The Ever-changing US-IOA-SW-BG TR - June 2016 Trip - COMPLETE!

[kittylady1972]

You get the quick que from the Expedia desk in the hotel lobby. While the quick ques can be out of stock, I'd check to see if some are still available when you check in. You can also get quick ques the night before. At least that's what we did at the Residence Inn.

Sounds like a great trip. We'll be staying near DC and doing all the Busch parks for Christmas. We did that a couple of years ago, and Orlando calls again.

Thanks for the info! Hopefully we can get them for at least one of our days there.

 

[kittylady1972]

It should be a lot of fun! I should have prefaced with the fact that I've actually been to BG Williamsburg many times. I LOVE Griffon and Apollo the most too - not a fan of the new Tempesto. The food is good for an amusement park IMO. Summer crowds are pretty manageable (I have never once needed to buy an express pass). Water Country is also a lot of fun! I guess wether we go or not will largely depend on my friend's budget during her month stay here. My boyfriend has been to both (he grew up in MD, has family in Tampa) and thinks Williamsburg blows Tampa out of the water. Granted we went to Williamsburg the last 2 summers and he hasn't been to BG Tampa in years!

Ok well our BG Tampa was a few years ago and while we did like it (Cheetah Hunt is also AWESOME and tops our coaster list) we still love BGW better. Food was good at both. Crowds weren't horrible EXCEPT for Cheetah Hunt at Tampa and that was a June trip. We have mostly done BGW in summer months also. Hopefully they will be up for the experience!

 

[kittylady1972]

I have to admit there is a small part of me that was tempted this morning to book one or two Walt Disney World restaurants for our upcoming June trip. However I really want to try to stay AWAY from the draw of Disney this time, especially since we were just there last July and we'll be back THIS November. So I will continue to resist...and stick with the Universal and City Walk restaurants and maybe nearby off-site restaurants ONLY this trip.

DH and I are both trying our best to lose some weight. The years after 40 have not been very kind to either of us, and it's much harder to drop pounds than it used to be for us. While I don't think either one of us will have a huge weight loss in just five more weeks, as long as my shorts fit better on me I'm good. So we don't really need to go overboard with eating while on vacation as that won't help our cause.

One place I wanted to book was T-Rex in Downtown, only because we've found our last two visits to them to be quite good. They had some REALLY good fall off the bone ribs last few visits so if there is anywhere in the Universal world that makes some killer fall-off-the-bone spare ribs, please share! It's not something we consume often at all but it would be a bonus to try some other places this time. Other than that, I'm a huge seafood fan but I've live in Maryland all my life so the seafood anywhere else doesn't do it for me anyway. I'm thinking we may give Cowfish a try since we do enjoy sushi and I have one particular burger-loving kid.

I know it's not about the food, and we don't want to break the bank. We've done one of the HP restaurants before and enjoyed it (the one in the older part of HP) and last time we also ate at Lombard's, which we enjoyed but I remember it was REALLY cold in the restaurant (yes I know it was June but A/C only feels good for a short time) and I remember it was a lot of food. DH and I ate at Mythos but it's been many years (like I think that was 2003) so maybe we could try it again. Then again, fast food joints work just as well for us and I can usually go for a good pizza on vacation too to feed all five of us.

 

[schumigirl]

Oh I hear you on the weight loss after 40.......I think it thrives on the reverse!

Cowfish sushi is ok. You would get far better taking the boat to RPR and eat sushi in Orchids Lounge.......no reservations required and is such a relaxing place. Far superior to Cowfish. You can order a burger there too as any other food ordered than sushi comes from Jake's downstairs.......fabulous food. Sushi is all freshly prepared at the counter. It is however more expensive, so if budget is important take that into account.

Ribs.........I'm sure NBC has fabulous ribs, we haven't been yet but friends enjoyed them. Long time ago we went to HRC and my husband loved the ribs there.......we don't go there as it's so loud and we are just too old for that much noise.......lol......

