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

[kittylady1972]

LIFE and such

Have been in a purge mood at home lately so have cleaned out my bedroom closet and what is really known as my "catch all" room which is supposed to be a "study". It's the first room you see when you enter my house...which is why the doors are always closed because I just toss stuff in there. Today I have a charitable donation truck heading to my house to removed about 8 bags full of stuff, not just from that room but had the rest of the family clean out clothes from their closets and rooms too.

I have done a few ADRs as well, but it remains to be seen if we'll keep any of them. Some of them are at Universal actually. I was thinking though that I haven't tried Red Oven Pizza Bakery so maybe we should try that? I also have reservations at Mythos, Toothsome and Big Fire. We have done Mythos (years ago) and Toothsome (twice this year) though but not Big Fire which sounds pretty good so far...and likely cheaper than Yachtsman (which I dropped).

I have a few Sanaa reservations, haven't been able to get dinner there though so had to settle for lunch, late lunch, and then basically dessert...which actually sounds pretty good since we never have room for dessert there. It's been several years since we've done Sanaa as well, but now that I just made Naan and Butter Chicken for dinner this week at home...maybe we can just do dessert there instead. Grand Floridian Cafe (breakfast) and Terralina Crafted Italian (late lunch) are also still on the agenda as options.

Weather this weekend looks like typical Florida...scattered storms, hot and probably muggy. Perhaps if the evening storms start rolling in we can try to head to Disney Springs to do some bowling.

I told DS17 yesterday we were staying at AK in a Savannah View room so he's excited. He loves animals too.

And my daughter off at college seems to be just embracing college life while also focusing on doing well in school. She video chats me about every other day or so which is nice. I've sent her 3 packages so far...two directly from Amazon and one is on the way from home and should arrive today. That one is stuffed with mostly snacks but also some clothes she had ordered that arrived at home after she left. She'll be home in just 9 DAYS...not that I'm counting.

Most excited to see her I think will be this girl:




I am sure she misses her other family member and will be happy to see her back home too. In the meantime we'll keep Harley the puppy dog busy like her first trip here to the dog beach near our house. She had so much fun...we have to take her back soon!

In other news the countdown to vacation is now 3 days.

 

[1Princess1Prince2006]

Nice thing is we will return and just a few days later my daughter comes home for her first break from college. Dropping her off last week in West Virginia was not as easy as I thought but I know she'll have a good time there and so far she's enjoying herself.
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Classes start this week for her and she will come home for weekends in Sept, October and then Thanksgiving Break so it won't be too bad. It's definitely different with her not being around here though.

My daughter started her freshman year at WVU as well! (We went to Disney for a week right before she moved in to college for her grad trip). It definitely is different not having her at home, but she's enjoying her time there so far! Trying to balance that school life/going out with friends life is starting to be a challenge, but she's liking all of her classes so far. We live a little over an hour away, so I've been down to Morgantown once already since she's moved in, and I'm heading down tomorrow as well. Hope your daughter has a great year!

 

[kittylady1972]

My daughter started her freshman year at WVU as well! (We went to Disney for a week right before she moved in to college for her grad trip). It definitely is different not having her at home, but she's enjoying her time there so far! Trying to balance that school life/going out with friends life is starting to be a challenge, but she's liking all of her classes so far. We live a little over an hour away, so I've been down to Morgantown once already since she's moved in, and I'm heading down tomorrow as well. Hope your daughter has a great year!

Aww...that's awesome. Where is she living? So nice that you can visit as often. My daughter is also enjoying it, though she did video chat me Tuesday with adventures of transportation woes there and her first experience being stuck on the PRT, which I've heard isn't the most reliable...which is a shame as it's like a monorail/peoplemover for college kids and looks cool! I assume they have at least had a photo together if your daughter attended Sunday night lights over the weekend. What a cool event.

 

[kittylady1972]

LEAV-IN' on a JET PLANE....maybe???

So my concerns for our Spirit flight have just hit a new level. Seems their "computer glitches" may not have been resolved after all. Lemme 'splain.

