However Southwest does have some kinda odd travel plans. For example when flying to Florida we went backwards before we went forward. Our layover for the day was in Las Vegas. But out of all the places to layover i'd say Vegas was one of the best. I loved flying over Lake Mead coming into the city. I also love how close all the resorts are to the airport. Maybe it was just the bringing back of all the good times i've had in Vegas over the years. I don't know I just really enjoyed our short wait there. Plus I had a chance to donate some more money to the city on the slot machines that fill the Las Vegas Airport.
Our layover wasn't too long though and before we knew it we were back in the air and on a none stop flight to Tampa Florida. You may be wondering why we didn't just fly into Orlando since thats where we would be for the first 4 days of our vacation. It pretty much all came down to cost. It was cheaper to by our flights round trip into and back out of Tampa since thats where our cruise would depart from. We wouldn't have to pay rental car relocation fees since we would return the cars to the same place we picked them up from. And with Tampa only being a 45 minute drive from Orlando it really wasn't bad. So all and all everything worked out much better flying into Tampa then it would flying into Orlando. Something I recommend again is looking at all possible costs.
In Tampa we soon found Kyle and Valisa while we waited for Mike to land. All our flights landed about 20 minutes apart from one another and once we all meet up we soon picked up our Rental van (a Dodge Caravan) and made our way the drive to Orlando where our vacation would officially begin. Kyles sister Emily didn't fly into Tampa though like the rest of us. Instead we picked her up later that evening at the Orlando Airport.
One thing we really learned from the previous year was to not cheap out on our hotels (Sorry again Tyler and Rachael). Even if you just need a place to sleep its worth it to stay at a nice hotel. So this trip we booked the Orlando portion of our vacation at the Doubletree Universal Orlando. Not only was the Hotel very very nice and an excellent place to stay (its owned by Hilton and a 3 1/2 star) it was in very close proximity to the Universal Orlando Resort so that we could walk to and from the parks each day. We upgraded the room to a large corner room since we had six people staying in 1 room but we never felt crowded. I highly recommend this hotel as it was very nice and a great value. Ironically it was pretty much across the street from the dump we stayed in last time. Just keep in mind they do charge each night for parking so figure that into your costs (many hotels in orlando charge for parking).
The weather was excellent while we were in Florida this year. Last year seemed pretty misserable as Florida was not only experianceing record heat but also record humidity. This year the weather was what it normally would be with highs in the 70s and low humidity. Some days it didn't even seem like any humidity was present. Something that made the walks to the parks much more tolerable then it did last year. I really don't know how some people can stand that humidity.
Since we spent every day in the parks until after the parks closed we didn't really do a whole lot else. Especially since we were so beat after coming back to the hotel from the parks. One thing that was very refreshing though that we did each night was go and soak our feet in the Hotels hot tub. This was so relaxing and helped our feet feel much better after a day of walking and waiting in lines. It also helped prepair them for the same thing the following days. It was fun to just sit back and relax and talk with everyone about the cool things the parks had to offer.
One of the nights after finishing at the Parks we went out to International Drive for a short amount of time to check out a few gift shops and to also find some ice cream. The other free night we had we headed out to Downtown Disney (like we did last year) to get some dinner and just hang out. Kyle and Valisa actually had some friends visiting Disney World at the same time we were there so we used this night to meet up with them. Downtown Disney is pretty fun to visit if your in Orlando for a very short amount of time. Theres many shops, restaurants, and other entertainment things to keep you occupied for a few hours and really give you that Disney Magic feel if you don't have time to visit any of the parks. We ate at a restaurnt called Earl of Sandwich and it was excellent. Because we too so long at dinner though we didn't really get a chance to look at any of the store in depth as everyone was pretty tired and we would have an early morning the next day to head back to Tampa for the cruise.
The day of the cruise we packed up everything and headed back to Tampa. Mike and Emily both had flights out of Orlando early in the morning so after dropping them off we were on our way to start our cruise. The Tampa airport is only 5 miles from the cruise terminal and because of that its also the closest locations for the rental car drop off. From the airport we just took a taxi to the cruise terminal (and vice versa after the cruise). The fair for this only cost $25 for the carload.