There are some fabulous places close by that do great ribs too........Teak Neighborhood Grill do ribs and the the most amazing burgers........better than cowfish too.........and for the cheapest of the cheap meals Bubbalous Bodacious Barbeque is only a 5 minute drive away from Universal, Teak is about 10 minutes max. There are a couple of pictures of burgers from Teak and Cowfish in my trip report from last year. Donut burger was amazing!

Best pizza we have found over the years is definitely Sal's at PBH and Jakes in RPR........big enough to share and so tasty..........my DH and I shared the smallest size pizza last year and it was more than enough. So a large one would easily share between a family.

Can you tell food plays a big part of our trip.........

 

[kittylady1972]

Oh I hear you on the weight loss after 40.......I think it thrives on the reverse!

Cowfish sushi is ok. You would get far better taking the boat to RPR and eat sushi in Orchids Lounge.......no reservations required and is such a relaxing place. Far superior to Cowfish. You can order a burger there too as any other food ordered than sushi comes from Jake's downstairs.......fabulous food. Sushi is all freshly prepared at the counter. It is however more expensive, so if budget is important take that into account.

Ribs.........I'm sure NBC has fabulous ribs, we haven't been yet but friends enjoyed them. Long time ago we went to HRC and my husband loved the ribs there.......we don't go there as it's so loud and we are just too old for that much noise.......lol......

There are some fabulous places close by that do great ribs too........Teak Neighborhood Grill do ribs and the the most amazing burgers........better than cowfish too.........and for the cheapest of the cheap meals Bubbalous Bodacious Barbeque is only a 5 minute drive away from Universal, Teak is about 10 minutes max. There are a couple of pictures of burgers from Teak and Cowfish in my trip report from last year. Donut burger was amazing!

Best pizza we have found over the years is definitely Sal's at PBH and Jakes in RPR........big enough to share and so tasty..........my DH and I shared the smallest size pizza last year and it was more than enough. So a large one would easily share between a family.

Can you tell food plays a big part of our trip.........

Wow...thanks for all the great ideas! Since we are staying at RPR, then sounds like we'll just stick to there if we want a sushi fix.

Sounds like some good off-site places to try as well. I'm tempted to take my family to Columbia in Celebration simply for the 1905 Salad and I think they might enjoy something different. A friend who lives nearby took me there a few years ago...so good! Also tempted to head back to Taverna Opa in Orlando as we had a great meal there years ago...with the same local friend. Yes we enjoy some food ourselves!

Good to know about Jakes pizza, because I was thinking that will be a good place to eat for us since we'll be there.

Ok now I'm hungry...and an hour to go until my lunchtime!

 

[kittylady1972]

I may have already mentioned that my family is a group of amusement-park junkies. We just love thrill rides and it's always been tough over the years when the kids weren't quite bit enough to ride things. We've always been able to work out a system where we ride and somebody stays behind, or we walk them through the ride at the line and they wait for us...but it's tough. At the end of the summer/early fall, they all finally reached that "magic" height of 54 inches. We celebrated by buying season passes to our nearest Six Flags park (we are very close to the one in Maryland) and got in a few trips in the fall and now we have the pass for this year as well.

Needless to say, when we have some time to kill on the weekends, we head over to the local park. It isn't much, I'll admit, but I have to say it has come a VERY long way the last few years. It used to be the rides weren't well cared for, the staff wasn't friendly, it was just pathetic overall but they have really been making some improvements over the last few years and now it's actually pretty nice overall. It's not our favorite, but it's small and it's enough for us to get our ride on for a while. When we have a full day, we actually make the drive to New Jersey to visit the Six Flags park there, as we like it a lot more. We haven't managed to get there yet this year, but we are hoping to make a trip Memorial Day weekend. Kids have yet to ride Kingda Ka, which is just the ultimate thrill ride coaster! Sadly it tends to be closed many times we have been to 6FNJ but fingers crossed it is open for our next visit.

Anyway I am crazy about getting character photos...and forcing my family to join me. I'm on a mission to get as many of the Looney Tunes characters as I can in photos and this year has been GREAT about that so far.

