I was lucky enough to score a Florida Resident discount for a night at Cabana Bay for Labor Day. The parks must have been crazy busy all weekend, because I couldn’t find a reservation for Sunday September 4th for at least a month before. I had to work that day, so it actually helped to know that there were no rooms available on Universal property 🤷♀️.
Despite the fact that I worked 3 days straight from 0630 to 1915 and got home after 2030 each night… I STILL woke up before my alarm at 0330 😬 this is both a blessing and a curse inherited from my dad…when I was growing up, he would always try to figure out a way to leave earlier when we were going away… he was the type that would be out in the car honking the horn for us to get moving long before he initially planned to leave. It made all of us anxious when he did this… yet I do the same thing every time I get to go away (despite being very aware that I get the same way 🥴)!!! I know how it makes me feel, yet I keep doing it! This is something I haven’t quite figured out yet 😅🙃.
I digress… we got on the road at 0530. It was the perfect time to leave that day! We had such a smooth drive down, which was surprising after our last few trips! It took us 2 hours and 9 minutes to get to Cabana Bay where we parked the car and got our room keys for early park admission.
We got to Islands of Adventure around 0830… the wait time for Flight of the Hipogriff initially said 5 minutes (aka, perfect for this ride). By the time we walked back to Hogsmeade Village, the wait time went up to 35 minutes 😳 so we grabbed a butterbeer and walked over to Jurassic Park. We were able to walk onto pteranodon flyers just before 9am! I don’t remember ever having such a short wait for that ride! It was awesome! We hung out in the amber Caves for a bit after then went over to meet Blue.
After spending the early morning in Jurassic Park, we went to Suess Landing for some Green Eggs and Ham
We got to walk onto the High in the Sky Suess Trolly Ride and Popeyes and Bluto’s (no pics from Popeyes bc it’s a guaranteed soaker of a ride, so I immediately put my phone under the plastic). It was a great morning. By the time it started to get really hot, we decided to go back to the hotel to swim.
Our room wasn’t ready by the time we got back to Cabana Bay, so we decided to go to Volcano Bay. We spent a lot of the time in the wave pool… Maddie loved how the waves in that wave pool were different from the waves in Typhoon Lagoons wave pool. We also went in the lazy river and the kid’s area.
Our room was ready around 1500 and we were both pretty hungry by then. I grabbed our stuff from the car and brought it to the room, then we got some food. I thought for sure Maddie would nap since we were up early… but she didn’t 🤷♀️ so we went back to Islands of Adventure for the evening 😍
We got to go on the Carosuessel and buy a couple of new (to us) Dr. Suess books. Maddie fell asleep, so I did a little shopping and I went over to Hogsmeade Village to see the Hogwarts Castle lights 😍.
We made it back to the hotel after the park closed and I grabbed some food before we headed to the room to crash. We slept SO well and reluctantly checked out the next morning. Knowing that we have a trip planned for our birthday’s as well as heading to Disney for a night made leaving a bit easier.
#Universal #CabanaBay #JurassicPark #Blue #Raptor #pteranodonflyers #butterbeer #SuessLanding #DrSuess # GreenEggsandHam #Hogwarts #Hogsmeade #VolcanoBay #Fun #adventure #IslandsofAdventure #adventure #roadtrip #motherdaughter
Once Upon a Lifetime 