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 …

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 …

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 …

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 …

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 …

We spent our first of two Universal days at Islands of Adventure. The park has 6 main lands – Marvel Super Hero Island, Toon Lagoon, Skull Island, Jurassic Park, Wizarding World of Harry Potter (Hogsmeade), and Seuss Landing. I loved the layout of the park, as everything was oriented in a circle around a lake. I don’t like when parks are sprawling with multiple offshoots because you can easily get lost in the different paths or miss an entire section of the park. With a circular layout, you really just needed to decide which direction to head in and go …

Part of the huge appeal of the Moab area for us was the opportunity for adventure. While our boys enjoy hiking (and especially did in the national parks around Moab!), they are teens and definitely up for more daring experiences as well. Canyoneering was at the top of their list. Canyoneering is a form of rappelling that specifically involves descents through (you guess it!) canyons. Rappelling involves using ropes and your own body weight to lower yourself down a rock face. None of us had any experience rappelling so we had to find a tour suitable for beginners. I did …

A few years ago, one of my best friends went to Moab with her family and posted a video of them doing an off-road jeep tour. It looked so crazy and fun, I immediately knew that if we ever went to Moab, we had to do that tour. So when we decided on a Utah spring break, I couldn’t wait to start researching jeep tours. There are a few different off-road options – UTV, you-drive jeeps, ride-along jeeps. Having seen the terrain, I knew right away that any you-drive option was not for us. So we focused on the ride-along …

Moab is lucky enough to be centrally located to two National Parks. Arches is in Moab itself and Canyonlands is a short drive away. Canyonlands is the largest national park in Utah and is divided by the Green and Colorado Rivers into three districts – Island in the Sky, The Needles, and The Maze. Covering such an expansive area, large sections of the park are remote and accessible only by 4 wheel drive (or not at all by vehicle). The Maze is the most remote and therefore least visited of the three districts. Its rugged wilderness is attractive to experienced …

Featuring over 2,000 stone arches, the aptly named Arches National Park was one of the highlights of our trip. A geological marvel formed over the course of 65 million years, the park’s sandstone formations must have an opening at least 3 feet wide to be considered an arch. This means that erosion can cause a formation to earn its official “arch” designation at any time, or that erosion can cause an arch to collapse, losing its designation. In order to restrict the number of visitors and help alleviate overcrowding, Arches requires a time entry reservation between April and October. Reservations …