This one was on Mother's Day:

And this one was our first visit this year:

This one was taken the day AFTER the above photo...when we had to make a return trip to pick up a lost item. My eyes were closed...so we'll have to get another Tweety photo soon I think:

On that same day, we got this one though:

This was a year or two ago...and even when my kids bring along friends they are also subject to my craziness!

This one was a while ago...but love it:

So yeah...it's not just about the rides, though that is a big part.

I guess I'll have to make sure I get some Universal character photos to add to our collection. I have to say I looked over some photos last night from our first trip to Universal, just myself and my husband without the kids...and the one one I had was a dark one with me and Scooby, one with Shaggy and the Mystery Machine (not sure if Scooby was there) and my husband with Earthworm Jim? I don't know...I think that was his name.

So Minions would be great...or anybody else. I just booked TWO meals this morning that are supposed to have characters. Dinner at The Kitchen at HRH on Saturday evening, and breakfast at Islands on Sunday morning. I had having two meals so close together but we'll see what happens.

 

[kittylady1972]

And THIS is exactly why my husband doesn't ask about our vacation plans until the day we leave....

So I decided to do some checking on rates again today...because I'm crazy obviously. I looked into APH rates for Royal Pacific first and sure enough...they had dropped! Originally when I booked it was going to cost me $975 for 3 nights at Royal Pacific, and it was $644 for 2 nights at RPR and then $195 for my one night at Cabana Bay. That was the plan...giving us a chance to try Cabana Bay out, even though we'd have to move after just one night.

Today I booked 3 nights at RPR for a grand total of $874, thus for just $35 more than my original two reservations, I can keep us at ONE resort plus get FOTL access for all of our days, including our Friday planned arrival day . It seemed like a no-brainer to me. I know it will be nice to just settle in at one place for 3 nights initially.

Good thing I didn't get anybody's hopes up, even though I really would have loved to try Cabana Bay. Another time maybe and we can always walk over and check out the resort and pool. I think I read it it not a far walk at all between the two?

So that brings us to this...

Just ANOTHER little tweaking of THE PLAN

THURSDAY: Departure from MD, no later than 1:45pm. With any luck, more like noon. Approximately 10-12 hours of driving, arriving in Florida late Thursday evening.

FRIDAY: Early breakfast at hotel, drive to Orlando. Check-in at Royal Pacific Resort. Get our FOTL passes and then perhaps spend a few hours at Universal Studios. Maybe E.T., The Simpsons, Men in Black, Revenge of the Mummy, Terminator, Transformers. Of these, we have done E.T., Simpsons, and MIB and I think one kid has done Revenge of the Mummy. Back to Resort for dinner (or maybe CityWalk area) and then pool time.

SATURDAY: Perhaps we should start at Harry Potter in IOA and do everything here this morning first. Then ride over to the other side of HP and do the rest. Possibly a mid-day break at the pool and for lunch. Return to the parks for a few hours later that afternoon/evening.

SUNDAY: Universal/IOA again for all the stuff we haven't done yet. Maybe try to hang until dinnertime. Back to resort for dinner and maybe some pool time. Since parks are open until 10pm, maybe a few more evening hours at the parks since it will be our last day. We will then upgrade 4 of our passes to Power Passes before leaving.

MONDAY: At this point, I am thinking this will be Discovery Cove Day. We will check out of Royal Pacific early in the morning and head over to Discovery Cove. Breakfast and lunch and the day at Discovery Cove is the plan. We will leave around dinnertime where we will check into a nearby SeaWorld hotel. I booked one that gives us QuickQueue access as a bonus! Since SeaWorld is open until 9pm, I think we'll grab dinner quickly and then head over and do a few hours at SeaWorld to ride some rides using QuickQueue. I assume since we check-in Monday, we can use QuickQueue both Monday and Tuesday? I'll have to look into the logistics of this.

TUESDAY: Morning at SeaWorld OR Aquatica. Depending on weather, we may just do a little time at Aquatica just to check it out and also do some time at SeaWorld. We'll probably do both parks until after dinnertime, then make the drive to Tampa area. We'll stay with friends here.