After our cruise was over we had an extra day to spend in Florida. We chose to stay an extra day and fly home in the morning mainly because of cost. It would have cost nearly $150 more to fly home the day we were done with the cruise then to just stay the night. So thats what we did. We headed back to the airport and got another rental van (This time a Toyota Sienna) and then debated on what to do with our day. Other then needing to go by the Hard Rock (Kyle collected a shirt from the Hard Rocks in every town we went to) we decided to head back to Orlando for the day.
When we got into Orlando we found ourselves getting hungry. There was a store Valisa wanted to go to so we headed to the Florida Mall where that store was located. The Florida Mall is pretty cool. It is huge though. Its probably the largest mall i've ever been in. We ate at the food court and went to the store Valisa needed to go to. Kiera and I explored a couple more stores like the M&M's World (only one i've seen outside of Vegas) and the Disney store. Unfortunatly we didn't have any time to check out anything else.
Kyle and Valisa still had days left on there Universal Park tickets (ours had expired) so we dropped them back off at parks so they could go to Wizarding World one last time. While they were at the Wizarding World Kiera and I decided to go check out one of the local outlet Malls called the Prim Outlets that were pretty close to the parks.
I've never seen any shopping place more packed then the Prim Outlets (and the Florida Mall) was. It was more packed then our malls are here on the Saturday before Christmas. And what was more crazy is that the day we went was a Sunday. I guess people take breaks from the parks to shop on Sundays (Kyle and Valisa said Islands of Adventure was empty). There were some cool stores that we don't have here but we didn't find anything of interest to buy. They do have a Disny Park outlet though where all there discontinued park merchandise goes so if you go to the Disney parks by your suvioniers there. They were much cheaper. They also had some cool pay to play toys for kids like some hampster balls that run in water and a super trampolene. Next time we go to Orlando we plan on checking out the Premium Outlets instead of the Prim.
We spent a couple hours at the Outlets before Valisa calling and saying they were done at the parks. We soon headed back over to pick them up and were greated with them buying us some butterbeers for being nice enough to drop them off at the parks one last time. It was nice of them to do and was so great to drink its awesomeness as we didn't expect to drink another Butterbeer on this trip. Thanks again guys.
From here we ended our time in Orlando and made the drive back to Tampa for the rest of the evening. Our Hotel for the evening was once again a Doubletree this time located close to the airport. I booked this hotel thru hotwire so in addition to getting a great rate on it it just happend to be funny it was a Doubletree as well. The hotel was still really nice (not as nice as the Orlando one though) and served its purpose well. It is another hotel I would recommend as it was a very nice place to stay.
Valisa happened to have a old high school friend living in Tampa so we meet up with her for dinner at Applebees. She had a great time remanissing with an old friend. Although the drive to the restaurant was interesting. The GPS first took us by the stadiums where the Tampa Bay Bucaneers and the Tampa Rays Football and Baseball teams play and then it got scary when it took us thru and area that seemed to be ether a porn shop or strip club every other building. We were glad when we found ourselves back in a nice area where the restuarant was located lol.
Our flights left Tampa the next morning at around 9am. We got to the airport quickly and soon checked in for our flights as our vacation was quickly coming to an end. The Tampa airport is designed pretty cool and modern like but it seemed to be lacking many shops and places to eat.
We flew home again on Southwest Airlines and had a great flight. I spent most the time picking out photos to show our familys while Kiera tried to sleep. Our layover on the flight home was in Denver and we were only there for like 30 minutes. Unlike the American Airlines flight we took last year where they made us get off the plane Southwest kept us on since our flight would be continuing to SLC. Just under an hour after leaving Denver we landed back home in Salt Lake.
We had a great time in Florida once again. The combo of our time in Florida complemented the cruise perfectly and made for one heck of a vacation. One that we will never forget.
1 comment:
Looks like you guys had a blast! Wish we could have joined you but glad we got to go in 2009. :)
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