We're off to see some wizards, and of course some Disney as well (Dec. '21 TR X2 now) 21-JAN-UPDATE finally!

[kittylady1972]

This is probably more a Universal Trip Report than a Disney one, but for some reason when I plan a trip to Florida...I cannot stay away from at least a little bit of Disney.

Now if you see my signature below, you'll note I have a PTR for my big March '22 birthday trip and that's still taking place. Let's just hope they get to selling APs again early in 2022 because we are depending on those for that trip as well as many more in 2022.

This week though, we are making a little escape to those other parks because we happen to have annual passes good until the end of this year, with no blackout dates, and any chance I get to escape to Florida I take it. With the holidays coming, we are trying to do this trip on the super cheap though. That was made extra easy when I only paid about $68 for TWO round-trip tickets to Florida. We have a somewhat cheap 2-night hotel stay at a place NEAR the Universal Orlando parks for the first two nights and then for the last night we are moving to Portofino Bay so that we can utilize the Express Passes for Friday and Saturday.

I should also mention we have some good friends joining us on the trip, and in fact they pretty much spurred us into booking it, and they will fly down and join us on Thursday evening. We'll pick them up at the airport, transport them to the same hotel that we are staying that night, and then we'll over move over to staying in the same room the next morning as we visit the parks.

The other thing we plan to do, which actually forced us to modify this trip from 2 nights to 3 nights, is to attend our very first DVC Owner's Meeting. I hear they are somewhat boring, but we still thought it would be a good thing to do on the off chance there is some cool free stuff handed out, though that's not looking very likely. It's okay, it is a chance to visit the Contemporary Resort, maybe ride the monorail and visit other Disney Resorts, maybe have a meal or drink at some of those resorts, all that same day.

Since we pretty much have almost all of Thursday to do nothing until that early afternoon meeting, part of me is really really tempted to get a 1 day Disney park pass. I'm still not sure though. I kinda thought it would be cool to visit EPCOT and just stroll around there for a few hours Thursday before and after our meeting. I love all the Holidays around the World stuff they have there. So there's about a 50-50 chance we'll do that but we'll see how it goes.

Part of the reason I love these trips is to escape the cold weather, but of course it's been pretty mild overall here in Maryland so far this "winter" season. Normally we have more cold days her in November and December, but I was still playing tennis outside in the evening in November...which is crazy.

Today it's even supposed to climb into the 60s here...but then that changes pretty drastically tomorrow and Wednesday and Thursday...here is home:


AND HERE is FLORIDA:


Yes folks, that is SNOW showing up in the forecast for Wednesday here at home. No thank you. This actually prompted my DH last night to inquire about changing our flight on Wednesday, but it's not like a blizzard is coming through so I think we'll be okay with our afternoon flight. It will make leaving all that sweeter, with the only exception being I may worry a little more with my two boys at home having to potentially drive in some ugly weather. My oldest son (21) has most of his college classes virtually and my youngest doesn't have too far to drive overall and I'll still be at the airport when he gets home from school at least. It might mean that I don't stick around too long myself at work on Wednesday though as I had planned.

Anyway that's it for our upcoming trip where the plan so far is:
Wednesday: Flight out, arrival, maybe dinner in Disney Springs
Thursday: Maybe a Disney park? For sure some time in the Disney area including the DVC Members meeting and lunch in a Disney restaurant; pick friends up at airport around 9pm
Friday: Head over to Portofino Bay early in the morning, get our Express Passes, spend the day at the Universal Parks
Saturday: More Universal Parks and a plan to probably visit the monorail resorts to see the holiday decorations (my friend wants to make sure we see the GF Gingerbread House)

That's it...stay tuned as my next update will likely be live as we get this party started!

 

[MinnieFan4ever]

Can wait to hear all about it!

 

[kittylady1972]

Can wait to hear all about it!

Thanks! It won't be long now...can't wait!

 

[kittylady1972]

So we are sitting at the airport with plenty of time to spare. Commute from our house to the gate was maybe 30 minutes with a bathroom and snack shop stop. Flight is showing as on time and the nasty weather they were calling for a few days ago never materialized.

