Adventurous Week in Aventura (June 6-10, 2022) ~ Completed

[wdwrule]

Ahh school year is out, so what a better way to relax than to head to UO! This trip was just myself with DD. We originally booked a standard queen room at Aventura and were looking forward to a Monday through Friday stay. Our stays are usually weekends so I was looking forward to a lengthier time plus weekdays. So excited!!

I check AP hotel rates like crazy and am always looking for a deal. We got a decent deal for a standard room at around $160 per night at Aventura (2 adults). Well, low and behold I was checking rates the night before we left for the trip and a deluxe queen room at Aventura popped up for only $7 more per night. So I called Aventura direct to see if we could take that room instead and he happily switched it for us. Wohooo! Then I quickly had to try to sleep with the excitement because our flight was the next morning at 6am.

 

[wdwrule]

Oh. My. Goodness this room! It was so lovely. It was enormous for just the two of us. What we loved the most was the floor to ceiling windows that stretched on and on. The layout is a bit odd but the space and the views were amazing!











Some awesome views:






This last picture shows Epcot’s fireworks way out in the distance which was really cool to see each night. Not shown in the picture, but we could actually catch a glimpse of Spaceship Earth.

 

[wdwrule]

One of the first things we did on arrival day was visit the Tribute Store! I’m a huge 80s girl at heart so this Tribute Store ended up being one of my favorites. This was such a wonderful trip down memory lane. Full of nostalgia.






That was so cool seeing the classic versions of games I had growing up such as the original Clue.



Then, went through the Jaws themed room and then onto Back to the Future.





Everything was fantastic with oodles of fine detail! We spent quite a bit of time through the Tribute Store. We loved the Kong photo op at the end which was hilarious. I just love all of the thought, time and effort that goes into this. It fascinates me every time and is greatly appreciated.

We then hit up some rides and later had a late lunch at Confisco’s, up in the AP lounge. We’ve had consistently great food and service at Confisco’s. I loved the ahi tuna nachos that I got with hubby last time so I ordered it again as an entree. It was superb! DD got the chicken quesadillas in case she didn’t care for the nachos (which she tried but wasn’t her thing, but loved the quesadillas).



I had a nice big glass of their sangria which is so refreshing on a hot day.

Then we saw the Caro-Seuss-el was open and back up from refurb! We began vacationing in UO for the first time ever this past August ‘21 and it had always been under refurbishment since, so this was a nice treat to finally experience this.



Ahhh whimsical fun! So bright and felt like right out of the books. I loved how you can control the cow’s eyelids. Nice touch!

At this point in time, it was mid afternoon and fatigue was kicking in from our early flight so we headed to Aventura since we had received a text earlier that our room was ready. Again, we were so pleased with this amazing room! We rested a bit then went down to Aventura’s quick service and got a tasty noodle bowl. There was live entertainment as well which sounded amazing. A lady played an electric violin to some background music and it sounded awesome!


The bowl options were nice. You choose the veggies, type of noodles, meat if preferred, and broth.

After this we perused around a bit but were still a bit on the tired side and it started to rain so we just decided to call it a night. The next morning we planned to visit Disney Springs since we hadn’t been there in awhile and we still had yet to try Gideon’s cookies. (Spoiler alert: )

 

[wdwrule]

Just a warning that this next post will be a little Disney-esque As mentioned in my first ever trip report from last August ‘21, we had always visited WDW and only WDW when traveling to Florida. Haha Universal now wins us over and we went from once per year to Disney to once per month at UO. Although, usually just a combo of two of the four of us and typically quick weekends.

At any rate we do love both places and we made sweet, sweet memories at WDW with the kids. But now we’re making such fun memories at UO! I’ve been wanting to try Gideon’s cookies since I have such a sweet tooth (like HUGE) and they look incredible from vlogs I’ve watched. One of my favorite hobbies is baking as it’s a great stress reliever for me. I typically underbake a bit since that’s what my family prefers, including myself. I’ve heard Gideon’s has an underbaked taste and texture so I was super pumped.

