Trip Reports Archives – Page 25 of 26

Florence

April 26th, 2017admin0 Comments

We took the train to Florence after a whirlwind day in Rome. It was a quick and easy hour and a half trip. We checked into the Hotel Porta Rossa a little before 5:30 and then set out to explore the city. We wandered the narrow city streets and explored Ponte Vecchio before deciding to try to make it to the top of Piazzale Michelangelo for sunset. Ponte Vecchio is Florence’s iconic bridge – a pedestrian bridge across the Arno River known for the jewelry shops that line its sides. The bridge as it is today was built in 1350 …

Rome

April 22nd, 2017admin0 Comments

Rome! Our bonus city on our trip to Italy. We hadn’t originally planned to go here but the flights forced a change in our itinerary. And boy were we glad they did! What an amazing city. Our time was way too short there and I’m already certain that we’ll go back one day. But first the back story on why our time was so short… You may recall from my pre-trip report that we booked reward tickets way far in advance and I had to take the boys up to my parent’s house in NJ first. So my flight to …

Hollywood Studios

February 15th, 2017admin0 Comments

We started the morning of our third day in Magic Kingdom and headed to Hollywood Studios a little after noon. For our family, Hollywood Studios holds the least interest. The boys aren’t huge Star Wars fans and Tower of Terror is definitely out as a ride option. (They do thrilling but not scary.) But we have to balance that with the fact that their absolute favorite ride in all of Disney World is there, Toy Story Mania. So skipping it entirely wasn’t an option. We figured a half day would be fine. JB had used a birthday gift card to …

Epcot

February 11th, 2017admin0 Comments

One of my regrets from our first trip to Disney was not spending enough time in Epcot. I was pleasantly surprised at how interested the boys were in exploring the countries and how much time we could have spent there. I wanted to avoid making this mistake again but with limited days and lots of ground to cover, I was left with roughly 8 hours there. We arrived around 1:00 and planned to stay for Illuminations at 9:00. That seemed like ample time to ride a few rides and wander around the countries. But as they say, the best laid …

Animal Kingdom

February 8th, 2017admin0 Comments

In order to fit in a full day at Animal Kingdom and still get to see all the nighttime shows in the other parks, we split our Animal Kingdom time into two days. We spent about three and a half hours there in the morning on the second day of our trip and then returned for our last morning of the trip. On our first visit, we had lunch reservations and FastPasses in Epcot for later in the day so we headed straight to Expedition Everest when we arrived at Animal Kingdom to try to take advantage of lower early …

Magic Kingdom

February 3rd, 2017admin0 Comments

Since Magic Kingdom has the most rides and the most ground to cover, I decided to use the Touring Plans website to map our a general path through the park. I had never used it before and was really impressed. I input our Fast Passes and lunch reservation times, told it what rides we wanted to ride, and it automatically calculated the best route to take through the park to maximize rides and minimize wait time and walking. We are definitely not the type of family to follow a minute by minute schedule through Disney World, but I liked having …

AW Shucks

October 30th, 2016admin0 Comments

Fall is my favorite time of year, and North Carolina is an amazing place to be in the fall. The foliage is gorgeous, the weather is perfect, and we could spend every weekend outside doing something different. Living close to the mountains and close to farmland, there is no shortage of fall activities in the area. Our favorite annual tradition is going to AW Shucks farm in Monroe, NC. Our first visit was in 2010 when the boys were 9 months and 2.5 years old, and we have been back every year since. Check out these munchkins on their first …

The Bronx Zoo

September 3rd, 2016admin0 Comments

Continuing the animal theme of this trip, we decided to take the boys into NYC to visit the Bronx Zoo. Getting there from central New Jersey was possible using only public transportation but the trip would have been long and complicated, involving trains, subways, and buses. We decided to drive in, which was not without its own challenges, but we survived the George Washington Bridge and made it through the Bronx with only one interesting question about the surrounding area (“Mom, what are booty-enhancing jeans?”). My sister and her family also drove in from NJ and my brother and his …

Six Flags Great Adventure

August 31st, 2016admin0 Comments

Although I probably went more than twice in my life, I have two main memories of Six Flags Great Adventure from when I was a kid. The first was driving through the safari in the family station wagon. The second was going in high school for “Physics Day”, where we had to complete a worksheet with questions that applied physics principles to the rides in the park. The latter was memorable mostly for the novelty of going to an amusement park for a school field trip. The former was memorable because a monkey jumped on the hood of our car …

Adventure Aquarium

August 28th, 2016admin0 Comments

After seeing the Adventure Aquarium from afar while on the Ride the Ducks tour in Philadelphia, we headed back across the Benjamin Franklin Bridge to explore it in person. The aquarium’s claims to fame include housing the largest collection of sharks on the East Coast and being the only aquarium in the world with a hippo exhibit. The Ocean Realm and the Shark Realm are the two biggest tanks in the aquarium. The Ocean Realm is the larger of the two and houses everything from sting rays to sea turtles. It has huge viewing windows and (my kids favorite!) a …