WEDNESDAY: Spend the day at Busch Gardens Tampa with our friends and spend the night there.

THURSDAY: On the road early in the morning to head to North Carolina. We'll visit with my brother and his family here and stay Thursday and possibly Friday night there. We will be leaving our 13 year old daughter there to be a Mommy's Helper for a week or so with my SIL and their two small boys.

FRIDAY evening or SATURDAY morning: Head back to to Maryland.

This is quite a bit to pack into a vacation of just over a week, but I think it's pretty manageable.

 

[kittylady1972]

So I was SO excited yesterday about my resort change that I couldn't wait to tell my husband. He said that he wanted to know about the latest change...so I spilled the beans. He is VERY thankful that we are now staying in at least one place for the first 3 nights. I told him we'd still need to bring the air mattress and that it would probably be tight, but overall I think we'll be happy that we can settle in at one hotel for our first three nights AND get the FOTL access for Fri/Sat/Sun which I think will be more than enough time for us to do everything we want to do there. We leave in FOUR weeks!

I was reading another trip report here about SeaWorld and it really brought back memories. We've been there twice with the kids...well actually three times. Once in February 2004 when I was pregnant with child #3:

Then we went back during our Florida-but-no-Disney-Parks trip in June of 2012. We did two days there during that time, and honestly the kids weren't that thrilled with the park. They wanted to do RIDES and there just weren't that many there for them. They do love fish, and we did take the time to feed the dolphins:

And the stingrays:

But other than that, and seeing the shark and fish exhibits, they were pretty much done after about a half day there. Sure they had a small area of kids rides...but they wanted the big rides and they couldn't do them there.

Now Busch Gardens Tampa later that same week was another story. They LOVED Cheetah Hunt:

So we are definitely looking forward to that one again. And while only the adults were able to ride SheiKra last time (my in-laws are in the front here...3rd and 4th from the RIGHT hand side):

It is very similar to Griffon, which all 3 kids got to ride this past summer at BG Williamsburg, so it won't be as big of a thrill to do this one now. Still they will love all the coasters I'm sure.

We are all looking forward to Rip Ride Rocket at Universal as well. I know last time I rode it, I wasn't quick enough selecting my music and didn't get to pick my own tune. That will change this time around for sure. Hopefully we get a few rides in this time with FOTL access.

So many fun things to look forward to in June. While I am anxious for it to get here, I'm also not ready for summer to begin because I know it ends so quickly!

 

[Kivara]

Hooray on the hotel price drop! We did the walk from City Walk to Cabana Bay once and rode the shuttle back to City walk after. It is a much longer walk, but we also were on day 4, it was hot, and we had a larger group of all ages. So it probably felt longer than it was. The shuttle back to CityWalk was nice and quick though...so it's always an option if you can't face walking back

 

[kittylady1972]

Seriously...I need help.

Ok so I looked into Portofino Bay for our same dates...and it would cost us about $17 more to stay there for the same 3 nights.

I keep thinking...bigger rooms...and that air mattress...is it worth it for that? Pool with a slide...also a bonus. Plus we have stayed at the Polynesian in Disney...so the whole Royal Pacific theme has been done before. However never been to Italy....did I mention the family loves Italian and my husband is mostly Italian (his grandparents were right off the boat from Italy, first generation in the US) so maybe a taste of Italy would be nice.

Negatives seem to be that it is a much longer walk to the parks from this resort. There is still the boat option. However when you say long walk...are we talking walking from say Boardwalk/Beach Club to EPCOT walk? We've done that before. I know walks seem much longer at the end of the day than at the beginning of the day. How busy are those boats and how often do they run? I think we can manage that.

So I am holding a room at Portofino now as well. I guess you can understand now why my husband doesn't want to know where we are going until we leave huh?

I am definitely invisioning park mornings and pool afternoons then park evenings for this trip.

