Around the United States Archives – Parents with Passports

Club Wyndham Bonnet Creek

June 26th, 2024admin0 Comments

After two nights with 4 adult-sized people in a single hotel room, we were excited to move on to a condo-style resort. We had debated the benefits of staying on-site at a Disney resort when we were planning this trip but ultimately decided we had outgrown both the themes and the room size of the Disney resorts. Unwilling to pay outrageous prices for any of Disney’s multi-room options, we turned to the Bonnet Creek resorts. Bonnet Creek is not owned by Disney but is as close to being on property as you can get, with Disney land surrounding it on …

Magic Kingdom

June 25th, 2024admin0 Comments

We spent the last of our 6 Florida theme park days at Magic Kingdom. The timing of our day revolved around our spot in the Virtual Queue for TRON. We had a much lower group number (40) for TRON than we had for Guardians of the Galaxy (100) two days earlier. That meant our estimated callback time was earlier – 11:30 am. This was a pretty good time for teens – not so early that they grumbled over not sleeping late enough but not so late that the parents were itching to go. We actually got the alert that our …

Animal Kingdom

June 25th, 2024admin0 Comments

We headed to Animal Kingdom on our third Disney day. After two days of speeding through lines at Universal with their Express Pass and two days of crawling through Disney lines, we decided to splurge and purchase Genie+ for our Animal Kingdom day. Our priority in Animal Kingdom was Avatar Flight of Passage and that wasn’t even available as part of Genie+. That ride had to be purchased as an Individual Lightning Lane at $20+ per person. There was no way we were paying for that so we opted to try to minimize our overall waiting by spreading out our …

Epcot

June 24th, 2024admin0 Comments

On our second Disney day, we visited Epcot. One of my strongest memories from our first trip to Disney when the kids were 3 and 5 is of them running straight to the Epcot ball to get on line for Spaceship Earth. With no concept whatsoever of what the ride was, they just headed straight to the iconic landmark and got on line… and proceeded to be absolutely terrified of the dark ride and its creepy animatronic people. I seriously thought that was going to be our first and last ride of that entire Disney trip. But my how times …

Hollywood Studios

June 24th, 2024admin0 Comments

After two great days at Universal, we headed over to Disney World. We had four days of park tickets (not hoppers) so planned one day per park. Based on the crowd calendars, there were two different options that had us hitting one of the recommended parks on each day. I told the boys to pick Magic Kingdom or Hollywood Studios for the first day and then the rest of the schedule fell into place based on the crowd calendars. They chose Hollywood Studios. Unfortunately the picture perfect weather that we had at Universal Studio was scheduled to take a drastic …

Disney World Travel Tips 2024

June 24th, 2024admin0 Comments

As I said after our trip to Disney World in 2017, there are thousands of people who make a living out of Disney planning and tips, and there is not a lot that I can add to what the experts have already said. Although I am a travel planning enthusiast, I am not a Disney planning enthusiast (especially at this stage of our lives). So below I will make some notes on things I stressed about and wish I had a better grasp of before our trip. Not really tips per se but more FYIs. Hopefully they are helpful to …

Universal Orlando Resort Travel Tips

June 23rd, 2024admin0 Comments

Although we had been to Disney twice prior to this trip, we had never been to Universal. (Ok, I actually went in my 20s for one day after running the Disney Marathon but that was so long ago and a kid-less trip so it doesn’t count.) The details and logistics of the Universal portion of our trip were completely foreign to me. The things below were the things that I was most worried/confused about. Tickets Why oh why are Universal tickets so expensive?!? Seriously, I’m not sure why people complain so much about Disney prices when Universal is actually more …

Loews Royal Pacific Resort

June 23rd, 2024admin0 Comments

We decided to splurge on a premier resort for one night in order to get the free Universal Express Unlimited Passes that are included with the rooms. Since passes are included for both check-in and check-out days (and any days that you stay in between), we only needed a one night stay to cover both our park days. We stayed at the Endless Summer Resort Surfside for our first night since that was our driving day and we weren’t visiting a park. When we woke up the next morning, we ate breakfast and went straight to the Royal Pacific. We …

Universal Endless Summer Resort – Surfside

June 23rd, 2024admin0 Comments

We did a split stay at Universal in order to take advantage of the free Universal Express Unlimited Passes that come with a stay at a Premier Resort. Since the Premier Resorts are more expensive, we opted to spend our first night in a Value Resort. The two on-site value options at Universal are Cabana Bay Beach Resort and Endless Summer Resort, which has two sides – Surfside and Dockside. I’ll be honest, I didn’t spend too much time on this decision. I knew we’d be arriving around dinner time and checking out first thing the next morning so it …

Universal Studios Florida

June 22nd, 2024admin0 Comments

On our second Universal day, we went to Universal Studios Florida. Similar to Islands of Adventure, the park is situated around a lake, making navigation fairly easy. Some of the areas do extend further back from the lake, opening up a little opportunity to get turned around in the streets of New York and Minion Land, but overall it is still really well laid out. We decided to head counter-clockwise in this park, but this time it was not a ride calling our names but a character. As we peered down the streets of Hollywood, we spotted none other than …