Happy Graduation to Her (May/June '21) - THE TRIP REPORT (10/17 FINALLY COMPLETE!)

[reluctantoranges]

Thanks for your thoughts and interesting perspective. I'm curious about what would make somebody feel self-conscious? The fact that you are eating in the castle or the character interactions which I don't believe even exist there any more, but admit I haven't looked into it. I'll have to check out some reviews and see about the details. I figured this was just a very very scaled down experience from it's pre-COVID form and it was just the chance to see inside the castle, which most people don't get to see, and eating there was just a bonus and the food sounds pretty decent albeit expensive.

Maybe I'll run it by my daughter to get her thoughts after all.

I'm sure it is likely to be fun and a good experience, I just remember at 18 I felt embarrassed about doing things that were not "adult" things especially when being with my parents. Maybe this was just me, because everyone always assumed I was very young.

 

[kittylady1972]

So I had some conversations with family over the weekend regarding Cinderella's Royal Table. I spoke to my daughter about it on Friday, asking her what she thought and her first response was that it was VERY expensive...which is true. I told her I've already prepaid for it but I could still cancel even on our travel day which is a full 2 days before the reservation. I may ask my other friend who is going with us what she thinks about it too. I'm not sure if she's had a meal there or not but she also might enjoy it.

Then I spoke to DH about it also, who still is a bit bitter he wasn't invited on this "girls" trip. Too bad. Anyway his thoughts were that it was a cool idea but would everybody truly appreciate how much of a unique opportunity this is to be inside the castle? That I'm not sure about either. Also given my choice between two somewhat expensive meals: Cinderella's Royal Table or Chef Mickey, I think my choice would Chef Mickey because that may be our only real chance to see characters. So bottom line is while it's still an option I'm leaning towards cancelling it which I'm sure will make somebody else VERY happy when they snag it.

I don't know if I mentioned that I ordered t-shirts and buttons for my daughter and her BFF and those arrived last week. They are cute! She and her BFF are going to coordinate outfits for the trip. Also BFF told Noelle she wanted to get some ears...which of course sent me into a total tailspin looking for some for her. There are so many cute options out there, and I think she should get something fun so now even DD said she will bring her own ears to the park. Shocking! I have ears as well but I do find they give me a headache, so as an alternative I ordered some clip-on ears and a scrunchie that has a bow and ears also. I may use those instead.

I can't believe we are only a week away from this trip and my daughter's LAST day of high school is this Thursday!

 

[CruellaNY]

I like that they're going to match their outfits that's cute! Exciting the trip is so close, we are less than 2 weeks now and even having just been recently I cannot wait.

I don't know what to say about CRT lol just because our restaurant preferences are so different! I think it's neat for sure especially if you've never done it; then again 1 time was enough for me. Having no princesses walking around could be better for teens on the one hand but maybe they'd like it better with them! So I'm no help but I'm sure whatever you do they'll love it. I honestly think (if they like the menu) that Jaleo is a great graduation dinner since the food is a different experience!

 

[kittylady1972]

I like that they're going to match their outfits that's cute! Exciting the trip is so close, we are less than 2 weeks now and even having just been recently I cannot wait.

I don't know what to say about CRT lol just because our restaurant preferences are so different! I think it's neat for sure especially if you've never done it; then again 1 time was enough for me. Having no princesses walking around could be better for teens on the one hand but maybe they'd like it better with them! So I'm no help but I'm sure whatever you do they'll love it. I honestly think (if they like the menu) that Jaleo is a great graduation dinner since the food is a different experience!

How exciting for you too!

Yes I know I've done CRT and I do think it's cool to eat in the castle...yes once would be enough but I have newbies here. I'll likely cancel it.

We have a Jaleo near us here that I plan to visit at some point with my oldest son who is a total foodie, but the girls honestly don't care, they are good with minimum food, so we aren't planning too many big meals. I did mention Toothsome because they have some GREAT brussel sprouts there and DD said she and BFF both like those...so we'll at least get that. Other than that, she is good with doing Chef Mickey and doesn't have much thoughts about any other big dining things which is fine.

And now we MIGHT be doing another trip in July. I'm planning this trip with a friend and we were going to do Universal Parks and then some beach time while she and her family wanted to work in TWO Disney days. I told her we'd just meet them at the beach but now...well let's just say there's a good chance we'll join them for the two Disney park days also. We'll see, that plan is still in the works but will probably be solidified this week.

 

[kittylady1972]

So it's been a long time since I've had to plan out multiple trips, but that's where I am right now. While sorta still looking over our upcoming trip plans, I've lost a bit of focus on them as I've now turned to planning out another trip to Florida in July. This one will involve another family (so I totally blame them for it) and it looks like for the first time in FOREVER all of mine will be going as well. Our entire family of 5 plus my FIL has received our COVID vaccinations, or will have by that time as I take my youngest son today for his 2nd shot and my oldest goes on Friday for his 2nd one.