And I though I needed a 12-step program just for my Disney planning (did I mention tomorrow I have to book dining reservations for my upcoming Disney trip??)

 

[schumigirl]

If was about to say well done on booking RPR for your trip.......now you're thinking of moving......lol......

You can't go wrong with either..........the walk isn't that much further really.........it's a beautiful walk and maybe an extra 5-7 minutes than RP. Not really a huge difference.

I think I'm the only person in the world who isn't a fan of Italy.......lol......hate opera too, so we avoid the opera singer like the plague.........

Least it doesn't smell like the real town of Portofino did.......lol......

Boats run regularly and it just depends if they're busy or not.........depends on time of day usually.......mid afternoon they can b quiet, but when parks close out or late afternoon they can get busy. It's quicker to walk at times.

Gotta say love the loony tune characters........think I heard every cartoon theme in my head when I looked at your pictures...........nice!!

 

[kittylady1972]

If was about to say well done on booking RPR for your trip.......now you're thinking of moving......lol......
You can't go wrong with either..........the walk isn't that much further really.........it's a beautiful walk and maybe an extra 5-7 minutes than RP. Not really a huge difference.
I think I'm the only person in the world who isn't a fan of Italy.......lol......hate opera too, so we avoid the opera singer like the plague.........
Least it doesn't smell like the real town of Portofino did.......lol......
Boats run regularly and it just depends if they're busy or not.........depends on time of day usually.......mid afternoon they can b quiet, but when parks close out or late afternoon they can get busy. It's quicker to walk at times.
Gotta say love the loony tune characters........think I heard every cartoon theme in my head when I looked at your pictures...........nice!!

First...sorry about the Looney Tune songs in your head now. I am on a crazy mission to get photos with as many different characters as I can when we visit. I loved that we got that space dog one...that was cool. I know he has a name but I'm too lazy to google it now.

I spoke to my husband...who confirmed that I am indeed crazy and I know he would be happy with either place. He asked about pros vs cons and I mentioned them from what I knew from here. Pool slide is a plus...he wanted to know which pool would be better. I think my kids would enjoy having a slide because I do anticipate extra pool time. My daughter loves pool games and it sound like they have those at all pools. I think I'd love to check out the pool at Hard Rock...and I guess it is close enough that we could do that one day.

I guess I figured Portofino would be more unique than any of the other resorts we've stayed at previously and with a family who loves Italian food...it might be a bonus, though my husband did mention we probably wouldn't be eating at the hotel THAT much.

I just read about the lack of refrigerator in the room...but we can deal with that by having a cooler with our drinks in the room that we can hopefully just refill with the ice machine. I'd rather do that than pay $15 a night for one.

So decision made...I promise this time (no finger crossing) that we will do Portofino Bay. I figure we can probably always get better rates at RPR in the future if that's something we want to try one time, but this was a very good deal for what was about $5 more a night.

 

[schumigirl]

Lol.........well at least you've made the decision.

Glad you're not going to be only eating at the the hotel......although you should eat at Sals........pizza is phenomenal and much better than the two other places there.........have to say my opinion only, both places seem popular but didn't taste very authentic Italian to me when we ate there........but Sal's is unmissable!

Yes, all floors have ice machines so you'll be able to keep your cooler filled up easily!

 

[kittylady1972]

Lol.........well at least you've made the decision.

Glad you're not going to be only eating at the the hotel......although you should eat at Sals........pizza is phenomenal and much better than the two other places there.........have to say my opinion only, both places seem popular but didn't taste very authentic Italian to me when we ate there........but Sal's is unmissable!

Yes, all floors have ice machines so you'll be able to keep your cooler filled up easily!

Yes and I will do my best NOT to look at rates anymore. I think $891 for 3 nights at Portofino is pretty good and I doubt it will get any better.

I'll definitely look into Sal's for sure as I love a good pizza. Actually most of us do...my daughter is not a huge fan but she'll be happy with pasta with alfredo sauce.

