Once Upon a Lifetime

March 11-13, 2022

I say ‘probably’ my favorite because I haven’t stayed at all of the Universal resorts yet.  Anyone who knows me, knows that one of my favorite things to do with Maddie is Disney and Universal… I’m forever searching for good/great hotel prices since I’m not crazy about driving to and from Orlando in the same day (but I’ve done it 🙃).

I booked this particular weekend when I realized that it was cheaper to stay at Sapphire than Cabana Bay.  Sapphire Falls is the moderate resort at Universal Orlando in walking distance to the parks and City Walk.  We stayed here once before and really enjoyed it, so I will jump at the chance to stay here for less than a value resort.  I have noticed that Universal doesn’t always announce when they have released passholder prices (this is both awesome and annoying at the same time: awesome because you won’t have to compete with so many people if less people know, but annoying because it’s hard to know when the discount starts).  Knowing this, if I know I want to go during certain dates I try to check starting a few months in advance.  I haven’t noticed discounts on hotels appearing before 4 month out, but that is just my observation.  If Universal has an algorithm, I haven’t figured it out yet 😅.

I left work at 1pm on Friday and picked Maddie up from school.  I worked the 3 days before, so I had to finish packing when we got home and make sure Kevin had enough food and water for the 2 days.  We were on the road just before 2:30pm, which turned out to be the worst time to leave.  The weather in Jax that day wasn’t good, stormy and dark, but it looked like the storms only went down to around the Daytona area.  The trip ended up taking 3.5 hours from a lot of traffic.  We were trying to go to the park when we got down there, but we didn’t get into our room until 6:30pm and the parks were closing at 8pm that night. It seemed like it would be too much of a hassle to try getting into a park with such a short amount of time… Plus it was 87 degrees when we got there, and they have a great pool with a waterslide, so we decided to enjoy the resort for the evening. I absolutely recommend spending some time in/and/or by this pool!

I ordered dinner for us from Strong Water Tavern, a delicious tapas restaurant that offers takeout.  I had eaten here the first time I stayed last summer and I was SERIOUSLY impressed with the food.  Maddie was exhausted, so having the option to take the food back to our room was extremely convenient.  We ordered garlic shrimp, shrimp ceviche, octopus, Arroz con pollo and tequenos.  It was all delish and reasonably priced- I would especially order the garlic shrimp and Arroz con pollo again. 

The next morning was stormy so we decided to sleep in instead of trying to get to the parks for early park admission.  We headed out around 11am and tried to use the water taxi to get to the parks, but they weren’t running yet since the storms hadn’t totally cleared yet, so I just walked.  We got to Islands of Adventure around 11:30am and the weather hadn’t totally cleared up yet so we did a little shopping, then got some of our favorite food from Green Eggs and Ham.  We did a little more shopping, grabbed a couple of treats from Honeydukes in Hogsmeade Village, got Maddie’s face painted in Seuss Landing then hopped on Pteranodon Flyers in Camp Jurassic.  We got to meet up with a couple of friends who took Maddie on Pteranodon Flyers (again-this is a kid’s ride, so adults can’t go on alone, so our friend got to experience the ride with Maddie!) while I hopped on the Velocicoaster (totally unexpected, but very welcome!)   Once it started getting dark we walked over to Universal Studios to try some Mardi Gras food and see some of the parade.  I tried my first twisted tater, which was delish!  We tried getting hot butterbeer, but it was sold out 😦 I was able to convince Maddie to try going on ET for the first time, and she was pretty scared of the first half of the ride that was dark, but she warmed up once it wasn’t pitch black anymore.  She was amazed that he said our names at the end of the ride and still asks how that happened 🙂  By the time we got off ET, the park was about to close, so we headed back to the hotel and I grabbed us a few snacks from the quick-serve restaurant.  The highlight for me was the Cuban sandwich, it was really fresh and tasty, the bread was perfect! It was much better than other quick service meals I’ve had. The vanilla cupcakes are also extra delicious 😋.

I packed up our stuff the following morning and headed home.  Some trips I will pack the car and we will go back to the parks for a while before I drive home, but I was tired this time.  Leaving is definitely the worst part, but I try to make it sting less by having other weekends trips planned before leaving the current adventure.  I left Orlando at 11:30am, and I usually have a pretty smooth trip home when I leave at this time on Sunday’s… however this weekend took me longer.  Almost as long as it took us to get down on Friday and the weather was much better than it had been on Friday. 

Our next adventure is March 25-27th.  We are heading back to Disney and staying at Pop Century.  Check back if you want to see what we get to do on that visit!

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