above the stated estimate of $30-50 posted at the taxi stand, and didn’t want to explain why. We paid it, because what can you do, but we were less than impressed.
Check in at Sapphire Falls was a breeze and of course the front desk employee was just so friendly, professional, and welcoming. Since it was around 5:30pm, our room was ready and after dropping off our luggage and freshening up a bit, we were ready to hit Strong Water Tavern for dinner!
We ordered a very respectably average Cabernet Sauvignon for me and a Hemingway Daiquiri (quite strong, a little sweet but not overly so) for my sister. As for food, here’s the rundown (x-posted in the Food Pics with Chat thread):
CHEESY AREPAS | $14.00 | Tossed in salsa verde, pico de gallo, fried egg, duck cracklings
The cheese arepas were delicious when hot, but rather stodgy once they'd cooled. I'd order this again if I had enough people at the table that we could quickly devour them and do them justice. The salsa verde was lovely - very bright and lightly spicy. I ended up scooping up the salsa verde and trying it on everything else at the table. The eggs were perfectly cooked for the dish - solid whites, runny yolks.
7/10
GRIOT | $15.00 | Marinated and fried pork chunks, sweet plantains, pikliz, spicy chimichurri. | SPICY
I had mixed feelings about the the griot. I think the pork was overcooked but the flavor was lovely and I did actually really like the crispy edges, it's just that the interior was rather dry - all the fat had been rendered away. The chimichurri and the pikliz were exceptional, and worked beautifully with the pork and plantain. I discovered that I don't actually really care for plantain (I really thought I'd had plantain before but I guess maybe I haven't, which is odd), but my sister does and said they were very good. They were a bit too sweet for me on their own, but if you had a bite of the plantain with pork, or plantain with pikliz, or plantain with chimichurri, then it balanced better for my palate. The pork itself was not spicy.
7/10 (8/10 rating from sister)
SURF & TURF PINCHOS | $18.00 | Chimichurri-marinated steak, shrimp, yellow squash, zucchini, bell pepper, kalamata olive oil, garlic bread
This was lovely. The steak was cooked to well done (though we both prefer medium-rare), and everything else on the skewer was beautifully seasoned and cooked. No notes tbh, it just really hit the spot.
9/10
Our server was very sweet and did her best to check on us regularly while also juggling a table of 10 or 12. Sadly we were too full for dessert, but we did get a second round of drinks and sat on the Strong Water patio for some fresh air, relaxation, and a little FaceTime with the kids. We had big plans to return to Strong Water again during our trip but unfortunately we didn't manage it.
We also needed a little walk after all that delicious food, so we took a stroll and toured the grounds. We poked our noses into New Dutch Trading Co then located the pool and sat there for probably 45 minutes or so just chatting and enjoying the beautiful evening. It was 76°F at 9pm and just beautifully mild and lovely out. We were so lucky with weather for the entire trip - the highs ranged from 78 to 81, every day was sunny to partly cloudy with a nice breeze, the humidity was negligible, and lows dipped to the mid 60s or so. Just absolutely stunning weather across the board.
I’m not really sure what time we went to bed that first night. One of the things we were most excited about with the OI Meetup was not worrying about bedtimes and alarms and jumping out of bed in the morning. So, we settled into our nice little lagoon-view room, closed the curtains, turned off all of our phone alarms, and drifted off to sleep.
Day 0.5 Are You Twins Count: 4
To Be Continued!
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