That being said, since part of this trip involves some beach time, we are choosing to drive at least one way and possibly return via the AutoTrain, which we haven't done in years. I want to be able to pack up some beach gear to take with us and this lets us do that.

So our current plan is something like this:
Depart early one morning and drive all day, arriving in Florida that evening. I'm okay if we don't quite get to Orlando that first day but that would be the ultimate goal.

Next morning we check into RPR at Universal for one night and meet up with our friends. We'll get our Express Passes and hit the Universal Parks that day and the next day. They haven't done Universal in a long time so it will be fun to show them around.

After our 2nd Universal day, we will either head to the beach while our friends do their 2 Disney park days OR we'll book a Disney area hotel for 3 nights and do the Disney parks for 2 days with them.

After our 2nd Disney day we will spend the night and the next morning drive out to the St. Petersburg Beach area. We will spend 3 nights there.

On our last day, we'll either drive back home in the morning with a late night arrival or take the AutoTrain home which puts us back home the next morning.

Whirlwind trip but fun to try to work out so far.

 

[kittylady1972]

So we are just a day away from our trip! It's a cold and rainy day here today...makes me wish we had planned this trip to leave earlier. No matter.

This morning I checked in for our flight and purchased our bags so we don't have to do the Spirit crazy packing into a small bag thing. I also purchased our seats because I know it will be nice for the 3 of us to sit together. My friend going with us on a different reservation is about 20 rows back. Not surprised as that's how Spirit usually seats people who haven't bought seats.

Am I packed yet you ask? Nope. I have a ton of stuff sitting in my suitcase if that counts but it's way too much and needs to be paired down. We have a washer/dryer in the room so I need not pack too many "extras" really. We'll see how I do with that.

This morning I also purchased our Memory Maker which hopefully will allow us to get our photos on Wednesday since it's 3 days in advance. I know the girls will want some photos together for sure. I also CANCELLED our first night at Bay Lake Tower so we for sure will stick to Hard Rock Hotel tomorrow. That will just be so much easier and now I have some points to use for our July trip...still in the works.

I really have a lot to get together and should probably do that now. Spirit sent a notification that due to heavy airport security lines we should plan to arrive THREE hours before our flight. Well since we are NOT checking bags I'm thinking 2 hours will be sufficient. Plus we will check the airport website with posts current wait times and see what it says in the morning. While I hate arriving so early for a flight it will be okay. We will pick up my daughter's BFF around 8:30am and should be at the airport no later than 8:45am for our 10:35am flight.

I also cancelled one of my rental cars and did the online checkin for the other one...plus we have a backup car rental just in case. I just don't trust rental car companies right now as I've heard too many horror stories about lack of cars, and with this being holiday travel time...well better safe than sorry.

Nothing else to report other than ONE MORE SLEEP until vacation begins!!!

 

[CruellaNY]

Have a great time!!

 

[kittylady1972]

Greetings from Universal Resort. We had a great first day here despite not doing a ton. We also had great weather. Rides were Spiderman and Mummy and Rip Ride Rocket, then dinner at Toothsome, then pool time and finally returned at just after 8pm for butterbeer and to ride Velocicoaster which we all loved! Back today around 9am to finish up then head to Bay Lake Tower.

 

[kittylady1972]

Hello from Bay Lake Tower. We had a nice 2nd and last day at Universal. We managed to ride Hagrids by showing up close to 9:30am and waiting about an hour. Can I just say the food situation at Universal right now is HORRENDOUS. We mobile ordered at a grill near Jurassic Falls and once we hit the button to prepare our food we waited an HOUR...and this was at 11am. All lines were terrible for any food. They need to remedy that.

After our terrible lunch fiaso we did manage to luck out and ride Jurassic Coaster with about a 30 minute wait..posted at an hour. Even more fun during the day. Other than that there wasn't much else DD wanted to do especially knowing we will be back. So we rode Hulk with about 15 minute wait Express Pass and then walked back to US to do ET, MIB and Gringotts.

Girls had decided early not to do Wave so we ended up leaving the park, stopping at Walgreens to get some drinks and snacks, and then got dinner at ChickFilA and brought it back to BLT.

Now just chilling with no real plans.

Tomorrow is MK day!!

 

[kittylady1972]

Disney Day 2 is complete. It has become clear the Disney gene is strong in my daughter. I'm pretty tired already.and we have done a good portion of what we wanted to do. Yesterday was a 3 park day and today was a 2 park day and both days we took long breaks in the room. We have made only one of our Disney ADRs so far but we will do Chef Mickey tomorrow. Weather tomorrow is looking pretty rough so we will see how things go as it is a HS day for us and we only have a few things we want to do there as we've already done ToT, TSM and Slinky Dog.

