My TR in photos

[Tashinwdw]

Here are some more photos of Cabana Bay Resort. We really loved staying here, the pools were the best out of all the places we stayed at. Service was great and would recommend it.

The lazy river was so relaxing












I am happy to answer any questions you have about the resort.

 

[Aussie Wendy]

Cabana Bay looks nice - I like the rooms. Hopefully nobody roasts me for saying this, but for some reason from pics I keep seeing, it reminds me of a Butlin's Holiday Camp!! That's not meant to be negative by the way - they have reinvented themselves for the millennium and nothing like the old 50's and 60's style but I think its the retro decor e.g. in the food court-type place plus all the extra entertainment options like the bowling alley etc.

 

[Tashinwdw]

Our expectations were not high for this part of our trip, we had done universal in LA last holiday and we did not really enjoy the day. But as I had heard so much about Universal Orlando I really wanted to at least give it a go. (Last time it was the last day of our holiday, it was stinking hot, they stuffed up the shuttle on the way there and on the return and it just ended up being a long day that we were all tired).

It was an easy bus ride to the Universal entrance, the buses from Cabana Bay went every few minutes so we never had to wait.

I am so glad that we did it, we all really enjoyed it. My DD14 was only disappointed because the rest of us were all to chicken to go on some of the roller coasters and she did not want to do them alone.

We had a blast in this section, playing on the different cartoon type transport, taking photos as well as under the speech bubble signs, it was a great way to start the day.



I had my first taste of chilli cheese fries and I loved them. I think I was so hungry that I did not even take a photo of them. Actually I do have a photo of me eating them, which I did not realise DH took, I am definitely not putting that on here.

I am a big transformers fan so we had to do that as soon as possible. Of course I get motion sickness really bad but was determined to do the ride again (did it in LA) and this time keep my eyes open, I did keep them open most of the ride and did feel yuk for about 30 mins after but it was worth it.



My boys loved that they got to watch nickelodeon on tv at the resort as they are sponge bob fans, so ds10 was really excited when he noticed a sponge bob parade it was great that the characters stayed around after it to get photos and meet kids.


We went into the jurassic park play area and ended up having a blast, we were in there for ages, exploring and climbing and spraying each other with water. I am not sure if we were in there for so long because we kept getting lost in there or because we were just having so much fun together.



We all had a great few days at Universal, DD14 insisted on getting a photo with every character we saw, which was loads of fun but I wont put them all on here, I will save you all from that.

One thing I was glad about was even though they are mostly all teenagers they still enjoyed going on the young kids rides and would laugh and joke around on them. It made me enjoy it even more but also made it a bit sad as I know they are growing up and its all happening all too fast.


We did do harry potter rides but I will do that as a seperate post.

 

[LivingforDisney]

It looks great, we are planning on staying 4or 5 nights at Cabana Bay. Was going to ask what you thought of Harry Potter rides.
Is it far from Cabana Bay ti I Drive, cause we want to do the Titanic thing.
How was your school with taking the kids out, just wondering as mine are in high school, that's why we are planning Dec 2015/Jan 2016.
We were in Orlando this time last year.

 

[Tashinwdw]

It looks great, we are planning on staying 4or 5 nights at Cabana Bay. Was going to ask what you thought of Harry Potter rides.
Is it far from Cabana Bay ti I Drive, cause we want to do the Titanic thing.
How was your school with taking the kids out, just wondering as mine are in high school, that's why we are planning Dec 2015/Jan 2016.
We were in Orlando this time last year.

My kids are in 3 different schools and they were all fine with it. Some teachers gave exams earlier, others gave assessments earlier, it was a busy few weeks before we left for the kids but they coped. We advised the teachers at the beginning of the year and then reminded them once term 3 started, we filled out the exemption forms from the Department so that the absent days do not get included on their records. DDs are in year 10 and 8 and DS in in year 7. I think it will be different as next year they will be doing HSC, DS in year 5 had no problems with his teacher and school either.

I dont think I could handle the crowds at christmas time, while we were at WDW they were telling us that on christmas day the car parks are full and they actually have to close the gates at lunch time because they have reached capacity - I dont think that would be fun at all.

Cabana Bay is close to I Drive, if you hire a car then its only a few minutes drive, if going by taxi I would say it would cost under $10 but it will depend on traffic etc. There are buses that go up and down I drive which is the cheaper alternative.
Harry Potter rides were amazing.