Returned home last night after a 2+ hour tennis match in the crazy 90+ and high humidity tennis match, showered, hit the sheets and was reading through my email when I came upon a disturbing message. Basically it said they determined the credits I used for my flights (about $30 worth) were issued in another passenger's name who was NOT on this booking...so they returned the credits and I needed to call and provide new payment information if I wanted to keep my flight.

WHAT?

Now it was late, but I did some poking around and my reservation (for 3 of us) was still showing up on the app. Ok.

I checked again this morning and as an added bonus I had BID on seats for the fun of it (Spirit allows you to place BIDS on exit row and Big Front seats) and my bid was accepted. I think I bid the lowest amount allowed for exit row seats, which was about $6 less than they would go for if I paid now for them. So now we have exit row seats at least...but will we even be on the plane?

The online system seems to be acting glitchy, I can see my reservation but cannot modify it as I normally would be able to do. I ended up calling Spirit...and the guy on the phone assured me my reservation was still fine and I could ignore that email.

Um....okay then?

Not getting great vibes about that but we'll see what happens.

The good news is that we live only 15 minutes from the airport. While I am the "let's show up an hour early" type of person, my DH is the "let's show up 2 hours early and sit here and wait FOREVER for our flight" person, but I'm going to compromise a bit this time just in case there is a snafu. We usually come up with a reasonable time to leave if travelling together...just me and it's no more than an hour early. Worst case we come home and book a later flight out in the evening or make Spirit put us on another flight. Besides that we have a 6am flight, so one of the first ones out and nothing will be open in the airport at that time food/drink wise which is never fun. However security should be fine.

So....stay tuned on SATURDAY to find out if we really do get out of here on this flight. I'll try to remember to do a live update at some point that day. I'm reading so much about these light crowds at the parks right now, such a shame we have no plans to visit any Disney parks this trip. Maybe those light crowds will also be at Universal though.

 

[rdkeim]

I hate travel drama! Hope you make it!

 

[1Princess1Prince2006]

Aww...that's awesome. Where is she living? So nice that you can visit as often. My daughter is also enjoying it, though she did video chat me Tuesday with adventures of transportation woes there and her first experience being stuck on the PRT, which I've heard isn't the most reliable...which is a shame as it's like a monorail/peoplemover for college kids and looks cool! I assume they have at least had a photo together if your daughter attended Sunday night lights over the weekend. What a cool event.

My daughter is in Stalnaker. And oh no to being stuck on the PRT! Luckily mine doesn't have to take it that often since all of her classes are on the downtown campus, and her dorm is there as well. She does take it to visit her friends over on Evansdale, but not too often.

When we took a tour of the campus last year, they did say the monorail system at Disney and the PRT system at WVU are very similar and modeled after one another, which is a pretty cool fact in linking the two.

 

[kittylady1972]

I hate travel drama! Hope you make it!

Thank you...that makes two of us...well I guess 4 of us since there are 2 others going with me!

My daughter is in Stalnaker. And oh no to being stuck on the PRT! Luckily mine doesn't have to take it that often since all of her classes are on the downtown campus, and her dorm is there as well. She does take it to visit her friends over on Evansdale, but not too often.

When we took a tour of the campus last year, they did say the monorail system at Disney and the PRT system at WVU are very similar and modeled after one another, which is a pretty cool fact in linking the two.

Nice! My daughter is the opposite...she is at the Towers on Evansdale. Her classes are mostly near her but she does have to go downtown a few times. It's been a challenge but I'm sure she will figure it out. Thankfully she has a boyfriend who lives on campus and can drive when she really gets in a bind and needs help but she tries not to do that.

Very cool about the monorail and PRT.

 

[kittylady1972]

Countdown: Less than 24 hours to go!

So I successfully checked in for my flight this morning and have my boarding passes. That means I still have a reservation right? I noticed that for the emergency row seats that we bid on and won, they have us in 3 different rows...two of us are in window seats and one is in an aisle seat. Since DH usually likes the aisle I'll likely switch with him. However I did note that if I try to swap my seat online, even though technically it is the same cost level seat, it will charge me $25 each to make that change. Um...no thank you. Also the flight looks relatively full, I'd say at least 80% at this point, and of course could be more once people finish checking into their flights. Then again for about $30 each for this flight, if you don't make it it's not a major loss for some people.