My only complaint right now is I paid twice for seats. A few days ago i totally lowball bid on two exit row seats. Last night when I checked in and our assigned seats were about 3 rows from the back I picked new seats and paid for them. This morning my bid was accepted and we got two new exit row seats. Oh well. Lesson learned. This was only my 2nd time doing seat bidding. I'll know better next time hopefully.

We are already wondering where to eat when we get there. My current vote is Jock Lindsey...and yes I realize this is a Universal Trip.

 

[kittylady1972]

Wow...so I swear I started a few other LIVE reports while I was in Florida...and yet none of them are appearing here. Honestly most of the evenings when I would start to type something I was sooooo tired that I may have put down the tablet thinking I'd finish the post later...and never managed to do so.

Anyway we are back after a very very busy and jam packed few days in Florida. Our trip included some shopping, a few Disney meals (Paradiso 37, Topolino's, Jock Lindsey's Hangar Bar), two full days at the Universal Parks where we were able to take in the Holiday events and experiences we were hoping to see (Macy's Parade, Hogwart's Holiday Lights, Grinchmas Show) and very little downtime between all of those things.

My little early Christmas gift from our trip was this:


There are various crystal Mickey's around this entire ring...love it.

Our flights there and back were pretty uneventful which is always good. Picking up the rental car was a bit longer than usual due to some added security they had in place due to some recent issues. Our 2 night stay at the Hampton Inn was perfect and our one night stay at Portofino Bay was also lovely but way too short since we really didn't get to explore that resort at all, but of course that's not the point of staying there...we were there for the Express Passes which were totally worth it. Universal still has some MAJOR issues with their crowd control that I wish they could work out, including a night where we showed up, stood in a long line just to get to the first area of security, only to be turned away due to a private event...wouldn't even let us in the CityWalk area.

We did have two meals at CityWalk, one at the NBC Grill with some friends who live in Florida and another at the small bar that is right on the water outside of Margaritaville which had good but very very slow service.

Overall we had a fantastic time, great weather (if not on the HOT side for this time of year) and great company with our friends. This mini trip was just the perfect little getaway for us, and now it's back to work where I have just informed my management that I've accepted a new position elsewhere, that my second in command under me is doing the same thing, and I'm also way way behind on doing any Christmas decorating because my daughter wants to be a part of that and she won't be home from college until today. Oh and yeah...having a small holiday gathering at my house Saturday night that I have not at all prepared for yet.

On the bright side, I think I'm pretty much done with holiday shopping but still waiting on a few things to arrive that I ordered weeks ago. Between now and the end of the year I have several work related holiday gatherings to attend that should make the next 10 days go by quickly too.

 

[kittylady1972]

One week later and I'm guessing like many people I'm just continuing to get ready for the holidays. Things will be busy for me for a while, though at least not as busy as they have been in years past.

Over the weekend we had our traditional annual Christmas Party. We skipped it last year of course. We always do a white elephant gift exchange and an ugly sweater contest and then I provide some food and other bring things to share. This year the party was late because my daughter wanted to be here...and many people made other plans for other parties...so the group was smaller than usual. Yet I appear to have been so worried about running out of the food I did have that I ate too little of it...and combined that with drinking too much so that I don't have any recollection of a good portion of the evening other than what I have been told by friends and family. Lovely. I'm sure my daughter felt like she was right back in college at a party there.

So I was feeling pretty rough on Sunday with very little motivation to do anything...and have spent the rest of the week trying to catch up. My Christmas Cards went out today...for the most part. I do have almost all of the gifts wrapped except the stuff for my brother's family who I'm not even sure we'll see until maybe January sometime. Today we will go shopping for seafood as tomorrow night we have the Italian traditional Feast of the Seven Fishes at our house...so 7 different kinds of seafood are served and we'll spend tomorrow cooking most of it. My dad and girlfriend will come over and we'll do our Christmas gift exchange with them. Saturday morning will be somewhat low key, we'll do Christmas with just our family, then we'll make breakfast, then the rest of the day is just chill and we'll make a dinner for that night and be joined by just my father-in-law for that, so 6 total. Then not much the rest of the weekend except Ravens football game hosting on Sunday. I'm supposed to be cooking for that too.