 

[LivingforDisney]

Thanks for that, yes last year I had to get the exemption, but they only missed 8 days. My poor son had like 5 assignments he had to get done before we left.
My plan is to go around the 11th/12th Dec and do Disney parks before the Xmas crowds arrive.
Then over the busy period do some other stuff we want to do. Then early Jan a cruise, go back to Disney parks and Universal.
It is all going to really depend on what the airfares are going to be , which date we will fly out.
My son will just have gone into year 12 as they go into year 12 when they start back after Sept holidays, but I will speak to the school, as I think or hope it will be ok to miss the last week of term in the December.
We might even stay a few nights somewhere on I Drive, lots of planning.
Just waiting for Disney to release their cruises for Jan 2016.

 

[zanzibar138]

Loving the TR so far

I didn't mind driving in the US generally, but Vegas was SUPER stressful! I was in tears and shaking by the time we got to our hotel.

I've also been to the South Rim and wondered how the west would compare. FWIW I think your photos look pretty good

Too bad DH got sick. Glad to hear he improved for the rest of the trip.

Sounds like you had some bad luck with flights.

Cabana Bay looks great! I think a lazy river is the only pool area of a hotel that I'd be tempted to use I'm not really one for swimming, but floating around doesn't sound bad!

I have often wondered how their SeaWorlds compare to ours too, so thanks for giving me an idea. I love your penguin photo!

I also had an average time at Universal in LA, but I'm pretty keen to get to Universal in Orlando. I love thrill rides though, so I'd be going on all those big rollercoasters.

I get bad motion sickness too. Have you thought about taking tablets for it? If we're riding a simulator type ride and the line is half an hour or more, I'll take a Kwell when we get in line (I need 2 for Transformers!). Otherwise if it's just a short line I'll take a Kwell then go and do something else first and come back after half an hour. It makes it much more pleasant when you don't have to put up with that awful sick feeling. I take Kwells for flights too. It's only a problem when there's turbulence, but since you never know when that might be, I just take it all the time.

 

[Tashinwdw]

Loving the TR so far

I get bad motion sickness too. Have you thought about taking tablets for it? If we're riding a simulator type ride and the line is half an hour or more, I'll take a Kwell when we get in line (I need 2 for Transformers!). Otherwise if it's just a short line I'll take a Kwell then go and do something else first and come back after half an hour. It makes it much more pleasant when you don't have to put up with that awful sick feeling. I take Kwells for flights too. It's only a problem when there's turbulence, but since you never know when that might be, I just take it all the time.

Every travel tablet I have taken makes me very very drowsy so I dont like to take them when I am in a park. I did however try a pill that was recommended on here called Bonine while I was on the cruise, made me a little drowsy on the first day but nothing like kwells or the other ones I have tried.

 

[Tashinwdw]

I must confess I am not a big Harry Potter fan, I have watched the movies but it never really sucked me in. I still was interested in this part of the park as I wanted to know what everyone was talking about. I have to admit, it was amazing, the theming was fantastic. As I am not a fan I could not walk fast a shop front and know exactly what it was from etc. To give an example at the London section I was wondering why so many ppl were coming in and out of the (what I though must of been toilets) then guessed it must of been a ride, then it finally hit me that as it was a train station this is where the ride on Hogwarts express must be It did really feel like you were in the movie, and I could only imagine how much more wonderful and exciting it would be for those Harry Potter fans.







I just had to try the ButterBeer, I was sure it could not live up to the hype. We got the Frozen one and we all loved it, we splurged on a few of these while we were there as well as the butter beer icecream. YUMMY!







The first day we were there we didnt do the Gringotts ride, it was a 40 minute wait and I was just not that keen to wait that long, I knew we would be back the next day so would try it then. The next day while the kids were on another ride we said we would meet them there, when we arrived it was a 20 minute wait, by the time the kids got there it had gone up to 30. As you had to put your belongings in a locker I did not have a camera with me. I wish I did, inside was amazing, it was stunning with all the detail. The goblins (or what ever they are called) we so real like.



I of course got rather ill riding this ride and had to keep closing my eyes to try and stop the motion sickness feeling. The parts I did open my eyes was great. My kids loved it.

The first day we did do Hogwarts express and it was a 30 minute wait. It was never that long after that, every time we walked past it was only 10 minutes. This was not what I expected, the train ride was great. It was just like in the movie, you have your own cabin and the window gives you scene shots as you travel through the country side. You also have silhouettes of harry and friends outside your cabin talking etc.