We talked yesterday about the weather which could be a bit unsettled while there but we will find ways to keep ourselves busy. I mentioned that we technically have some "free" waterpark passes (3 of them) that we could use, but honestly I'd rather save them for when Typhoon Lagoon (hopefully) reopens. I prefer that one over Blizzard Beach.

I'm looking forward to this little getaway and just mostly playing it by ear while there. We don't have any real agenda for the most part. I have a lot of ADRs that I have to track in case we change our minds though. The crazy thing was that I can still get Chef Mickey's for Saturday if I want it, but while I did really enjoy the new setup and food during our last trip, I'm not sure I want to shell out the money for it. The last thing I need is all you can eat when I'm trying (and failing) to lose some weight already.

Ok hopefully tomorrow you will hear from me as I get on my flight or at least once we have arrived in Florida! Come on Spirit...I'm counting on you!

 

[CruellaNY]

Ugh I need to do a purge! Closets, drawers, and the laundry room for sure. I say I'm going to start the next time I have a free day................and that never comes lol.

Glad your daughter is settled in to college life! Ricky goes back tomorrow so we've been getting all his stuff ready; I need to pack him up today because if I just leave it to him, he'll ask for my help tonight at like 10:00 anyway lol.

OMG with the flight! Glad it appears to be all set??? I'll just stick with JetBlue, I can't handle all that drama Seats picked when we book and credits always work and while they've had a bit of cancellation issues the last few months it's nothing like Spirit - and American! Safe travels and I hope the weather holds out for you guys!

 

[kittylady1972]

Ugh I need to do a purge! Closets, drawers, and the laundry room for sure. I say I'm going to start the next time I have a free day................and that never comes lol.

Glad your daughter is settled in to college life! Ricky goes back tomorrow so we've been getting all his stuff ready; I need to pack him up today because if I just leave it to him, he'll ask for my help tonight at like 10:00 anyway lol.

OMG with the flight! Glad it appears to be all set??? I'll just stick with JetBlue, I can't handle all that drama Seats picked when we book and credits always work and while they've had a bit of cancellation issues the last few months it's nothing like Spirit - and American! Safe travels and I hope the weather holds out for you guys!

Yes the purge felt good...it sparks my husband to say "I'm sorry what happened to my wife" because I am a natural keeper of all things (I come by it honestly...at least two generations which he realizes) but I am getting better. I'm learning slowly to let more things go. It's not an easy transition though. So far I've tackled my bedroom closet, our study, and our laundry room where we had a cabinet overflowing with towel "rags" and such.

Best of luck to Ricky on his return to school!

I am okay with our occasional Spirit flight because so far we've had pretty good luck. We will return on SWA which is our preferred carrier. I think JetBlue stopped flying out of our airport during the pandemic. It's a shame because I did like them when we used them. Perhaps one day I can use them again out of one of the other airports but those are not even close to being as convenient for us.

 

[cajunfan]

Good luck tomorrow! I will send good vibes and pixie dust our way tomorrow!

 

[kittylady1972]

Good luck tomorrow! I will send good vibes and pixie dust our way tomorrow!

Thank you so much...I'll take them all!

 

[kittylady1972]

In case you are reading and wondering...we made it. Things went very well this morning, our flight wasn't too full and the flight was good and landing was SUPERB!

We rolled to our rental and were starving so DH made a reservation at Ale & Compass as I was driving. Breakfast was good.

We then hit the Universal Parks for a bit. Then it was just hot so we headed to AK Lodge and grabbed our bathing suits, changed at the pool and relaxed.

Now I have a drink in hand and we are waiting out a Florida storm after being kicked out of the pool area. Still waiting for our room to be ready.

Kinda hungry but don't want to eat too much since we have dinner at 6pm at Toledo.

