TikiFamily Trip Report 2015
TikiFamily Trip Report 2015
Pre-Trip report can be found here.
We had a wonderful trip to Florida again this year. There were some wrinkles but it all worked out fine. In fact, we got more Disney time than we thought we would!
So the plan was to be at my in-laws house in Tampa for Weds through Saturday, then we would head over to Orlando and stay at Disney for Sun, Mon, and Tuesday, then head back to Tampa Tue eve and head home on Weds. Park day Sun, Kennedy Space Center Mon, and water park Tues. We didn't tell the girls about any of the plans, except that we would be staying at Disney for one night and going to a water park.
But as you will see, things changed a little. Read on.
Weds morning, 4am: we woke up and finished our short list of packing. When we got to the airport, we parked our car in the long term lot and walked to the terminal – along with 10,000 of our fellow travelers, apparently. The line at Southwest was LOOONG, not something you expect to see at 5am. Security was long but it moved quickly. By the time we got through all the lines (including a stop at Dunkin Donuts for breakfast and caffeine) we arrived at the gate 15 min before the flight left. We checked in, walked on, and found seats together at the back of the plane. Not bad! Despite the stress of getting to the gate on time, it was awfully nice to walk up to the gate and get right on the plane.
Our flight was quiet and uneventful. We picked up our rental car, a Chevy Traverse, without any wait and spent the rest of the day settling into my in-laws house. Swim in the pool, a quick run to the grocery store, and quiet time. Ahh.
Thursday we went to Lowry Park Zoo. We go here every year. We saw the bird show and an owl flew about a foot from my head. I thought it was going to hit me with its feet! If you’re in the Tampa area, you must go to the Zoo. It’s an amazing place, great theming and a wonderful mix of animals.
Friday we had breakfast at the Frog Pond, our favorite “pancakes as big as your head” place. We went to see “Shaun the Sheep” at the movie theater in the afternoon – where we had reclining seats! Like, actual recliners. It was awesome. I am forever spoiled.
Friday night we had the best time of our vacation. We went to Redington Shores beach and spent hours in the waves. The Gulf was rough and we had a fantastic time bobbing up and down in our tubes. My husband got some great photos of us and the beautiful sunset. Nights like this are why we keep going down to Florida every year.
Now, up to this point we had been vague about our plans when speaking with our girls. And we had made a point of telling them that there was no park time planned in our vacation, due to the fact that we were saving up for our week long visit next year. So when we woke the girls up at 5am on Saturday morning and told them that we were going to Epcot that day, they were surprised. Groggy, but happy.
We got to Riverside around 8am. I had made two reservations – one for Saturday night, one for Sun-Mon nights, due to our change in plans. I had to make sure our Magic Bands were attached to both reservations. It took the front desk about 20 minutes to make sure this happened. But after it was all set, we hopped on a bus to Epcot and got there before opening. We followed the crowd to the roped off area near the fountain and worked our way up to the front, headed for Test Track. We managed to be in the first 40 people on the ride. My husband and I teamed up to make a vehicle but halfway through our computer screen rebooted. Thankfully the girls car saved and they were happy to see it performed well on the tests.
After Test Track we braved Sum of All Thrills (no line when we went in – 20 min wait when we left) and Mission Space. We paused to get coffee and snacks by Universe of Energy. Katie was saying that she wished we could go to Magic Kingdom, not just Epcot. So I looked at my husband, said, can we stay one more night and go to Magic Kingdom tomorrow? And he said, sure! The girls figured out that we had planned to surprise them, but they were happy nonetheless.
The rest of the morning went like this: Living with the Land, Soarin’, and Imagination. We headed over to World Showcase around 11:30 and it was quite empty. The weather was beautiful too – overcast and breezy, which meant we weren’t baking under the August sun. We actually stayed later than we planned because it was so nice. We had lunch at Katsura Grill then spent souvenir money in our favorite store, Mitsukoshi. We got lucky on our way out of World Showcase and got to take pics with Duffy!
After riding Spaceship Earth (FP), we took the bus back to Riverside and dragged out bags to our room in Building 17. (for hotel information, see end of post)
We had dinner at the food court and took the bus to the Studios. We knew it would be crowded but we managed to get a FP for Tower of Terror and rode standby on Star Tours and Muppets. We walked around a lot, after finding out that two of my favorite vloggers, Joe and Ashley of See Ya Reel Soon, were in the park! We tried to meet up with them but it was not to be. We thought about seeing Fantasmic, but opted to get some sleep in our hotel room instead, for we were headed to rope drop at the MK the next day!!
We would have been in bed earlier if it wasn’t for us getting off the bus at the wrong stop… we didn’t notice that we got off at French Quarter until it was too late. After researching our options, we decided to walk. It wasn’t a bad walk… if you weren’t wearing flip flops… and hadn’t walked miles during the day… ;)
Seriously, we were fine and the plus side was, we passed by the main building of Riverside on the way to our room and found Yee Haw Bob performing. We stuck our heads in to hear his rendition of “The Green Grass Grew All Around”. If we weren’t so tired we would have stayed to hear more.