Before we snagged a Lyft ride, DD and I split an enormous bowl of oatmeal down at Aventura’s counter service. Definitely shareable (well that and I knew we would be eating a ton of baked goods later that morning ).

This keeps me full for so long! (Just FYI: if you get their oatmeal to go, they put it in a much much smaller container for the same cost). I then got a brewed chai tea right next-door inside the lobby at Starbucks. One small minor thing that I do not like about Aventura is they do not have Keurig machines and I like to use the green tea pods. Instead they have this type of coffee maker…

I loved this sign at their Starbucks
So clever and it made me chuckle. Then it was off to Disney Springs. We arrived at Gideons around 9:30am and waited about 20 minutes in line which wasn't bad at all.
This place was so stylish and eccentric!





Not sure why their little menus stated 2021 but I didn’t care. Bring on the sugar! And sugar they brought.

Oh my. We went way overboard and purchased: a slice, aka slab, of rainbow cake (thick marshmallow buttercream frosting ), coffee cake cookie, cookies and cream cookie, choc chip cookie, peanut butter chip cookie, peanut butter cold brew with a lovely agave straw and cocoa with salt on top. Everything was heavenly! We quickly found a shady spot and sampled each item.

Here’s a cross section of this coffee cake bad boy:


Some of the others:


Oops just hit my picture max per post. I’ll continue on…

 

[wdwrule]

Another cookie and cake pic…







Everything was delicious. That cake became our nightly ritual before getting into bed. We munched on everything for the remainder of the week and even had some cookie parts to take home. Because I love underbaked goods, these cookies were incredibly wonderful. I don’t know how they do it. They aren’t technically underbaked at all, but they have pillowy soft insides. Not doughy, but soft and chewy. We are headed back for a longer stay again next month and Gideons is definitely on my must do list again.

After looking through some shops and lugging our Gideons loot, we decided we should probably obtain some protein and had an early lunch at the Polite Pig. This was fantastic and hit the spot.

We split this easily and it was very flavorful. The pulled pork was juicy and tender and you can add sauce. I think there were around 5 sauce choices which you can get yourself. The crock of Mac and cheese was definitely a star! It was incredibly rich, thick, creamy and the cheese pull… wow! The slaw and muffin were just ok. Neither very flavorful.

We then walked to the bus stop which was near a shop we exited and waited just a few minutes for either Grand Floridian or Poly… whichever one would come first. Before we headed back to UO, we decided we wanted to take a monorail loop to see the castle from afar and to visit some of the monorail resorts.




This was so much fun and I’m glad that we did this. Of course it made it much easier to do this on a Monday through Friday stay opposed to a quick weekend trip. But it was awesome to take just half a day to get a little bit of Disney in our systems.

Ok now back to Universal! To be continued…

 

[christophfam]

Loving your trip report! I’ve had that room at Adventura and love it as well. I stopped at gideons for the first time last May. Yeah, I’m going to want them every trip now too. My favorites were the coffee cake and the toffee pistachio one. Might try the Orlando location next time as we aren’t crazy about Disney springs and I drive somewhat near the other location on my way into town. Although a monorail loop does sound fun. Haven’t been to Disney in years! When my son was little, the monorail was one of his favorite rides. Lol

 

[wdwrule]

Loving your trip report! I’ve had that room at Adventura and love it as well. I stopped at gideons for the first time last May. Yeah, I’m going to want them every trip now too. My favorites were the coffee cake and the toffee pistachio one. Might try the Orlando location next time as we aren’t crazy about Disney springs and I drive somewhat near the other location on my way into town. Although a monorail loop does sound fun. Haven’t been to Disney in years! When my son was little, the monorail was one of his favorite rides. Lol

Isn’t it amazing! Glad you got to experience it as well.

Oh that coffee cake one was so delightful! Reminded me of a super rich, moist snickerdoodle full of cinnamon swirl goodness. Yep, can’t go too wrong with the monorail ‘ride’. Thanks for the kind words!