Really have enjoyed this trip so far and can't wait to share more.

 

[kittylady1972]

My apologies for neglecting this report. It's been such a busy week ever since we returned. I really hope to return here soon and give you all the full update.

Overall we had a fabulous trip. Weather for the most part was also very good. Our last two days were very good, though we did very little on our last due but that was because Saturday...at MK...not good. We all very much enjoyed our meal at Chef Mickey's but as much as I did enjoy the food I didn't like the prices and felt the character interactions were not as good as we had back in March at Topolino's.

Since then, I've had family staying with me off and on from out of town, tennis to play, and prepping for my daughter's high school graduation where she did a fabulous job as mistress of ceremonies. This was followed by another day of prepping for a high school graduation open house when we had yesterday and was so, so great with lots of family and friends stopping by to wish my daughter well. It's just been great.

Now I'm gearing up for our next trip which is actually only about 24 days away. That trip will include some Universal Park time, ONE Disney park day, and some time at BG Tampa and maybe SeaWorld...and then some beach time and with the WHOLE family this time. My 21yo son hasn't travel since well before the pandemic...so I'm glad he's going this time.

 

[CruellaNY]

Congrats to Noelle! So glad she got to have a more normal graduation than Ricky did last year.

Lucky you with another trip so soon! We just got back Wednesday but now don't go again until the end of Sept. which is a long time for us lol! Not sure I can handle it But we go to Punta Cana next month and have a fairly busy August so that will help me get by!
Where are you staying?

 

[kittylady1972]

Congrats to Noelle! So glad she got to have a more normal graduation than Ricky did last year.

Lucky you with another trip so soon! We just got back Wednesday but now don't go again until the end of Sept. which is a long time for us lol! Not sure I can handle it But we go to Punta Cana next month and have a fairly busy August so that will help me get by!
Where are you staying?

Thanks so much. Considering she had NO end of her Junior year and only attended school with a five of her classmates (out of 54 senior class) for about 20 days total from March to May...this was at least a nice way to end all of that.

September is a long way away. We are only doing ONE Disney day, but staying two nights at Shades of Green. We are also doing Universal so staying at Royal Pacific Resort. Then about 4 nights on a Gulf Coast beach somewhere. Can't wait! Enjoy Punta Cana!

 

[kittylady1972]

Apologies for my continued neglect of this thread. I really do want to do a full TR at some point. Finding the time has been a challenge.

Probably should have worked on this during my vacation last weekend. We spent a few nights at my brother's house in NC (about a 7 hour drive from us) just hanging with the family who we hadn't seen in over a year and chilling on their farm and by their pool. My dad even visited from further south in NC for 2 nights so it was a big family thing. I was able to give my two young nephews (age 7 and 9) their birthday AND Christmas gifts.

And NOW we are just one week away from our next vacation! We've gone back and forth on our transportation mode, but right now we plan to drive both ways so we are taking some extra time at least on the drive down by leaving a day earlier than we had planned originally and stopping overnight. It's about a 14 hour drive for us so this will break up the trip a bit. Returning we have debated taking the AutoTrain but for now I think we'll just end up driving back too.

We just recently had all of our reservations solidified. It took us some time to determine a beach location because we were trying to plan that with another family so we wanted to make sure we would all be staying at the same place. We've selected Madeira Beach as our location so hopefully we will like it. I know nothing about it but knew I wanted to be on the Gulf side of Florida.

Right now the plan for that trip is:
Wed: Depart after work hours, drive as far as we can, probably stop somewhere in SC (DH would prefer GA but I think SC is reasonable)
Thur: Continue our drive, arrive in Orlando area and have one night at a hotel near Universal Studios; probably hit the park that night to at least activate passes for some of our people
Fri: Check in at RPR and head to the Universal parks with our friends
Sat: Another day at the Universal parks, check out of RPR and that night check into Shades of Green (for 2 nights); maybe try to catch the MK fireworks this night from the Poly or from Contemporary
Sun: Disney parks day with our friends...this will be a go until we drop day, starting off at MK then hopping to at least one or 2 other parks; hoping Sunday night to catch some fireworks somewhere
Monday: Check out of SOG, head to BG Tampa for the day (we have 2 day tickets for this park and SeaWorld but my kids don't want to do SeaWorld; our tickets include all day dining too); check into our condo at the beach
Tuesday: Beach time; our friends are arriving to join us as they are doing 2 Disney days instead of one like us
Wed-Thur: Beach time and at least one more day at BG Tampa; since this park is doing a lot of evening stuff, we may just beach during the day, then hit the park one other evening
Friday: We will depart for our long drive back to MD

So for now I'm looking forward to an extra long weekend, one or 2 days of work next week, then another vacation!