Overall I think it will be not too crazy for us, which is nice. I'll work some shorter days next week to try to spend some time with my daughter. She will return to college around January 8th or so, and then comes back home the following weekend so that we can fly down to South Carolina and attend a joint 76th birthday party for my dad and his girlfriend.

At the end of next month I'll start a new job and then I'll have many months of trying to learn a lot of new stuff to support the people who will be working for me.

So maybe I'll get around to more real updates here but if not Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to all who celebrate!

 

[CruellaNY]

Merry Christmas to you and the family Dina! I'll be here to read the trip updates when you get around to them Sorry we missed each other, again..............................

 

[kittylady1972]

Merry Christmas to you and the family Dina! I'll be here to read the trip updates when you get around to them Sorry we missed each other, again..............................

Awww...thanks to much! Merry Christmas to you and your family as well. We'll see what I get around to while I am home.

Sorry we missed each other again too but there is always 2022. That's going to be my Disney year for sure so hopefully we will have some overlapping dates! Right now my dates are March 9th through sometime the following week as yet to be determined. I've only booked my flight there!

 

[kittylady1972]

Merry Christmas from our home to yours. Belle here has enjoyed some catnip toys thus the wide eyed look.

Christmas Eve was our busiest day as we spent the day cooking and preparing for our big Christmas Eve traditional Feast of the Seven Fishes meal. We had a table of 11 people for that meal which was nice. We followed it with a gift exchange among our good friends as well as my dad and his girlfriend. We ended it with our traditional pajamas that we open Christmas Eve. The dog got some this year..she wasn't impressed.



Christmas Day was pretty low key by comparison. We exchanged gifts among the 5 of us including those gifts Santa delivered. We fixed breakfast, snacked through lunch, and DH smoked a beef roast for dinner and my FIL joined us. The rest of the day was vegging out, napping, and then at some point my daughter and I started talking as she was emptying out her wallet and ready to discard her Universal Park pass. Somehow she started looking up flights for the rest of the year. Next thing you know she and I were heading to the airport where we purchased flights for ONE day next week. We'll do a whirlwind day trip visiting the parks one last time this year together, just the two of us.

Yes we are crazy. I know the crowds will be crazy. I hope our flights remain on schedule. I did tell her USF has mask mandates back in place for indoors there. We will likely be exhausted and who knows how much we'll really get to do.

And so at some point I hope to resume this TR for all of you. Tomorrow is another chill day.

 

[suse66]

Christmas Day was pretty low key by comparison. We exchanged gifts among the 5 of us including those gifts Santa delivered. We fixed breakfast, snacked through lunch, and DH smoked a beef roast for dinner and my FIL joined us. The rest of the day was vegging out, napping, and then at some point my daughter and I started talking as she was emptying out her wallet and ready to discard her Universal Park pass. Somehow she started looking up flights for the rest of the year. Next thing you know she and I were heading to the airport where we purchased flights for ONE day next week. We'll do a whirlwind day trip visiting the parks one last time this year together, just the two of us.

That is the best ever! Such a fun and spontaneous thing to do together! Sounds like you had a perfect Christmas! Best wishes for a happy and Disney filled New Year! My DH and I are there in March (well hopefully as we have a travel advisory again here in Canada). Maybe we will cross paths! We are March 13-19 at SSR/OKW.

 

[kittylady1972]

Day 1: In Search of some FOOD!

So here we are...beginning this short but sweet trip report, mostly Universal but some Disney sprinkled in for good measure.

