karalecia26
Mouseketeer
- Joined
- Jun 29, 2014
Hello and welcome to my first attempt at a Universal Pre-Trip Report! I have attempted on a couple times to do a Disney one, but they have failed miserably! But since this is going to be our first time doing a US only trip, I thought I would try and do one here!
So here we go! The Who, The Where, and The Why!
The Who:
My name is Kara and I am a full time mom, family activity coordinator (with 3 kids it seems like a full time job!), an Early Childhood Educator, and wife! We have been to Walt Disney World often over the past 5 years and made our first trek to Universal over Christmas break this past year along with our Disney trip. It was a completely different experience than our Disney trips but that's okay! Along on this trip is going o be by oldest daughter, Hannah, for our mom and me trip! (This picture is of me and my son on his mom and me trip a few years ago. I really need to take more pictures of myself because it was really hard to find one!)
This is my oldest, Hannah, who turned 14 in February and is my crazy child who keeps us on our toes. She just finished with her 8th grade musical, Peter Pan Jr (hence the bright eye makeup!) taking on 3 parts, one as a Mermaid, Pirate, and an Indian. She loves thrill rides and is excited to do a mom and me trip so we can try and do as many of the thrill rides as she wants (her favorite ride at US is the Hulk!)
The Where:
We are going to be leaving hot and humid Iowa to head to hot and humid Florida July 2nd and returning late the 9th. We are flying out of Omaha (about an 1 1/2 from home) on Southwest with a stop in Chicago on our way to MCO!
Once we are in Orlando we will make our way to Cabana Bay Beach Resort! Over Christmas we stayed here in a family suite and loved the feel of the resort and Hannah wanted to stay here again, but she chose to do a Volcano Bay view room this time. We do know that we won't have EP, but with as many days as we are going to have in the park we are okay with that. I actually upgrade to an AP when we were there in December so we could have discounts and I am going to get Hannah an AP too, so we may even upgrade to Premier so we can an EP after 4pm for our trip.
We are making our way over to Typoon Lagoon for an H2O glow night on the 6th, but this will probably be the only trip that we take offsite. The rest of the time will be spending time in the parks and taking our time to look and take in our resort.
The Why:
Mom and me trip! Our every day lives seems to be crazy and insane and there are times that I feel we don't get to spend as much time with our kids as we want. My husband is not a huge theme park fan, but will go with us when we go as a family and has fun, but doesn't mind staying home and letting me take the kids. This will be the 3rd time that I have taken a child (or children) on my own. My son got to do his first for his 10th birthday (only boy stuck in the middle of 2 girls and birthday the week before Christmas so mom was feeling guilty that sometimes he got the shaft) then next year was to be a girls only trip but Hannah was being a 13 year old and didn't want to go so the two youngest got to go with me (she regretted it when we were gone), and now this trip! The other ones have been Disney, so this is a whole new experience for us!
Well I hope that I didn't ramble on too long and make you all run away! I promise I will try and be more exciting as the trip gets closer and have more information to share!