zilp
Mouseketeer
- Joined
- Jul 31, 2010
- Messages
- 359
I wanted to write a update about our recent trip. I got so much good info from this forum- Thank You!
If anyone has any questions, I would be happy to answer them
* We went the week before Easter, which I found out is a peak travel time to Orlando
. Our weather was unseasonably cold (40-50 degree temps during the night and a breezy 50-60's degrees during the day). Although we were disappointed, I do think the cooler weather was comfortable enough to allow us to stay at the parks until 4-5pm.
*We stayed in Orlando and drove to each of the parks.There were 6 of us on this trip (me, my husband, 3 kids and my mom). We are not roller coaster people, so we totally skipped those rides. We went to Legoland for 1 day, BG for 2 days and SW for 2 days. SW and BG had extended hours because of the busy time of year.
*We had a few animal interactions that I will post about in greater detail on another thread.
* Hands down, one of the best strategies to touring the park during peak times is getting there EARLY (thank you Disboards for stressing this tip!!). We were in the parking lot a half hour before official opening. Honestly, it helped SO much!! The first few hours were really nice but by 11am it really starts to get crowded.
*The second piece of advice for navigating the parks during peak periods is to eat lunch early- like by 11:30am. After that the lines were really, really long everywhere, including the hot dog/nacho stands.
*We purchased Legoland tickets online at Legoland.com using the McDonalds BOGO code. So we paid for 3 adults and the 3 kids got in for free.
Our tickets to Busch Gardens and Sea World were bought at our local AAA office. I kept working the numbers, but this was the best deal for us. We bought the 14 day multi-park tickets to BG and SW for 116.38$ pp (adult) and 107.84$ pp (children) taxes included. This meant that we paid about 27-29$ pp a day for the theme parks which I thought was reasonable.
Legoland:
The drive from Orlando was really easy, maybe 45 minutes. There are a lot of restaurants and stores along the way in case anyone needed to stop. We got there early and got a close parking space to the entrance. Since we had our pre-printed tickets, we could avoid the ticket line and got right into the entrance line. They do not bag check at Legoland. Once the park opened my husband headed to sign up my oldest son for Mindstorms and then met us at the driving schools. My kids loved the driving school and they were able to get in line multiple times. We ate lunch at I-Zone panini. Good food. Adults get a full sandwich, baked Lay's chips and drink for 10$ and the kids got half a sandwich, drink(milk or water), baked Lay's and fruit cup for 6$. After that we headed towards the pirate ski show. We all thought it was funny and entertaining, def a must see for shows. After that, my husband and oldest son went to Mindstorms (which they loved) while the rest of us headed to Cypress Gardens. It was really beautiful.
We stopped at most stores in the park. I really wanted to get the kids some nice Tshirts, but I was disappointed in the quality so I passed. Easy enough to find something at Kohls or Target for half the price. There were a few deals to be had at the store near the pirate show (Extreme Brick Bargains Shop) but overall the sets were the same price as retail stores.
We saw most of the park and enjoyed it very much. I think it is easy enough to see the park in one day. We stopped by Granny's Apple Fries in the afternoon for a treat. It was 5.29$ each (plus tax) equvilant in size to a large fast food fry container. Tasted like hot apple pie. Everyone enjoyed it. We only saw one show at Fun Town theater (Lego Racers 4D), it was not very good but nice if you needed a break. Miniland was a hit, esp the Star Wars area for my family. Great photo ops with Lego Darth Vader, R2D2 and Darth Maul. We had some rain, otherwise we would have spent more time there.
Busch Gardens Day 1:
The ride from Orlando took us about 75 minutes, and it was an easy drive. We got there early so we were able to park close by to the tram that took us to the entrance. We waited in the entrance line with our prepaid tickets. Bag check was very thorough. We brought waters and snacks with no problems. Check in with our vouchers was time consuming (as it was each day). For some reason it took forever to scan our multi-day ticket and then to match up our finger scan. Seriously got annoying by the third and fourth day. Disney was much much easier.
We mainly stayed on the right side of the park the first day since we had reservations for the Serengeti Safari. We ate lunch at Desert Grill and enjoyed the "Let's Dance" show afterwards. It was very entertaining- think "Dancing with the Stars" kind of vibe. After lunch, four us went on the Serengeti Safari while my mom and youngest stayed behind (kids need to be at least 5 years old). I can't recommend the Serengeti Safari enough! If you can splurge on the extra tickets, you won't be disappointed. We also enjoyed the Iceploration show in the afternoon.