As already posted, we arrived at the airport in plenty of time for our flight and if I recall it did get out a bit late but not horribly. We arrived at MCO close to 6pm or so and I loved seeing the tree there:


Our rental car took a bit longer than usual, but not horribly so and soon we were off and headed directly to Disney Springs. We had grand plans to have dinner maybe at Jock Lindsey's...but that would soon be a dream for us upon our arrival. I can't recall when we got to Disney Springs, but we headed over to the restaurant to find at least a 45 minute wait. We were hungry/hangry though...and so we searched for other places to eat. We tried a few other nearby table service restaurants in Disney Springs but all had similar waits. We even headed over to Chicken Guy thinking that might be a good thing to try for the first time but the line was long and the food not quite what we wanted. While we waited I searched MDE for other restaurants and I came across...Paradiso 37..another place we had never visited. The reservation was about 30 minutes out but maybe they would take us early, after all it was approaching 8pm already but you would never have thought on a Wednesday night in early December it would be so crowded...but Disney Springs was pretty packed.

On our walk back over we decided to seek one very important thing. Back in Aug/Sept, we had visited Disney Springs and went into a jewelry store...where my husband spotted this wonderful Donald Duck men's watch. With his dad being a big Donald fan, it seemed like a great gift despite the $300+ price tag. Yet we left it behind and every since DH had been searching for it online...with no luck. We knew about where the store had been located, and we soon stumbled inside, went right to where we found it before, and sure enough in the case was the watch. The salesperson said it was the strangest thing, they received ONE of them at the store that morning and only one and they put it on display...and here we were ready to take it home. With our DVC discount it was a little better...and I snagged a little ring for myself which I mentioned in a previous post.

From here we headed to Paradiso 37, we were seated right away, and though the menu was pretty small we decided on drinks for each of us and a few things to share.

So the drinks and one of our appetizers:


Those fries were:
Big Smoke Poutine (Serves Two)
P37 Fries, cheese curds, cherry peppers, roasted garlic gravy, braised beef

And they were delicious. We also shared the:


Baja Fish Tacos
Flour tortillas, crispy battered seasonal whitefish, corn salsa, shredded cabbage, lime crema

Mine showed above is a bit deconstructed as the pieces of fish were quite large and I found there wasn't nearly enough cabbage slaw for my liking so I requested more. These were fabulous and you could add the toppings you wanted to them from the side which was nice. I had one and DH had the other two and with this and the drinks it was perfect.

I don't recall our server's name but he was also great and overall this was a lovely experience that we would do again in a pinch.

As we left restaurant, we found there was a light rain happening but we continued walking around the Disney Springs area a little bit. We checked out some of the trees scattered around:


We also decided to stop into Goofy's Candy Co and we picked up a few desserts for later:


We had one of each of of these to take back to the room. We enjoyed the chocolate marshmallow peppermint treats later that night from our room, and the apple would be breakfast later in the week.

We soon headed out of Disney Springs and made our way to our Hampton Inn near Universal for our 2 night stay. We had done online checkin so we didn't even have to go to the front desk, just used my phone to enter the building, go to our room and unlock our door. It was quite nice.

By the time we arrived and got settled a bit, hanging up some of our wet clothing, and having our snack we were ready for a good night's rest.

 

[kittylady1972]

Day 2: The Downfalls of one carry on bag

We awoke this morning at our leisure, headed to our hotel lobby to enjoy our free breakfast which was quite good. They had a variety of breakfast meets, some pre-made omelets, plus yogurt, make your own waffles, toast, bagels, muffins...all good stuff. We enjoyed breakfast and then headed out to our first stop of the day.

So what I failed to mention was the previous evening while looking for ADRs in Disney I came across a reservation for dinner at Topolino's restaurant. The problem with this was that we had packed for our Spirit flight...which meant ONE bag and we chose to only bring shorts, some pants and tshirts...and we felt we should dress up at least a little more for Topolinos. While jeans were okay for us, we wanted something beyond tshirts...and so we headed to Target to see what we could find on the cheap. I found a nice button up shirt for myself...but DH had no luck. Next stop was the Millenia Mall...which of course early that Thursday morning...was closed. There was a nearby Old Navy so we hit the next and had some luck. We couldn't buy too much...since I knew it was already a challenge to close my carry-on "personal" item without extra clothing.