 

[kittylady1972]

Live update 2: Not long after my last post our room was ready. I was able to get in a nap before dinner at Toledo. The 3 of us just shared appetizers and some rice which was perfect. DS 17 had dessert and DH had coffee but I was still finishing my sangria. After not having lunch this meal was perfect. Now we are hanging at the room and watching movies and might head out to Citrocos later just for dessert.

 

[kittylady1972]

Another update on our first and last full day of vacation. We had a great day that included:

A nice breakfast at the GF Cafe (I had the lobster eggs benedict!)​

A monorail ride and some shopping at the Contemporary​

An awesome day with very light crowds at the Universal Parks...for the first time we finally saw the Bourne Spectacular and it was...SPECTACULAR​

Two rides with limited waits on Velocicoaster...a favorite​

Some pool time at the Kidani Pool​

A really nice meal at a place called Vines​

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I'm so glad my friend who lives here told me about Magical Dining week here and so glad I remembered. We had a really nice 3 course meal at a very nice restaurant. We will have to go back.​

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Now nothing exciting, with full bellies we will chill in the room and I'm already feeling ready to sleep. Tomorrow we will have breakfast at O'Hana, pack up, and probably spend some time at Disney Springs and maybe go mini golf also.​

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[kittylady1972]

Live update. Sitting at MCO. Our original flight was canceled. We learned this while we were at Splitsville doing some bowling. We scrambled to get on another flight a d rebook all 3 of us as we had 3 different ressies. Moved us from 6:15 flight to a 4:50pm flight. It is now 4:46pm but we haven't started boarding because our plane came from an international location and had to go through another inspection. New flight is also not direct but is (well was) scheduled to land around the same time as original. We don't have to change planes.

So this sudden change meant canceling our LINNER today in Disney Springs but that's okay. We still had a nice fun final morning at Disney including a great breakfast at O'Hana despite the woman at the table next to be being a VERY LOUD talker the entire time.

So our plane is at the gate and we should be boarding soon. Since I lost my early bird status when I had to change flights DH used his SWA card credits to get us Premium (A5-A7) boarding.

Anyway next updates to come when we return not likely tonight though. Sadly I'm back to work tomorrow after out fun extended weekend.

 

[kastoney]

Hi there! Found my way over here and am officially all caught up on your adventures thus far.

We are so cut from the same cloth. I love, love, love me some crabs from the bay. Sadly I didn't get any this year because they were so expensive everywhere.

Congratulations to your daughter!!! What a huge accomplishment to get asked to MC

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:

That is crazy. How does that work? Are you just in front of the glass?

Right now I can book a flight one way to FL on Spirit for about $10. Yes that's correct.

$10!!!! And here I thought Frontier was cheap. Now I know Spirit will add on a fee just to walk on the jet bridge but that is still pretty crazy.

Dropping her off last week in West Virginia was not as easy as I thought but I know she'll have a good time there and so far she's enjoying herself.

Go WVU!!! My hubby is from WV and went there for a year before he transferred to Virginia Tech where we met. My step nephew (if that is a thing) is a senior pre-med student there and has really enjoyed his time as a Mountaineer

Love their shirts!!!

I am sure she misses her other family member and will be happy to see her back home too. In the meantime we'll keep Harley the puppy dog busy like her first trip here to the dog beach near our house. She had so much fun...we have to take her back soon!

❤ ❤ ❤

I checked again this morning and as an added bonus I had BID on seats for the fun of it (Spirit allows you to place BIDS on exit row and Big Front seats) and my bid was accepted. I think I bid the lowest amount allowed for exit row seats, which was about $6 less than they would go for if I paid now for them. So now we have exit row seats at least...but will we even be on the plane?

$10 tickets and gambling on seats. It's like Vegas

 

[kittylady1972]

Hi there! Found my way over here and am officially all caught up on your adventures thus far.

YAY! So nice to "see" you here!

We are so cut from the same cloth. I love, love, love me some crabs from the bay. Sadly I didn't get any this year because they were so expensive everywhere.