 

[PrincessInOz]

Diagon Alley looks fantastic. Looks like you had a great time; motion sickness and all.

 

[FireflyFi]

Loving the photos - especially Cabana Bay! The styling is very cool and good to see your kids having such a great time!

 

[newkie]

I haven't even done my Disneyland trip yet and already I want to go and do all the Orlando stuff! Harry Potter looks amazing and I have to stay at Cabana Bay, it looks so cool!

 

[zanzibar138]

Every travel tablet I have taken makes me very very drowsy so I dont like to take them when I am in a park. I did however try a pill that was recommended on here called Bonine while I was on the cruise, made me a little drowsy on the first day but nothing like kwells or the other ones I have tried.

Oh, that's annoying. I'm very lucky and don't tend to get side effects from any medications (honestly, even Endone doesn't make me drowsy and sleeping tablets don't work for me!), so I don't really think of it.

 

[minneylovesmicky]

My son will just have gone into year 12 as they go into year 12 when they start back after Sept holidays, but I will speak to the school, as I think or hope it will be ok to miss the last week of term in the December.

do they really do much the last week of term at yrs end at your sons school?? you may find he won't miss much at all, it is more the other terms that are the hardest to miss the last week, as some teachers hand out assignments to be done in the holidays.

my daughter has just finished yr 12 and her exams are next week, she got assignments every single school holidays including the Xmas one - (Xmas assignment was from a bit of a slack teacher in that she was weeks behind what should be taught, yr 12 finished two weeks ago and there is still a core the students have not been taught, that they must learn themselves in three weeks for their HSC exams)

I remember their last week of term 4 is a muck up/activites week and no classes are on.

 

[Tashinwdw]

do they really do much the last week of term at yrs end at your sons school?? you may find he won't miss much at all, it is more the other terms that are the hardest to miss the last week, as some teachers hand out assignments to be done in the holidays.

my daughter has just finished yr 12 and her exams are next week, she got assignments every single school holidays including the Xmas one - (Xmas assignment was from a bit of a slack teacher in that she was weeks behind what should be taught, yr 12 finished two weeks ago and there is still a core the students have not been taught, that they must learn themselves in three weeks for their HSC exams)

I remember their last week of term 4 is a muck up/activites week and no classes are on.

My DD's school do a roll over during week 6 of term 4 and they go up to the next year then. That way they dont waste those last few weeks of school, its good because it keeps them motivated.

 

[Tashinwdw]

After exploing Diagon Alley we were off to Hogesmeade. It was crowded there as well but not as much as Diagon Alley.



As you can see the wait times were really good for Harry Potter and the forbidden Journey, even though I was not good on rides like these I just had to do it. This one was worse, even DH said he was not feeling the best after that. Friends we met up with who go on everything said they felt a bit green during this one so I didnt feel so bad when the kids asked me to do it with them again and me saying NO! I must say the spiders and dementors were amazing, I always seemed to open my eyes each time one of them were right in front of my face - So the parts I did see, I enjoyed.

Flight of the Hippogriff is alot more my style, the kids did it a few times, I was still recovering from the Forbidden Journey ride.


DS10 bought an interactive wand which was rather expensive in my opinion $50. We were only able to get it to work on one of the areas, We could see other ppl having problems as well so it wasnt just us that sucked at wizardry.

The snow capped building were not much help in the heat but they did look good.

We finished the day off at




We were all happy we had done what we wanted at both parks and even had the time to do rides really liked more than once. DD14 was disappointed that we were all to chicken to go on the Hulk with her and some of the other rides at different places during our vacation- so I think she is looking forward to going back when she is older with friends who are braver than us.

3 days were enough for us at Universal Studios and we were really looking forward to the next day which was our day at Discovery Cove (this ended up being one of the highlights of our trip)

 

[jevs]

I'm loving the photos, I wish January would hurry up already.

Thanks for the heads up about the rides and wands, I'll have to give FJ a miss, I felt motion sick on Star Tours.

We're also staying at Cabana Bay so great to read a positive report.

 

[zanzibar138]

Sounds like you had a great time at Universal Looking forward to hearing about Discovery Cove!

 

[dabecs]

We are going to Discovery Cove so I can't wait to hear your review!

 

[PrincessInOz]

Looks like fun times with the family. Thanks for sharing.