Good to know about the ice machines, as I expected would be the case. We like to have bottles of water available in the room, preferably cold ones for the summer. I may even consider buying some small milks and cereal bowls for the kids in case they want to have breakfast early in the room, to save us some money on food, and also maybe some snacks (cheese and veggies) to have with us for the pool. We'll see.

 

[gtpoohbear]

I have to LOL at your constant changing, that has been me for the last few years! We used to book a vacation, make the plans, and then not even think about it again until it was time to leave. But every year I seem to change things around more and more, and am constantly second guessing myself. I can't even count how many hours I have wasted at the computer trying to see if I can find a better rate, or a different hotel, or rental car, or flight (not sure if NW allowing free changes is a goo or bad things for us, ha!). When what I have already booked is perfectly fine. And yes, even though I'm pretty set that we want to stay at RPR, I STILL can't help checking rates at the others sometimes!

And trying to stay away from Disney this trip... yep! I keep thinking, we can squeeze in just one park day there, right? Even just a half-day? Or go over to Disney Springs for a few hours? But DH has been in a rather anti-Disney mood lately, so I really just need to "let it go" and hope that he's less grumpy about it for our December trip.

I'm jealous that you have such a nice 6 Flags close by! We have an amusement park not too far away that was briefly a 6 Flags, but not it's back to being independent. And it is in a really sad state, almost not worth going at all.

Sounds like you have an exciting week planned, can't wait to hear about your adventures, and probably steal some ideas

 

[kittylady1972]

I have to LOL at your constant changing, that has been me for the last few years! We used to book a vacation, make the plans, and then not even think about it again until it was time to leave. But every year I seem to change things around more and more, and am constantly second guessing myself. I can't even count how many hours I have wasted at the computer trying to see if I can find a better rate, or a different hotel, or rental car, or flight (not sure if NW allowing free changes is a goo or bad things for us, ha!). When what I have already booked is perfectly fine. And yes, even though I'm pretty set that we want to stay at RPR, I STILL can't help checking rates at the others sometimes!

And trying to stay away from Disney this trip... yep! I keep thinking, we can squeeze in just one park day there, right? Even just a half-day? Or go over to Disney Springs for a few hours? But DH has been in a rather anti-Disney mood lately, so I really just need to "let it go" and hope that he's less grumpy about it for our December trip.

I'm jealous that you have such a nice 6 Flags close by! We have an amusement park not too far away that was briefly a 6 Flags, but not it's back to being independent. And it is in a really sad state, almost not worth going at all.

Sounds like you have an exciting week planned, can't wait to hear about your adventures, and probably steal some ideas

Yes...this changing is NOTHING compared to what is surely to come when it's time for me to make my Disney ADRs for November (next week) and then the ride reservations in September. I really haven't come up with definitive ideas on where to eat for November, other than Thanksgiving Day (Boma) so I'm surely going to have a lot of changes there between now and November. I don't mind the bargain hunting for hotels, cars, etc because I love saving more money...as it's more money to spend on vacation! Rental cars especially can fluctuate a lot. Hotels not too much but getting PB for just $17 more than RPR for our 3 nights seemed like a no-brainer to me. Larger room for the 5 of us...yes please!

Staying away from Disney I think will be easy this trip, especially knowing we'll be there in November. As much as I'm tempted to check out Disney Springs, I think we can spend time exploring all Universal has to offer, CityWalk area, plus the SeaWorld parks since we'll have open access to all of those as well.

Funny you mention our "nice" Six Flags nearby, as honestly it has not always been that way. When we first visited back in 2001, not too long after it became Six Flags America (it had many names before and it is a smaller park) it was not that great. Still it was a place to take our then 1-year-old to play in the water since we didn't have a pool. Plus he could ride the kiddies rides. They actually used to have one or two operators standing by to operated all of the kiddie rides in the one kiddie area....like 5 or 6 rides. So the operator would close down own ride, walk over and open up another one so kids could ride. And the park was SO rundown, carousel falling apart in terms of paint, missing horses/animals, staff seemed like they would rather be anywhere. Then a few years ago, we returned and it was like a new place. Annual passes for our local park are CHEAP ($50 for a year) and they include all other Six Flags parks. We prefer Six Flags Great Adventure in NJ because it's bigger, lots bigger and many more rides, but a 2 hour drive isn't always in our plans. So for 30 minutes we go to what equates to a little more than a local carnival, plus it has big coasters (that we can do over and over) and the staff do seem so much more friendly, chatting up guests and high-fiving them. I know local people cringe when we say we go there, because it isn't in the best part of town at all and there have been fights there in the past, but overall we find it friendly and safe and fun for a few hours.