Busch Gardens Day 2:
We stayed on the left side of the park for our second day. We went pretty quickly to Lory Landing to feed the birds, mainly because my oldest son is bird crazy. It was 5$ for a tiny nectar cup but worth it. The birds were everywhere and it was so much fun! Later on, we ate lunch at Bengal Bistro. The food was very good, esp the fish and chips. We saw "Critter Castaways" (very cutesy) and "A is for Africa" in the Sesame street area. We were able to get awesome pictures of our little one with the characters after the show. Of course they have photographers to take pictures but they were very accomodating about letting you take your own photos. The Sesame Street play area is great- it's a good place to let your kids run around and climb, esp if they are in a stroller a lot while touring the park.
Sea World Day 1:
We started with the left side of the park today, starting with feeding the dolphins. That was a lot of fun. We saw the Blue Horizons show next and it was a great show, not to be missed. We ate lunch at the Seafire Inn. I can recommend the chicken sandwich on pretzel bread- so yummy! The kids had their favorite spag and meatball dish, with a side of watermelon and milk/water. I was pleasantly surprised at how good the food was and everyone was full and happy. We ended the day with "Clyde and Seamore show" (another great show, not to be missed) and "Pets Ahoy" which was very cute.
Sea World Day 2:
On this day we hit a little snag as I had planned for us to start with the right side of the park near Shamu stadium. Even though they were open longer hours, they did not open that area until 10am and it was strictly enforced. We did some of our souvenier shopping instead and came back for 10 to go to the Wild Artic ride/exhibit. There we encountered snag 2, they didn't open Wild Arctic until 11am (including the gift shop). After that, we were able to see what we wanted including the One Ocean show. We ate at Mango Joe's after the show. This was probably our least favorite meal over the entire week, not bad but not great either. We wound up leaving the park in the early afternoon to rest and came back to have Dinner with Shamu which we all loved! After that we were able to catch "Shamu Rocks" and then "Sea Lions Tonite". My husband and I thought that the "Sea Lions Tonite" was hysterical while our kids thought that "Clyde an Seamore" was better.
phew! I think those are most of the highlights. Thanks again for all your help
If anyone has any questions, I would be happy to answer them
* We went the week before Easter, which I found out is a peak travel time to Orlando
. Our weather was unseasonably cold (40-50 degree temps during the night and a breezy 50-60's degrees during the day). Although we were disappointed, I do think the cooler weather was comfortable enough to allow us to stay at the parks until 4-5pm. *We stayed in Orlando and drove to each of the parks.There were 6 of us on this trip (me, my husband, 3 kids and my mom). We are not roller coaster people, so we totally skipped those rides. We went to Legoland for 1 day, BG for 2 days and SW for 2 days. SW and BG had extended hours because of the busy time of year.
*We had a few animal interactions that I will post about in greater detail on another thread.
* Hands down, one of the best strategies to touring the park during peak times is getting there EARLY (thank you Disboards for stressing this tip!!). We were in the parking lot a half hour before official opening. Honestly, it helped SO much!! The first few hours were really nice but by 11am it really starts to get crowded.
*The second piece of advice for navigating the parks during peak periods is to eat lunch early- like by 11:30am. After that the lines were really, really long everywhere, including the hot dog/nacho stands.
*We purchased Legoland tickets online at Legoland.com using the McDonalds BOGO code. So we paid for 3 adults and the 3 kids got in for free.
Our tickets to Busch Gardens and Sea World were bought at our local AAA office. I kept working the numbers, but this was the best deal for us. We bought the 14 day multi-park tickets to BG and SW for 116.38$ pp (adult) and 107.84$ pp (children) taxes included. This meant that we paid about 27-29$ pp a day for the theme parks which I thought was reasonable.
Legoland:
The drive from Orlando was really easy, maybe 45 minutes. There are a lot of restaurants and stores along the way in case anyone needed to stop. We got there early and got a close parking space to the entrance. Since we had our pre-printed tickets, we could avoid the ticket line and got right into the entrance line. They do not bag check at Legoland. Once the park opened my husband headed to sign up my oldest son for Mindstorms and then met us at the driving schools. My kids loved the driving school and they were able to get in line multiple times. We ate lunch at I-Zone panini. Good food. Adults get a full sandwich, baked Lay's chips and drink for 10$ and the kids got half a sandwich, drink(milk or water), baked Lay's and fruit cup for 6$. After that we headed towards the pirate ski show. We all thought it was funny and entertaining, def a must see for shows. After that, my husband and oldest son went to Mindstorms (which they loved) while the rest of us headed to Cypress Gardens. It was really beautiful.