Our next stop for the morning...we decided we would do something different and so we headed here:
View attachment 633526
For those not familiar, this is Top Golf, a chain of golfing entertainment complexes all over the US. We had visited one near our home back in August, and somewhat enjoyed it, so we figured we would spend some time here. Now neither one of us are golfers in any way, though my entire family are big golfers. I can do okay most of the time. We spent about an hour here and played this game for the first time:

Yes if you've ever played Angry Birds, this is the golf version and once our lovely server explained to us how to play the game...we were hooked.



We really had a great time and it was a fun way to kill an hour or so. After this, we decided to try to seek out some real food and so we headed...where else but BACK to Disney Springs.

We had been so sad the night before about missing out on Jock Lindsey's that we tried again...this time there was about a 20 minute wait or so as it was early lunchtime:


Before long we were seated and enjoying round one of drinks:


These were a good start but we also had some appetizers...starting with the brussel sprouts:


These were very very good. DH ordered some more tacos today:


He really enjoyed these. I knew myself and that the appetizers and drinks would be enough. So one more appetizer did the trick for me:


Yes these holiday deviled eggs with shrimp were lovely...and yes that was another drink as well. Everything was great and we just enjoyed a leisurely meal here. I wish we had room for dessert which sounded great...but alas we didn't and soon we left here. As it was, we were already running a bit behind for our next plans...which was the DVC Owner's Meeting scheduled for 2pm at the Contemporary Resort. It was about 1:30pm when we were finishing our meal and heading back to our car...and on the drive over I realized...we weren't able to park at the Contemporary but were supposed to park at the Magic Kingdom Parking Lot where they had a designated area and busses for us.

Yet that didn't stop us from trying to park at the Contemporary...and promptly being turned away. I'm not sure when we got the the MK Villains Lot area where we had to be, but I know it was after 2pm but they did have a bus there waiting for us...and pretty much only us since it appeared everybody else chose to arrive early/on time.

Thankfully it was a very short drive to the Contemporary, we were dropped off right at the entrance to the ballroom or whatever room where the meeting was taking place...and before long we enjoyed what began as a very boring meeting but by the end became more like Jerry Springer much to our entertainment!



While it looks empty, this is because we were on a far side of the very large room and they had the chairs, as you see, set up for social distancing. There was mostly talk about financials, what money went where, approvals of budgets for each of the DVC Properties.

And then they opened it up for questions...ABOUT THE BUDGET...and they mentioned a TOTAL of 15 minutes of this entire meeting was allotted for that.

Yeah.

I think the first question was about something not related to the budget, which they quickly mentioned to that person they would have to submit their question through the website. I can't recall if there was another quick one before that...but THEN a woman came to the microphone with a TON of papers in her hands and started just rapid firing questions and information about different somewhat budget related things and though they kept trying to cut her off she would not be stopped and of all the people on stage there to answer her questions the main person in charge...he wasn't even looking at her at some point. There were some cheers and claps in the audience, and they attempted to respond to some of her information, some of which was quite incorrect, but wow...it was quite entertaining for sure. I think somebody else spoke up next, also about mostly being disappointed in the lack of DVC service offerings but ALSO complaining about cast members and how it's gone downhill and how it must be because they aren't getting paid and so on. Oh it was another good one and at the end her voice increased in a few octaves. The meeting would end soon after that, so in our minds not really something we would ever do again but at least there was some entertainment at the end.

We left the meeting and since the busses back to the parking lot were running for at least another hour or so, we did some looking at the shops in the Contemporary first before we headed back to the busses, then back to our car, then back to our room at the Hampton Inn as we would have a short time to rest before we'd need to get dressed and ready for dinner that night.

 

[CruellaNY]

Right now my dates are March 9th through sometime the following week as yet to be determined. I've only booked my flight there!

Well then as of now we overlap a bit! We leave on the 11th but kind of late, so maybe we'll run in to each other??? I have absolutely no plans made yet lol so we'll keep in touch about it!

For those not familiar, this is Top Golf, a chain of golfing entertainment complexes all over the US.

This is so funny because in the last 2 weeks I've had FIVE clients going to Orlando ask me about this place!