 

[wdwrule]

After our Disney Springs morning/early afternoon, we took a Lyft back to Aventura to drop off the large remainder of our baked goods. I purposely didn’t make any dining reservations this day because I didn’t know how long we’d stay in the Disney area and didn’t want to be rushed.

I’m a horrible trip report note taker because I just love taking it all in and having loads of fun. So… I have no idea where we ate dinner that night. However we had fun bouncing back and forth riding rides within the parks.

Then the next morning, we grabbed mobile ordered muffins from Croissant Moon Bakery and got on Velocicoaster front row. Love, love, love that ride! It never gets old. We sometimes ride it a few times in a row when we go during early admission. We typically don’t arrive pre-opening of EA, but instead about 30 minutes or so into EA.
Then we relaxed with a lovely frozen Butterbeer.

After a few more rides, we headed to our lunch reservation at Confisco’s. I think I forgot to mention, we were just here on arrival day, however that one was a last minute reservation. We love their food and atmosphere so it was A-okay to be here again. We split the Hearthstone Baked Chicken Sandwich which was yummy. Here’s the description of the toppings from the menu: Mozzarella cheese, Roma tomatoes, leaf lettuce, basil aioli, aged balsamic, and focaccia baked in the wood oven.

Shortly after this we headed to the water cannons to squirt people on the water ride. OMG this was hilarious!! There was another family that joined in on the fun so each boat was getting hit with two cannons at the same time.

This was our first time doing this and I wasn’t sure how it worked with tokens vs quarters. An amazing TM overheard me as he was about to work on the token machine and explained it. We had a nice conversation as I waited for him to finish with the machine. Next thing I know, he hands me a huge handful of tokens! I offered to pay but he said “it’s on me”. Then as we were in the middle of having an amazing time squirting people, he handed me another large handful of tokens!

I thanked him a bunch of times and told him I’d give him a fist bump on Twitter which he was thankful for.

Bummer side note: hubby and I were excited to do this a few weeks ago and brought a bunch of quarters, only to find out that the machines were just switched over to credit card and Apple Pay only. We played it twice using Apple Pay and it was $1 per shot whereas it used to be 2 shots per $1. Ugh miss the old fashioned quarter/token operated machines.

Anyways, after that magical moment, we hit up many rides and then headed to Jake’s from RPR for my favorite burger on property. We split it and as usual, it was incredible. I loved how they actually served it on our own plate with our own portion of fries. Never would’ve asked for it this way but it was a nice touch.

Then we walked to Studios and ended up staying to see the Cinematic Celebration nighttime show which was awesome! We’ve never seen it before! We really enjoyed it and it gave all the good feels during and after. Perfect!



Right before that show started, I had mobile ordered some Voodoo doughnuts for the next day’s breakfast which made it convenient to grab them right after the show as we are exiting. I was excited that the new limited Jurassic Park doughnut was on the mobile order app. I wasn’t sure about blueberry filling with chocolate iced combo but it was delicious.


Up next, yummy doughnuts for breakfast and a surprise AP little pop-up event at the AP lounge in Studios!

 

[wdwrule]

So we ate our luscious doughnuts from Voodoo (Jurassic World as pictured above, cookies and cream and blueberry cake).

This makes for a nice quick breakfast. Then we were off to Studios. We enjoy getting on Velocicoaster over in IoA during the morning however, there is something so calm and appealing of touring Studios right around park opening. We like to do a mix of park openings. Good morning Diagon Alley


We went on Gringott’s several times and never gave up Harry’s whereabouts. Love that ride! After a few more rides, we were strolling by the UOAP lounge and noticed a black canopy set up at the entrance.

Here it was a random unannounced pop-up UOAP holder event! They were handing out freshly made churros and inside we could pick up a granola bar. The churro truly tasted fresh because I usually don’t purchase them due to having a dry texture. It was warm and delish!

This was such a nice special treat! Haha we wolfed down the warm churros even though we were headed to Toothsome for lunch.

