Spring Break 2021! We picked LittleCJC up from school on Friday afternoon and drove to Georgia. I honestly don't remember how far we made it, but the girls were both asleep by the time we stopped.
The next day we continued our drive to Florida. It actually was the coldest start to spring break we've had in many years. With every stop we expected it to be warmer than the last, but instead we kept just thinking we were cold. The girls of course couldn't care less.
It never fails that I forget something, this time it was a belt, something I needed. So, we stopped at Target when we first got to Orlando. The girls loved the giant dog display.
Finally ready to check in, we made it to Universal's Endless Summer Dockside resort.
This trip was actually an interesting one in terms of hotel. Originally, we had booked a room at Disney All-Star Movies for the week. As we got closer to this vacation, we were looking into adding a day or two to the trip since we weren't scheduled to check-in until Monday. It was at this point, that we discovered, All-Star Movies was actually reopening on that specific date. Therefore, we obviously weren't going to be adding a night or two at that hotel, which led us to look at other options. After looking at many different scenarios, we discovered we could stay at Universal all week, add 2 nights, and still end up cheaper than what was originally planned at Disney. Unfortunately, we thankfully realized before cancelling our reservation, that if we were to cancel our hotel at Disney we would lose our park reservations. After consulting the park availability calendar, we realized we would not be able to enter Hollywood Studios, since there was no availability for that park the entire week. After a lot more deliberation, we ended up making the decision to resort hop, more than once. This ended up being a little annoying and Patrick said he'd never do it again, but it fit our needs for this trip and it worked. So we arrived on Saturday at Universal and stayed 2 nights. On Monday, we switched to our original plan at Disney's All-Star. However, we were able to modify this reservation to only two nights, which allowed us to keep our park reservations. This also meant that on Wednesday, we hopped back over to Universal to finish out our vacation there. Both reservations at Universal were here at their Endless Summer Dockside resort.
Once we were checked in here, we decided to head out to the park for the evening. We rode the bus from our hotel to the park.
LittleCGC was super excited just for the bus.
We were all excited to be visiting Universal during their Mardi Gras celebration. We had never experienced this event before, and although they weren't having the traditional parade, we were excited to see this modified event.
Before getting too far, we had to stop for a picture with the Taxi.
We also quickly found some Mardi Gras characters out ready to greet us.
As I stated above, they weren't having their Mardi Gras parade, but instead, they placed the parade floats sporadically around the park. Honestly, I think this worked out better for us at least. Don't get me wrong, I'm sure the parade would have been fun to experience too, but this way, we were able to get a feel of the festivities all throughout the day any time we came across one of these floats. They usually had characters at the floats and a lot of the time they were handing out beads, too.
It took the girls a while to warm up to the idea of the beads, but they loved seeing the floats and characters.
Our first ride this trip was E.T.
LittleCGC decided that this ride was scary. I'm not sure what scared her, and she didn't seem scared while riding, but that was her statement when we got off the ride.
Next up was Woody Woodpecker's Nuthouse coaster. Since we ended up coming to Universal before Disney, this then became LittleCGC's first roller coaster.
When we got off, she immediately asked to ride it again.
We rode again, and she would have continued riding if we let her, but after two rides we convinced her to move on to see what else we could find in the park.
The next thing that impressed her was this photo opt set up for the Mardi Gras celebration. We of course then had to stop in at Gringotts.
LittleCGC told us that the goblins were busy coloring. If you read my last trip report, you know that this was LittleCJC's favorite ride of that trip. This time, she was tall enough for a few more thrill-seeking rides though. First up, was the Mummy.
She was a little scared of this one, but she liked the coaster part of it. She ended up riding with both mom and dad, meaning LittleCGC got to explore the gift shop and see some of the Mardi Gras scavenger hunt displays.
The park was about to close for the night so we were on our way out when the girls asked if we could ride Despicable Me. They were in luck as we barely made it on before they closed the line down.
Even though LittleCGC was taller this year, she still was too short for the motion seats on this attraction. Anyone can ride this one, if they sit in the stationary seats in front, but this meant we had to sit in front of Dad and LittleCJC. As I said, this was the last ride we got in before the park closed. Unless you're like LittleCJC who says the bus ride is the last one of the night.
It may have been a little chilly, but we were thrilled to finally be in Florida and the parks.
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