So Paradisio 37 is one of like 13 restaurants left that we haven't been to, and want to try. We've had reservations there a few times this year but never made it. I think the menu sounds good, it's good to see a review because nobody ever talks about it!

 

[kittylady1972]

Well then as of now we overlap a bit! We leave on the 11th but kind of late, so maybe we'll run in to each other??? I have absolutely no plans made yet lol so we'll keep in touch about it!

This is so funny because in the last 2 weeks I've had FIVE clients going to Orlando ask me about this place!

So Paradisio 37 is one of like 13 restaurants left that we haven't been to, and want to try. We've had reservations there a few times this year but never made it. I think the menu sounds good, it's good to see a review because nobody ever talks about it!

Well let's see if the stars will align and we can get together on the 10th or 11th maybe or even the 9th...who knows. I have zero plans right now. I don't even have a return flight. We think we are flying a kid or two to join us that following weekend but we'll see what happens.

RE: Top Golf - It's a fun place even if you can't really golf. Normally we are big time miniature golfers but this was a fun thing to do and maybe just maybe if we visit enough I'll be skilled enough to hang with my family on the golf course in the future. Probably not. My brother in particular is VERY VERY good.

Other than the somewhat small menu, we did enjoy Paradiso 37 overall. There are some nice tables on a patio as well and they had some live music the night we were there, but outside. I think we would return even if it wouldn't be our first choice. We loved the food at Jock's of course!

As of now we may end up doing two more trips...one would be in early June, a short one following the tradition that I've had for my other 2 kids that for their senior year I take them to Disney World. We'll see if child #3 wants to do this. The other trip right now is a few nights in July, overlapping with a trip that my FIL is taking with my husband's sister and family to do that whole Star Wars hotel thing...yes I know that's not the "real" name and no I don't care. So provided we get this annual pass thing settled sometime next year, we will likely do a few trips throughout the year so more chances maybe to meet up!

 

[kittylady1972]

So what do you do when your college kid is at home, and bored for the week, and still has an annual pass to some theme parks in Florida? Also said kid has her mom's determination for travel. She may have started looking at flights this week to Orlando on Christmas Day. She may have convinced me that it would be fun. We just might be doing a one day trip to Orlando this week just to visit USF and use one of the last remaining days of our passes there.

For sure it will be crowded.

We don't have Express Passes which will suck, but the things we want to ride primarily don't take them (Hagrids and Velocicoaster) anyway.

Spirit Airlines may have really frustrated me a little bit this morning but in the end I finally found a helpful Agent who resolved my issue with online checkin due to the fact that my reservation had a pending charge on it. I bought my tickets on CHRISTMAS DAY at the airport...so the charge should have been the charge and final. That remaining balance was cleared but that's my fault for not checking my ticket before I left the desk.

So there might be a one-day 'BONUS" trip report in here for this week!

 

[Hubie]

Pretty awesome that you were able to pick up that watch for your DFIL. Funny how some things like that work out.

Those Brussel sprouts at JLHB really look good. We ate some appetizers there for the first time on 12/05 and it's one place I can't wait to go back to when we return to DS. We also really enjoyed our first dinner at the Boathouse.

 

[kittylady1972]

So greetings from Orlando. Our single day trip has expanded to a 2 day trip and a great free stay at a resort that I'd love to visit again thanks to our flight home being canceled. I'm not exactly mad about it since the weather here is AMAZING. The crowds though...total insanity. We will return to the USF parks tomorrow but probably won't stay long.

It has been a long day beginning with our 630am flight here. I'm ready for some sleep.

 

[kittylady1972]

We interrupt our current trip report...to provide a quick update on a more recent trip! As I mentioned, my daughter and I planned a very last minute DAY trip to Florida this week. On Christmas Day we drove to the airport and purchased 2 round trip tickets as you see in an earlier post. That trip was scheduled for this week...we departed at 6:30am on Tuesday Dec. 28th. We had a rental car for the day...and had high hopes for enjoying some Florida sunshine and a few more hours at the Universal Parks.