BOO! This makes me sad for you. I am pretty sure I would sell my first born if that was required for me to get some crabs. J/K. Maybe...he can be a bit trying at times. We've definitely cut back on how often we have them and we have cooked them from home once or twice since I am more than willing to buy them off a truck and take them home and get my hubby to cook them for me...which sometimes can be a bit cheaper.

Congratulations to your daughter!!! What a huge accomplishment to get asked to MC

Thanks...we were so so proud of her for stepping way out of her comfort zone.

That is crazy. How does that work? Are you just in front of the glass?

Yep...exactly. Photo with big cats though was a must!

$10!!!! And here I thought Frontier was cheap. Now I know Spirit will add on a fee just to walk on the jet bridge but that is still pretty crazy.

Yes...very very cheap and more flights at least for us out of our home airport. So far, our Spirit experiences have all been good. I think we've had more issues with changes/cancellations of our SWA flights than our Spirit ones. Plus I always think...if it get cancelled and we can't reschedule...well I'm not out that much money if I can't make a new reservation work and we only have a 15 minute drive back home from the airport. I have to say this weekend our Spirit experience was a zillion times better than our SWA experience considering our SWA flight was cancelled on us. Plus when we landed at MCO Saturday morning on Spirit I have to say that was the SMOOTHEST landing of a flight EVER for us. You couldn't even tell when we touched down.

Go WVU!!! My hubby is from WV and went there for a year before he transferred to Virginia Tech where we met. My step nephew (if that is a thing) is a senior pre-med student there and has really enjoyed his time as a Mountaineer

That's so cool! We have very good friends whose son, same age as my daughter, just started at VT and he also happens to be our Godson. The kids are all like cousins to each other since they have all grown up together. My son also is thinking he'd like to attend VT...but that all depends on if they give him money to go there since out of state tuition there is CRAZY.

Love their shirts!!!

Thanks...love Etsy people!

$10 tickets and gambling on seats. It's like Vegas

Yeah pretty much. The seat bidding is an interesting concept so I had to try it. Probably next time we'll just stick to our free seats especially for day trips.

 

[kittylady1972]

Quick update now that we are back in Maryland.

Overall: This was a great trip. I kinda liked that it was basically an extended weekend getaway for us. Travel with my youngest son (17yo) was so easy too. He is so easy going...just feed him a regular basis and he's good. He's becoming a little more adventurous now in his eating too which makes it fun.

Travel: Spirit airlines gets an A- overall in my book, only because of that snafu that happened Thursday with the email regarding my reservation credits. We arrived in plenty of time for our 6:15am flight, boarding was quick and smooth, no issues once in the air, and the landing at MCO was one of the smoothest I have EVER experienced. For the first time in a long time we didn't have to wait on the tarmac at MCO for a gate. SWA gets a C in my book for cancelling our 6:15pm flight at about 1pm that day. Good news is we managed to move to a close-enough flight that had us leaving 90 minutes earlier and connecting through RDU (NC) instead of direct but no plane change. However our 4:50pm flight did not go out on time because at MCO the plane came in from an international location and was whisked off for another inspection. Kudos to the gate agent for somewhat giving an update about this while we were sitting there plane-less. I think we left about 30 minutes late? Then at RDU when the non-connecting passengers got off the plane, the flight attendant at first said stay on the plane after the head count of through passengers as they were going to load up and move out...THEN came back and said BWI was on a ground stop and we would be an hour delayed and we could leave the plane but not go far and THEN before we could leave said "just kidding" and loaded the plane with the rest of the passengers. Adding to that I had the most obnoxiously loud teen-ish kid sitting behind me who was talking VERY loud on his phone while we were still at the gate and then in the middle of our 44 minute flight he started SCREAM SINGING "Hail to the Redskins" to the point that TWO flight attendants had to come talk to him and his responses to them...ridiculous. And he was with his mom from what I recall hearing him talk about and I heard nothing from her trying to shut him up. ***? Both flights also not the best landings IMO. And finally for our rental car we tried Hertz this time which I booked via BJs Travel...and though I never agreed to it they ended up adding the pre-paid fuel option to me which I never do because I never use the whole tank especially for this short trip. Sufficed to say we drove the heck out of that little car to burn up some gas...which is why you should never buy a rental car. I guess it worked out to be a time saver but not a money saver since I am well versed in where to get gas close to the airport and would never have paid what I paid for that tank.

