We just got back from a fabulous vacation in Florida! Ever since we met, Ryan has always talked about his cousins that he was so close to growing up. One of them, Daniel was actually in our wedding, and we flew out to Hawaii last year to go to his wedding. He has and older sister and brother, however, that I hadn't even met! They live in Florida and have kids, so it was harder for them to come out to any of the family events, and they were too far away to visit anytime we went back to the south to visit family. We had been talking about going to Florida specifically to go visit them for a long time now, but it never seemed to fit into the schedule. This year, that was Ryan's birthday gift. Last year we did an Alaska cruise for Ryan's birthday, so I think I've decided that birthday vacations are the way to go!
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| On our way to Florida! Clearly Ryan is super excited that I like to take a million pictures ;) |
We actually flew into Orlando and spent a few days there before heading down to Fort Myers to visit the family. We got in late Saturday night and caught the Disney Shuttle over to our hotel. I decided to stay in a Disney resort to make sure we had free shuttle to the Parks, and each night one park stays open extra late for people who stay in Disney resorts, which turned out to be awesome. Sunday morning we actually took a little taxi ride over to another hotel that's a military resort. I didn't actually know it existed until I tried to get military discount park tickets and they told me I could just go there and pick them up when I got into town. I'm so glad we did that, because we got an awesome deal! There's a special promotion going on for a 4 day park hopper ticket for less than it would cost for a standard 2 day ticket, so that's what we got! We were also hoping to spend a day at Universal Studios, so I asked them if they had any deals on that too...turns out they did...FREE!! I got one free ticket for me, then just had to pay for Ryan's, so that was an awesome surprise! Once we got all our tickets, we caught a shuttle from there to our first Park of the day, Animal Kingdom! We got some lunch, went on a few rides, did the animal safari and walked around the zoo area.
Next up...EPCOT! really I just wanted to get some food there ;) One of the things we soon found out at all of the parks, that we never knew as kids was that there's an open container policy...so I could get a margarita and wander around EPCOT! Turns out Disney world isn't just for kids. We spent a while wandering around the lake through all the different countries and stores and ended up getting some supper in Mexico. We both remember going to the same restaurant when we were little too ;) I think that's what made this part of the trip so much fun is we started remembering and recognizing things we had seen as kids here. By the time we were done with supper, EPCOT was closing so we headed over to Magic Kingdom just in time to watch some fireworks as we took a ferry across the lake to it.
Magic Kingdom was schedule to be open an extra 2 hours for people staying at Disney Resorts. By the time we got there, everyone else was leaving, so we tried to get on all the rides we wanted to check out, and there was hardly a wait for any of them! That's the worst part of any of these parks, waiting in line, so it was extra awesome that we didn't have to deal with any of that!
Monday morning we started off at Hollywood Studios. We went to a few of the live shows, like Indiana Jones, and a Cars stunt driving show, then hit up all the good rides there.
Then we headed back over to Magic Kingdom to see it during the day and ride a few more rides. Really I just wanted to find Mickey Mouse and get a picture with him...but that didn't end up happening...phooey! We did get to ride the Dumbo ride though!! That's what every guy wants to do on his 30th birthday, right?? Well, Ryan got to ;)
After Magic Kingdom, we figured we had done everything we wanted to do at the parks and just headed back to the resort to relax and go for a swim before heading out to Downtown Disney for the night. I don't think I had ever been there before, but it was a great little downtown set up with stores and bars right on the water. We ended up at a little irish bar with great live music and hung out on the patio with drinks and music under the stars!
Tuesday we planned to do the day at Universal Studios. Let's be honest, my main reason for wanting to go there was to see the 'Wizarding World of Harry Potter'! We were also pretty excited for all the bigger rides there. They did not disappoint! We also totally lucked out on our timing for this trip...there were hardly any lines for anything! At one point we went on 'The Hulk' roller coaster, got off it and went back and rode it again within minutes!
Then we got to the Harry Potter stuff! There was a whole set up of Hogsmeade village to walk through with the same shops and everything that was in the movies! I was in heaven. We even got to buy some butterbeer like they have in the movies too! Then we did the rides. Again, not much of a wait. One of the rides we did though, did have a bit of a line, but the line was almost as awesome as the ride! The line wound it's was through Hogwarts with an amazing set up that looked pretty authentic to the movie complete with moving wall portraits and characters making appearances. The ride was great too! We ended up grabbing a late lunch at the 'Three Broomsticks' (a place they went in the books).
We finished off the day with a drink by the water before catching a shuttle back to our resort then heading to the airport to rent a car and drive down to Fort Myers! I think I'll write another post on the rest of the week since this one has gotten a little long! Orlando was soooo much fun though, I hope we can do it again sometime, it's awesome as an adult!