Speaking of which, we had a lovely lunch but most importantly a decadent sundae! We rarely get the milkshakes and instead get the huge sundaes which, for us, are much easier to share. I think they are about the same price too. Each time we attempt to try a different one. Haha I think there’s only one or two left that we haven’t tried. This time, we ordered the apple pie sundae. It was wonderful! Caramel, cinnamon, slab of apple pie etc Very comforting!


We then rolled out and walked to IoA to have more fun. Not sure if I mentioned this yet or not in my report, but I took her to Poseidon’s Fury since she hadn’t experienced it yet. She basically had the same opinion as hubby and me from last month… had one or two really cool parts to it but other than that, just ok.

I showed her around back of Mythos at all of the cool viewpoints.




We then literally had a blast using the water cannons with our quarters to some unsuspecting riders. So funny! Again, boo to not being able to use quarters/tokens anymore.

After many more rides and bearing the summer heat, we bounced back over to Studios and has some refreshing drinks at the Leaky Cauldron.


We split both and that was the first time I tried the lemonade. Lemon squash maybe it’s called?? Oh it was very refreshing! A whole lemon in there!

Love this ambiance!

To be continued…

 

[wdwrule]

We visited the Tribute store again because Wow! Again, 80s fan girl so…


Towards the end of our trip, I had zero notes and I cannot remember where we had dinner or much about the exact things we did on our departure day other than the usual fun. Always sad on departure day anyways.

HOWEVER, I do have some notes on funny quotes we overheard on this trip. I’m not sure how we started this, but now and then on trips we sometimes keep a log on our phone of funny things we’ve overheard. It’s always funny to revisit those quotes. Here are some just from this trip:

“Mom, is that the polar express?”

A woman saying… “Is that Rapunzel‘s tower?” while she’s looking at the IoA lighthouse

Little kid asks “can we go in the do not enter?”

“Hey dad! There’s no wait time in the tribute store!”



This always gives us a chuckle!

To be continued with closing thoughts…

 

[wdwrule]

We had a marvelous time and we’re just so addicted to UO! We’re also enjoying trying out many different hotels. Spoiler alert: hubby and I stayed offsite for the first time several weeks ago and I’ll report that soon to help those thinking about this.

Back to this trip though at Aventura: We FINALLY got in a pool at a UO hotel during this trip! Every trip we always pack our suits but then run out of time because we’re either having too much fun at the parks or we’re just too tired after a long day at the park. We’ve stayed at all resorts except for Surfside and have never dipped even a toe in a pool. At any rate, staying at Aventura, I knew SF pool had a slide and also heard it’s the largest pool on property so we pool hopped over there which is very convenient from Aventura. We just showed them our room key and they gave us a pool card (like a key card). It was wonderful and the slide was super fun! We tried this again the next afternoon but of course the moment we stepped into SF, it started to storm and was closed for quite awhile so we never got in that time.

Aventura has really grown on me. It’s still not my style as it’s a bit sterile just in my opinion but the staff, cleanliness, convenience is wonderful. The beds are comfortable (if anything slightly on the firm side). We are staying there next month and it’s such a bargain yet can still easily walk to the parks.

Hope you enjoyed and found something that can help. I’ll try to do the offsite report soon in case anyone is pondering that. Take care!

 

[Robo56]

Enjoyed your trip report. Good pictures and great information.

I like Gideons cookies. Very unusual for a cookie that large to be so flavorful. Love the creepy little vampire pictures inside. Reminds me of a haunted library.

I haven’t tried the ahi tuna nachos yet at Confisco. You have convinced me to try them when I’am back there in September. I like the AP holder dining room. It has nice views of the park.

Tribute Store was very nice. Great photos. Very nostalgic.

Look forward to reading more of your trip reports in the future.

Thank you for sharing.

 

[wdwrule]

Enjoyed your trip report. Good pictures and great information.