You are welcome to steal my ideas from my trip for sure. I'll do my best to do a report when I return so people know how it worked out from a somewhat newbie to the Universal/SeaWorld stuff!

 

[kittylady1972]

One more plan update...I forgot about these. We have added two character meals but I'm not sure we'll keep them both.

THURSDAY: Departure from MD, no later than 1:45pm. With any luck, more like noon. Approximately 10-12 hours of driving, arriving in Florida late Thursday evening.

FRIDAY: Early breakfast at hotel, drive to Orlando. Check-in at Royal Pacific Resort. Get our FOTL passes and then perhaps spend a few hours at Universal Studios. Maybe E.T., The Simpsons, Men in Black, Revenge of the Mummy, Terminator, Transformers. Of these, we have done E.T., Simpsons, and MIB and I think one kid has done Revenge of the Mummy. Back to Resort for dinner (or maybe CityWalk area) and then pool time.

SATURDAY: Perhaps we should start at Harry Potter in IOA and do everything here this morning first. Then ride over to the other side of HP and do the rest. Possibly a mid-day break at the pool and for a small lunch. Return to the parks for a few hours later that afternoon/evening. We have a 6:45pm character meal reservation at The Kitchen.

SUNDAY: 7am breakfast at The Islands. I think we may cancel this as it was easy to make 7am when we were staying at RPR but probably not so much now that we are at PBR. Universal/IOA again for all the stuff we haven't done yet. Maybe try to hang until dinnertime. Back to resort for dinner and maybe some pool time. Since parks are open until 10pm, maybe a few more evening hours at the parks since it will be our last day. We will then upgrade 4 of our passes to Power Passes before leaving.

MONDAY: At this point, I am thinking this will be Discovery Cove Day. We will check out of Royal Pacific early in the morning and head over to Discovery Cove. Breakfast and lunch and the day at Discovery Cove is the plan. We will leave around dinnertime where we will check into a nearby SeaWorld hotel. I booked one that gives us QuickQueue access as a bonus! Since SeaWorld is open until 9pm, I think we'll grab dinner quickly and then head over and do a few hours at SeaWorld to ride some rides using QuickQueue. I assume since we check-in Monday, we can use QuickQueue both Monday and Tuesday? I'll have to look into the logistics of this.

TUESDAY: Morning at SeaWorld OR Aquatica. Depending on weather, we may just do a little time at Aquatica just to check it out and also do some time at SeaWorld. We'll probably do both parks until after dinnertime, then make the drive to Tampa area. We'll stay with friends here.

WEDNESDAY: Spend the day at Busch Gardens Tampa with our friends and spend the night there.

THURSDAY: On the road early in the morning to head to North Carolina. We'll visit with my brother and his family here and stay Thursday and possibly Friday night there. We will be leaving our 13 year old daughter there to be a Mommy's Helper for a week or so with my SIL and their two small boys.

FRIDAY evening or SATURDAY morning: Head back to to Maryland.

 

[kittylady1972]

So a friend I met on the internet years ago just got back from both PBR and Discovery Cove. When I saw her posting photos on FB, I told her to let me know how it was and provide me any good information. She did that last night.

She definitely recommended requesting the West Wing at Portofino because she said the East wing was pretty out there for everything. So I guess I need to look into doing that. Any idea how far in advance I should make a request? She recommended eating at Sal's and hanging out at least one night to listen to the singers. Sounds good!