We stopped at most stores in the park. I really wanted to get the kids some nice Tshirts, but I was disappointed in the quality so I passed. Easy enough to find something at Kohls or Target for half the price. There were a few deals to be had at the store near the pirate show (Extreme Brick Bargains Shop) but overall the sets were the same price as retail stores.
We saw most of the park and enjoyed it very much. I think it is easy enough to see the park in one day. We stopped by Granny's Apple Fries in the afternoon for a treat. It was 5.29$ each (plus tax) equvilant in size to a large fast food fry container. Tasted like hot apple pie. Everyone enjoyed it. We only saw one show at Fun Town theater (Lego Racers 4D), it was not very good but nice if you needed a break. Miniland was a hit, esp the Star Wars area for my family. Great photo ops with Lego Darth Vader, R2D2 and Darth Maul. We had some rain, otherwise we would have spent more time there.
Busch Gardens Day 1:
The ride from Orlando took us about 75 minutes, and it was an easy drive. We got there early so we were able to park close by to the tram that took us to the entrance. We waited in the entrance line with our prepaid tickets. Bag check was very thorough. We brought waters and snacks with no problems. Check in with our vouchers was time consuming (as it was each day). For some reason it took forever to scan our multi-day ticket and then to match up our finger scan. Seriously got annoying by the third and fourth day. Disney was much much easier.
We mainly stayed on the right side of the park the first day since we had reservations for the Serengeti Safari. We ate lunch at Desert Grill and enjoyed the "Let's Dance" show afterwards. It was very entertaining- think "Dancing with the Stars" kind of vibe. After lunch, four us went on the Serengeti Safari while my mom and youngest stayed behind (kids need to be at least 5 years old). I can't recommend the Serengeti Safari enough! If you can splurge on the extra tickets, you won't be disappointed. We also enjoyed the Iceploration show in the afternoon.
Busch Gardens Day 2:
We stayed on the left side of the park for our second day. We went pretty quickly to Lory Landing to feed the birds, mainly because my oldest son is bird crazy. It was 5$ for a tiny nectar cup but worth it. The birds were everywhere and it was so much fun! Later on, we ate lunch at Bengal Bistro. The food was very good, esp the fish and chips. We saw "Critter Castaways" (very cutesy) and "A is for Africa" in the Sesame street area. We were able to get awesome pictures of our little one with the characters after the show. Of course they have photographers to take pictures but they were very accomodating about letting you take your own photos. The Sesame Street play area is great- it's a good place to let your kids run around and climb, esp if they are in a stroller a lot while touring the park.
Sea World Day 1:
We started with the left side of the park today, starting with feeding the dolphins. That was a lot of fun. We saw the Blue Horizons show next and it was a great show, not to be missed. We ate lunch at the Seafire Inn. I can recommend the chicken sandwich on pretzel bread- so yummy! The kids had their favorite spag and meatball dish, with a side of watermelon and milk/water. I was pleasantly surprised at how good the food was and everyone was full and happy. We ended the day with "Clyde and Seamore show" (another great show, not to be missed) and "Pets Ahoy" which was very cute.
Sea World Day 2:
On this day we hit a little snag as I had planned for us to start with the right side of the park near Shamu stadium. Even though they were open longer hours, they did not open that area until 10am and it was strictly enforced. We did some of our souvenier shopping instead and came back for 10 to go to the Wild Artic ride/exhibit. There we encountered snag 2, they didn't open Wild Arctic until 11am (including the gift shop). After that, we were able to see what we wanted including the One Ocean show. We ate at Mango Joe's after the show. This was probably our least favorite meal over the entire week, not bad but not great either. We wound up leaving the park in the early afternoon to rest and came back to have Dinner with Shamu which we all loved! After that we were able to catch "Shamu Rocks" and then "Sea Lions Tonite". My husband and I thought that the "Sea Lions Tonite" was hysterical while our kids thought that "Clyde an Seamore" was better.
phew! I think those are most of the highlights. Thanks again for all your help
. Sounds like you had a fantastic time! 
) so its good to hear a positive report for another local property! 