I like Gideons cookies. Very unusual for a cookie that large to be so flavorful. Love the creepy little vampire pictures inside. Reminds me of a haunted library.

I haven’t tried the ahi tuna nachos yet at Confisco. You have convinced me to try them when I’am back there in September. I like the AP holder dining room. It has nice views of the park.

Tribute Store was very nice. Great photos. Very nostalgic.

Look forward to reading more of your trip reports in the future.

Thank you for sharing.

Thank you so much!

Yes haunted library is a perfect description. The whole vibe there is unique and a travel in time all of its own.

We really enjoy the views from the Navigator’s Club as well. After we eat, we walk out to the outdoor seating area to take it all in and grab some photos. I think you’ll enjoy those tuna nachos! Had them twice and both times so fresh and flavorful. The wonton chips surprisingly stay nice and crisp.

Thanks for reading along!

 

[Gr8t Fan]

I enjoyed this trip report too. I'm glad you finally had time to swim this trip. And I'm hoping that the tribute store will still be there when we visit in early September. It looks so cool and I wouldn't have even been on the lookout for it if not for your trip report. Thanks!

 

[wdwrule]

Thanks for your kind words @Gr8t Fan ! The Tribute Store is amazing! It does change themes though. Last fall it was themed to HHN, then during the holidays it had a Christmas/Santa’s workshop vibe and then it also changed for Mardi Gras in the spring. They do shut it down for several weeks or so in between changing themes but hopefully it will be set during your trip. All themes are great! They put so much thought and work into their Tribute Store planning and creations… even right down to the special treats they sell near the exit of the store. Enjoy your September trip!

 

[queenofthehill]

We had a marvelous time and we’re just so addicted to UO! We’re also enjoying trying out many different hotels. Spoiler alert: hubby and I stayed offsite for the first time several weeks ago and I’ll report that soon to help those thinking about this.

Back to this trip though at Aventura: We FINALLY got in a pool at a UO hotel during this trip! Every trip we always pack our suits but then run out of time because we’re either having too much fun at the parks or we’re just too tired after a long day at the park. We’ve stayed at all resorts except for Surfside and have never dipped even a toe in a pool. At any rate, staying at Aventura, I knew SF pool had a slide and also heard it’s the largest pool on property so we pool hopped over there which is very convenient from Aventura. We just showed them our room key and they gave us a pool card (like a key card). It was wonderful and the slide was super fun! We tried this again the next afternoon but of course the moment we stepped into SF, it started to storm and was closed for quite awhile so we never got in that time.

Aventura has really grown on me. It’s still not my style as it’s a bit sterile just in my opinion but the staff, cleanliness, convenience is wonderful. The beds are comfortable (if anything slightly on the firm side). We are staying there next month and it’s such a bargain yet can still easily walk to the parks.

Hope you enjoyed and found something that can help. I’ll try to do the offsite report soon in case anyone is pondering that. Take care!

Such a great trip report. Thinking of doing a last minute trip to UO tomorrow afternoon and you sold me on shake from toothsome. I agree with you on Aventura. I love the layout of the hotel ,I've always had fantastic prompt service and the high floors make for great views for sure but it lacks warmth. Thanks for sharing

 

[wdwrule]

Such a great trip report. Thinking of doing a last minute trip to UO tomorrow afternoon and you sold me on shake from toothsome. I agree with you on Aventura. I love the layout of the hotel ,I've always had fantastic prompt service and the high floors make for great views for sure but it lacks warmth. Thanks for sharing

Thank you so much! Appreciate it! Now you mentioned a shake… we typically get the sundaes as it seems like you get a lot more bang for your buck, plus easier to share that massive portion. But the shakes are still amazing! I don’t feel it’s the best quality ice cream but we love the over the top appearance and the baked goods included are yummy. They’re always a fun, memorable experience. You’ll love it!

Glad to hear you appreciate Aventura too. I think it’s a diamond in the rough. It’s not our favorite place but there are so many positives to it, we gladly return. Hope you get your trip in tomorrow! So exciting!