Well we got the sunshine as the weather in Florida on Tuesday was amazing. It was in the 80s with pretty much no humidity and not even any rain. The parks however...TOTAL INSANITY. I'd always wondered what Florida parks were like during the week between Christmas and New Years, as we have gone Thanksgiving week many times (but not to Universal). Well I already knew Universal does a bad job with crowd control and this trip was no exception. The parking situation alone is insane...the only way to go is to stay at a Universal Resort and use their transportation but this was supposed to be a DAY trip for us. We arrived in the long line to enter their parking garage around 10am, finally paid the parking attendant around 10:20am and were walking through the main Universal Orlando area (past security and inCityWalk, not at the park gates) at 10:54am. So almost an hour from the time we got into the line to enter the parking garage until we were "inside" the vicinity of the parks. I will say that our unexpected day 2 went better but we were able to arrive earlier (we chose to show up around 8:15am on an 8am park opening day) at least in terms of parking and getting through the gates, but inside the actual parks...still total insanity. It just wasn't worth it for us, especially without having Express Passes to try to ride much of anything. We did get a few things knocked out each day, but then chose to just ditch the parks...and actually ended up eating at 2 different Disney Restaurants during our trip thanks to my daughter who is clearly MY kid and booked them for us. So there was some Disney even on this trip, thanks the fact that our late night return flight was cancelled by the airline and we had to stay overnight which wasn't planned. It was still a fun and exhausting experience and I'd do it all again...but maybe not during this particular week. I'll do a quick TR on this trip as well as finish up our other trip.

I must say am I the only one concerned that COVID is going to give us round #2 in 2022 and have things being closed and cancelled again? Maybe not closed but I know mask mandates and restrictions are coming back here in Maryland and I suspect that will happen elsewhere. We did have to mask up at Universal indoors which was fine. I just don't know what to expect for this potential March 2022 trip I'm hoping to take, not to mention the travel we have planned in a just a few short weeks for a large birthday celebration that my dad and his girlfriend are hosting for themselves...after cancelling it this time last year. I just wonder if maybe it won't get cancelled again.

Anyway it appears while I was in travel mode, my husband made plans for a few friends to come over here tomorrow night for New Year's Eve. When I say plans it means he contacted some of the guys I guess and said hey come over...no idea what time to expect anybody, if there will be food, or anything...so I guess that's on me to plan next. My house really is still in a bit of post-Christmas disarray and not really ready for guests as it is either.

Good times but if I don't get a chance to post more before tomorrow hope everybody has a HAPPY NEW YEAR!
\

 

[suse66]

So there might be a one-day 'BONUS" trip report in here for this week!

How fun is that????

So greetings from Orlando. Our single day trip has expanded to a 2 day trip and a great free stay at a resort that I'd love to visit again thanks to our flight home being canceled. I'm not exactly mad about it since the weather here is AMAZING. The crowds though...total insanity. We will return to the USF parks tomorrow but probably won't stay long.

Yikes! I know there have been so many flight delays and cancellations between weather and Covid related issues.

I must say am I the only one concerned that COVID is going to give us round #2 in 2022 and have things being closed and cancelled again? Maybe not closed but I know mask mandates and restrictions are coming back here in Maryland and I suspect that will happen elsewhere. We did have to mask up at Universal indoors which was fine. I just don't know what to expect for this potential March 2022 trip I'm hoping to take, not to mention the travel we have planned in a just a few short weeks for a large birthday celebration that my dad and his girlfriend are hosting for themselves...after cancelling it this time last year. I just wonder if maybe it won't get cancelled again.

Here in Ontario we have never really moved past Covid restrictions. We have always had an indoor mask mandate and while we had a brief reprieve this fall, we are back to capacity restrictions everywhere. Joy, joy! At least we aren't Quebec where they are implementing a curfew again. Can't wait for all this to be a distant memory.

 

[kastoney]

Wow, you've had quite the whirlwind the last few weeks. Looking forward to hearing more about Universal. Thinking we may finally bite the bullet and go on our next trip.