In terms of Discovery Cove, she had some tips there as well. She told me the sunscreen really needs to be put on thick...I think her quote was "just look gray like everybody else" and posted a photo of her nephew who applied a thin coat twice...and was roasted. Ouch! Those of us that burn easily (ME!) will take note for sure.

All in all she loved both so I'm even more excited for our trip now. We should arrive in THREE WEEKS!

In the next week or so I'll get our tickets for Universal purchased from work and book Discovery Cove via Undercover Tourist as we get a little closer.

Now that we have had 90+ degree weather and sun here in Maryland after two plus weeks of rain, it's definitely put me in the vacation mode!

Oh and found this little gem the other day and had to post it. Maybe I can get a similar photo with Woody for this trip...but won't have the in-laws in it this time! Hard to believe that kid in the front on the left is now only about 2 inches shorter than me now!

 

[kittylady1972]

Another week and NO CHANGES to report here! CRAZY!!! I've had so much going on at home, and we had such a busy weekend for Memorial Day, that I just haven't had the time to do much else.

There was talk of cancelling our plans for Discovery Cove. We just shelled out a huge chunk of change to deal with a sick cat we have at home who is only 5 years old. He is our sweet and cuddly mystery illness cat and after spending 4 nights at the vet last week we finally got him back home this weekend but we have to monitor his input and output daily. Here's hoping he continues to make small improvements and we avoid a costly surgery all by putting him on his very own special diet catfood for LIFE. This should be fun with 3 other cats in our household, but right now he has his own bedroom and seems okay. We'll have to have somebody checking on him daily when we go on vacation though and hopefully when we return we will get to let him out of the room again.

So that money I'll be spending to pay for that vet bill...well it's almost as much as it will cost the 5 of us for Discovery Cove. When I mentioned the idea to my husband of just cancelling that part of our vacation, he was having no part of it. So we'll figure something out I guess...it's only more debt.

The kids still have no idea that we have plans for Discovery Cove...not that they would know what that was if we told them. They also don't know we are hoping to squeeze in a day at SeaWorld or at least a few hours. I'm hoping to keep it a surprise and that way if we do change our minds...they won't even know about it.

We just spent Tuesday at Six Flags Great Adventure in New Jersey for the day. This was a great day to go despite a few busloads of kids attending that day also. Kids were excited to finally ride some of the bigger rides they've never attempted, such as Kingda Ka! Having accomplished that, we mostly spent the day riding the majority of the big coasters and it gave us a nice little preview of what is to come for our Florida trip. My oldest son opted out of the log flume on Tuesday, even though it was plenty warm outside, but I've told him that we WILL be doing water rides at Universal and IOA in June and we will ALL do them together. We know we'll get soaked but it will be Florida and we may get soaked during the rainstorms anyway there.

So we have TWO weeks to go until we depart and with any luck we can get an early start that first day. Kids have yet to find out when all final exams will need to be taken but I'm hopeful that worst case we can hit the road by noon that day. We'll see how it goes.

Slowly working on losing enough weight to wear more of my summer shorts without cutting off my circulation too.

As much as I can't wait to get our vacation started, I'm dreading the post-vacation letdown that is sure to come because it's just too short!

 

[gtpoohbear]

The post-vacation-blues are the WORST! I have found myself not wanting a trip to get here just because I know it will go by SO fast, and then I'll be bummed, having nothing left to look forward to.

Sorry you are having to deal with a sick cat, it's so hard. We had a dog for many years, and it sure does get expensive when they are sick! We were hoping to go to Costa Rica (w/ABD) in 2009, but had to drop a couple thousand on vet bills, so we pushed the trip back to 2010, and by then I was pregnant. And kids can't go until they are 6, so I still haven't been to Costa Rica, lol! I don't think DH will ever let us have another furbaby

I had to laugh about your excitement over NOT changing anything! I haven't been too bad about it the last few months, but our Disney trip a few years ago... well I could have considered it a full time job for about 3 months, lol! Every day was a new chance to burn hours at the computer rearranging everything. It becomes an obsession.