 

[rdkeim]

Sounds like a great trip and time with family and friends. Hope you do a TR!

 

[kittylady1972]

Just when you think *MAYBE* she will start this actual TR...I come back to just to update you on another trip that's about to begin!

We've made the decision to start our trip a little bit earlier so now we will leave in the later morning tomorrow instead. We are hoping to avoid driving through any hurricane related weather but we do hope to make it to Florida sometime tomorrow evening. We'll stop overnight somewhere and then finish our drive Thursday. I've gone ahead and booked us at Universal Dockside for Thursday so we'll get to check out that newish resort before moving to RPR the next night. We've starting putting together a ton of stuff to take with us so packing may begin a bit tonight.

AND after a conversation we just had last night we are considering another trip in Sept/Oct, mostly for HHN but part of me is considering maybe just MAYBE sneaking in one Disney day while there. Crazy I know. I wish they would just sell Disney APs again.

 

[Jenny Sanders]

Hi Dina! All caught up. Stay safe! Have a great trip!

 

[kittylady1972]

Hi Dina! All caught up. Stay safe! Have a great trip!

Thanks! We are back from a pretty nice vacation to Universal and Disney and the beach...but BG Tampa was a bit of a bust for us. All good though.

 

[kittylady1972]

JULY 2021 POST TRIP UPDATE

So we returned home from our latest Florida excursion on Friday. We probably got home from our long drive around 11:30pm or so. Then yesterday had a busy day at a family party that my cousin throws every year. We left there around 11pm and were home around midnight again. Today has been stocking up on groceries and still unpacking.

Overall our trip was good. We did have to drive through Hurricane Elsa on the way down Wednesday. We made it to Jacksonville where we stopped for the night at the Hampton Inn. The next day we had about a 2 hour drive where we picked up the remaining Universal tickets we needed at Shades of Green and then we headed to our next hotel which was Universal's Dockside Inn and Suites. We booked a suite here for the night and it was adorable...wish we could have stayed longer as I loved the cute setup here. Our friends joined us that evening and we ended up at Universal parks that night where we rode Hagrid's at night....which was amazing. I believe we also did Velocicoaster which was about a 90 minute wait as well.

We didn't do a lot here because lines were still long and I knew we'd have express passes the next day.

So we checked in on Friday morning early at Royal Pacific Resort. Wow...the checkin lines both at Dockside and at RPR were just ridiculously slow both times. There is really no reason to even do Universal's Mobile Check-in...as it saves no time and in fact might take longer. We did everything we wanted to do at the Universal Parks between Friday and Saturday, checked into Shades of Green Saturday evening for two nights, and Sunday was our Disney day.

Disney was a bit crazy, thought we'd get more done by arriving early at MK but even though we got through the gates before 8:30am they didn't let you into any of the "lands" until 9am. Plus BTMRR was down and that made things crazy too. We did accomplish SM, HM, POC and then left for lunch over at Contempo Cafe...and napped there in the lobby. We caught a bus to AK from there around 1:15pm, but they didn't let us in the parks at AK until closer to 1:50pm for the 2pm hop there. We did EE in the single rider line, then Dinosaur, then finished with FoP. After that we hopped over to HS (after we couldn't get a bus to EPCOT) and then Skyliner over to EPCOT. This time we headed to Soarin' with almost no wait, then the kids headed back to HS to try to get in ToT (lines were still pretty long) while we had dinner at La Hacienda, then finished with a boat ride in Mexico during some heavy rain and DH got a cool cocktail at La Cava. From there, it was back to MK via bus where we arrived just as the fireworks were starting and I was so happy to see Tinkerbell take flight again! We headed over to BTMRR and rode that as our last ride of the day. Not bad for one day of Disney parks.

Monday we headed over to BG Tampa, probably around 1pm or so when we arrived there. It was hot, lines were long, BUT I got to see Cheetahs and get a selfie with one:


So it wasn't a total waste. We had free dining all day, but the lines were crazy and my kids were hot and cranky but we did get a little bit of food and as we finished the line for Cheetah Hunt (which had been 90 minutes when we walked past it...but then closed for technical difficulties as did one other coaster) was just reopening so we rode with almost no wait. It was not as good as we remembered but it had been a few years and we had done some great coasters at Universal. So when we got off and were considering other rides the park suddenly announced ALL of the outdoor rides were closing due to impending weather...and so were the trams to parking. We decided to cut our losses and head back to our car, a LONG walk, and then headed over to the beach. Our beach condo was ready and it was much nicer than I thought it would be which was good. We loved the location and it was a great few days at the beach there.

Overall a good trip, I'll post some more details later as well as a trip report for the other trip. Eventually.

 

[Hubie]

Cool Cheetah picture!