Food: My boys are big breakfast eaters, I am not, but we did enjoy 3 good breakfasts at Ale & Compass, GF Cafe and O'Hana. We didn't really do lunches, but had dinners at Toledo (awesome) and Vines Grille and Wine Bar (not on property). We also shared some food at Splitsville when we learned we would have to cancel our planned late lunch/early dinner at Terralina Crafted Italian due to our flight change. The pizza was pretty good there.

Crowds: We didn't do Disney parks but the Universal crowds were not bad. We only spent a few hours at the parks on Saturday because we arrived late and we were also a bit tired and wanted to have some pool time after sweating for a few hours and before dinner. Sunday we arrived around 11am at Universal Studios and had very light crowds all day. We did Velocicoaster twice in a row with about 25 minute waits. We skipped Hagrids in favor of the 2nd ride on Veloci but I think it was also showing about 35 minutes (so did Veloci...but we waited only 25). We did all the stuff we really wanted to do at both parks in two days and we had some one-time use Express Passes but only used them at Gringotts due to it being a 45 minute wait. We have 3 more we have to use by the end of the month but probably won't be able to do so.

Other stuff: Really enjoyed the pools at both AK Lodge Jambo and Kidani. Had a great time mini golfing yesterday at Fantasia Gardens and bowling at Splittsville.

I'll try to provide some additional detailed updates with photos soon.

 

[kittylady1972]

More food than you can enjoy at Jaleo YES PLEASE!

So we happen to live close to Washington, DC which has many wonderful culinary options...which we never explore. Now that our kids are older (and some gone) it's a chance to explore those. We chose Tuesday night this week as our first event...and plan to make it a monthly thing.

We drove to the DC Metro station nearest our house (about 25 minutes away) and reloaded our fare cards for the trip. Arrived at the station nearest the restaurant, had to provide proof of our COVID vaccine to eat inside, and were soon seated. We ordered a ton of stuff...all very good (well the ones I was willing to try) and so let me see if I can list them all. The sangria was excellent of course:



Selección de embutidos A selection of all cured meats
Croquetas de pollo Traditional chicken fritters
Escalivada Roasted red pepper, onion and eggplant with sherry dressing
Gambas al ajillo The very, very famous tapa of shrimp sautéed with garlic
Conejo en salmorejo con puré de albaricoques Canary-islands-style marinated rabbit confit with apricot purée
Endibias con queso de cabra y naranjas Endives, goat cheese, oranges and almonds


Aceitunas tradicionales y modernas Stuffed anchovy and piquillo pepper olives and liquid olives “Ferran Adrià”


Dátiles con tocino ‘como hace todo el mundo’ Fried bacon-wrapped dates served with an apple-mustard sauce



Setas al ajillo Sautéed button mushrooms in a garlic and white wine sauce


Pulpo a la Gallega Boiled octopus with peewee potatoes, pimentón and olive oil


NO PHOTOS:
Calamares en su tinta Basque-style squid with rice and squid ink sauce
Carne asada con piquillos* Grilled hanger steak with confit piquillo peppers

And then of course...

DESSERT:
‘Pan con chocolate’ Chocolate custard with caramelized bread, olive oil and brioche ice cream

Flan al estilo tradicional de mamá Marisa con espuma de crema Catalana A classic Spanish custard with‘espuma’ of Catalan cream and oranges
Texturas de pomelo con helado de aceite de oliva Olive oil ice cream with textures of grapefruit



I will say that I tried MOST of these...I didn't eat the squid or octopus and definitely not poor Bugs Bunny. My FIL insisted I try an anchovy stuffed olive...it was quickly washed down with the Sangria.

Jose Andreas has a few other restaurants in DC and I think we may have to try another one again in the future!
We really enjoyed this meal and the experience.