So, for spring break this year, Eric and I took kidlet to
Florida for the main purpose of visiting his parents who moved down there last
summer. It wasn’t exactly a planned trip as we had originally discussed going
to visit after the wedding as leave from work and finances are currently tied
up with that. However, there was a little family drama over the Christmas
holiday that I won’t get into that made Eric feel obligated to visit his parents
to reassure them that their relationship was on good terms. So, suddenly, we
were scrambling to go to Florida in March.
I’m a planner, a HUGE planner, and while we made the
decision in early January, there were many bumps in the road to the point that
we were still debating whether we’d make it down there in February. I didn’t
even book anything until late February/mid March. In February, Eric had some health
issues that really made the trip questionable, but by mid March, that was
resolved and the trip was a definite. Still, the constant back and forth was
aggravating to me because I couldn’t plan anything until we were 100% sure we
were going, which meant I was booking a lot of stuff last minute (at least, to
me).
We decided to make the most of our trip and drive down to
Orlando for a couple of days before going to his parents’ house. We planned to
spend a day each in Disney World and at Universal as Eric and I had both never
been to Universal. After spending the day there, I kind of see why my parents
never made a point to go there... We split the drive down to Florida in two
days since I was sure kidlet wouldn’t make the drive in one fell swoop. We
stopped in Florence, SC both on the way down and on the way back since it was a
fairly nice halfway point.
While the trip was mostly a success, there are many things I
would have done differently. I probably still would have done Disney, though, I
will NEVER do Disney again during spring break. It is WAY too crowded. I took
kidlet to Disney when she was 5 for her birthday and since she wasn’t in school
yet, we could go ON her birthday. It wasn’t terribly crowded while we were
there and wait times were reasonable. During spring break, Disney is ridiculously
crowded and I was miserable. We got fast passes for 3 rides (only one of which
really seemed worth it, but because we booked everything so late, there was
slim pickings for rides). We went on Splash Mountain…at like 10 A.M. when it
was only like 60 degrees outside. It warmed up to the mid 70’s later on, but
kidlet and I were already cold, so adding freezing water to the mix was not my
brightest moment. We also had a fast pass to the Haunted Mansion which…I like
the ride, but the wait time was never that bad for that one. The only ride I
had a fast pass for that was worth it was Space Mountain since that line was
always about 1.5-2 hours long. We had fun at Disney, but I am serious about not
doing it on spring break again.
Lessons from Disney:
1.
Not during spring break.
2.
Stay on one of the hotels on Disney property
that is not owned by Disney. It’s slightly cheaper than Disney, not as cheap as
an off site hotel, but you have easier access to Disney transportation, which
is free.
3.
If you stay off site at a hotel, take Disney
transportation ALL the way to Epcot before getting a taxi back to your hotel.
Our taxi was over $40 and about half of that was just getting off Disney
property. If we had taken the monorail back to Epcot from Magic Kingdom, we
would have saved ourselves at least $12.
4.
Determine the dates you want to be at Disney and
book reservations as soon as you know them. I would have loved to do some kind
of character dining experience, but they were all booked by the time I tried.
5.
Don’t book Splash Mountain at 10 AM in March.
Yes, Florida is typically warm all year, but it does get chilly in the early
mornings and evenings…
Our second day in Florida was spent at Universal. I really
wish I had done some research on the rides at Universal before we went.
Apparently, Universal proper (we didn’t do Islands of Adventure) has a thing
for 3D virtual rides. The first ride we went on was the Minion one and that
made both Eric and I sick to our stomachs. From there we did Shrek (not as bad,
but similar idea) and then Transformers (not as bad for me, but Eric hated it).
By that point, we were really unhappy because this is not how we wanted to
spend our day (or money). Thankfully, we were able to break out of the 3D world
for the Mummy ride and for the Disaster ride, both which were awesome. We did
do Harry Potter/Diagon alley and enjoyed the roller coaster there (because the
3D effects weren’t as vomit-inducing on that one as on the others) and Eric
bought us all wands at Ollivander’s wand shop. We also tasted butter beer,
which we all enjoyed. Our last ride was one Denise chose, which was the Woody
the Woodpecker coaster. I wanted to do ET, but she was adamant and we were all
pretty exhausted by that point anyway.
Lessons from Universal:
1.
Don’t do it. Seriously, it’s got nothing on
Disney and the ONLY reason I can see going back is to do Hogsmeade for Harry
Potter. We might do a return trip at some point to try that, but I don’t think
it’ll be the next time we go to Florida.
2.
Research the rides before you go on them. If you
don’t do well at virtual 3D moving rides, Universal is really not for you.
After Transformers, I told Eric which rides had the 3D and what I thought we
should skip and we were all much happier.
3.
Don’t do Escape from Gringotts first thing. When
we got there, the wait was over 2 hours, but after lunch, the wait was just
over an hour. Diagon Alley was still filled with people (and watch out for all
the idiots who stop in the middle of the walkway to snap pics of the huge
dragon), but the wait time was more reasonable.
After
Universal, we drove to Eric’s parents, which was about 1.5-2 hours away from
Orlando. We got to the area after dark and proceeded to get very lost. If you’ve
never been to Ocala, or have no reason to go there (i.e. family obligations), I
highly suggest you skip it. I had a roommate who was from Ocala during my short
stint at a small liberal arts college in Florida and one weekend, we went to
visit her parents. It’s basically like they took Southern Maryland (St. Mary’s
County, specifically) and transported it to Florida, removing all traces of any
hills and replacing them with palm trees and Spanish moss. There are tons of
horse farms everywhere, miles of countryside, and not much else. Whomever
designed their street system must have been smoking something because they have
multiple streets with the same names, just slight variations. For instance, we
were told to take 80th Street. Well, there’s an 80th
Street and an 80th Avenue that actually cross each other. The road
his parents live on has a similar road on the other side of town. We got so
lost and we were both pretty aggravated and pissed off by the time we finally
managed to find it. Lesson from that experience: don’t trust Google Maps for
everything. It’s a new development, so I’m not even sure if it was ever put ON
google maps.
All
in all, I’m glad we went as I was able to keep a promise to kidlet to return to
Disney in three years, but if I could have done this differently, I would have
planned to go at a different time and preferably after the wedding. I’ve
calculated my leave for the rest of the year and I’m going to have to scrimp
and save it if I have any hope of going on a honeymoon with Eric in January. We’re
still trying to figure out where we’re going, but I’m leaning towards going
back to Freeport in the Bahamas. I went on a cruise there a couple of years ago
and the area is really nice. I’m just trying to figure out where we should stay
while we’re there. Hopefully we can decide on that and start booking it soon!
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