Our first trip to Orlando as a family was in November! Kayla did a great job on the plane ride!
Our first stop in Orlando was Miller's Alehouse for some yummy zingers!
Then we checked into the Hyatt Regency Grand Cypress which looked like an AMAZING hotel. Unfortunately, the day we checked in, it was rainy and cold the whole day so we weren't able to take advantage of the beautiful pool.
They had a whole cavern area too which was really neat.
We had a little bit of fun walking through them, but we basically stayed in the hotel all day and got Dominos for dinner.
The next day was great weather for us to head to Sea World for the day!
After checking out the dolphin nursery we headed over to Sesame Street Land! Kayla ran right up to the Elmo and Abby statues and gave them a hug!
She was a little bit hesitant the first time we saw the Sesame Street parade. It was her first time seeing anything like it, and she clug to daddy a bit during it.
She did like it a bit though!
Big bird was at the start of the parade.
Elmo stopped in a section just ahead of where we were, so we only saw him towards the end.
After the parade, we all went on the Elmo train ride, and we all sat in the caboose.
Next we went to see the Orca show. I noticed that all throughout Sea World there is absolutely no mention of Shamu. Must be a result of the movie, Black Fish. I think that Sea World is actually phasing out their Orca program. Their Orca show was mostly educational and high lighted why it was a good thing that Sea World had the Orca's. It was a lot different then the show that I saw when I as younger.
However, Kayla was pretty interested and into the show! She liked it!
It wasn't a terribly busy day when we were there so we had pretty good seats. Afterwards, we went and got a pretzel from the good pretzel place.
Afterwards, we got in line to meet Elmo and Cookie Monster!
Here is Kayla playing with her interactive wand. The wands not only interacted with the Sesame Street area, but they also lit up and were a bubble maker! Almost all of the little kids in the area had one.
Of course, we got Kayla an Elmo wand, since he's her favorite.
She was very excited waiting in line because she saw them!
Almost our turn! She was trying to hop over the gate to go see him!
Hi Elmo!!!
Here is the professional picture that they took of us.
I knew that he captured her at the right moment for Cookie Monster. She was this excited for both of them, but turned around and looked at the right time! Love how fearless my girl was, and how excited to see the characters she was. You hear about a lot of kids being scared, but Kayla walked right up and was super excited.
Here we were outside by the statues!
Happy days!
Playing with her bubble machine while waiting for the parade to come back around.
She even tried to march in the streets with the other kids!
She got a little lost though... She was walking the wrong way, and looked at us like she bit off a little more than she could chew...
So mommy ran out to help her walk and party with all the kids.
This time, we were in perfect position for Elmo!! You can see her pointing and being excited to see him!
All of us sitting down watching.
There's Elmo! He came down and walked in front of us, and pointed to her and blew her a kiss! It was all very exciting!
Very into watching the parade! The second run through, she was jumping and bouncing around... and overall really enjoyed it.
After the parade, we went over to check out Wild Artic. Kayla loved watching the Beluga Whales.
She was climbing up trying to get a better view of them.
Posing with them behind her. They blend right in!
Here we are checking out the seals!
Such a happy baby!
The walrus's were very active while we were there too. We had a great time in Wild Artic. Kayla loves sea creatures!!
Next, we went walking around and Kayla feel asleep for her nap. It's so nice that she can nap on the go! She totally missed the aquarium walkthrough though. It actually wasn't that great... ours in Cleveland is better.
It was a short day at Sea World, because we had to pick up Nana and check into our hotel for the week. Kayla approved of the room. The rest of the day was unpacking, getting groceries, and getting Miller's Ale House to go, because a certain little miss was done for the day.
Next morning, we had a character breakfast with Elmo and friends scheduled! We got there slightly late though... so there was a long line to get food. We were waiting and heard that the show was on...
So Kayla and I ran over to go watch it. There were a lot of people that missed the show though. They really didn't tell you when it was going on and the setup for breakfast was super slow. Honestly, not very well ran at all.
But at least baby got to see the show! And the food wasn't too bad either.
She absolutely loves the cup she got from there too.
We got to get a picture with them all at the end too. But lesson learned, next time we do any type of character dining experience, we'll get there at least a half an hour to an hour early.
Then we RAN over to Sesame Place for the parade. We got there JUST in time to see it. It was a lot more crowded at Sea World this day.
After the parade, we wandered around and let Kayla use her wand in all the interactive areas.
She was a pro and was so excited to run around and touch her wand to the areas!
Kayla was a HUGE daddy's girl during our trip and only wanted Cody!
Picture opt in Big Bird's nest.
And with one Nana too.
Big bird came to to read a book to the kids, but we had to run. Kayla and Deb went to see the Orca show, and I took Cody to BW3's across the street to watch football with Sky and Liz for the day. Then I came back to meet us with Deb and Kayla.
I met back up with them by Oscar the Grouch and got a quick picture. Then we walked around to let Kayla nap for a while. Deb sat with her while I rode, Mako, one of Sea World's coasters. Then Deb and I walked into various shops to buy a few things.
She woke up just in time for the Dolphin show. We went in, and Kayla seemed a little bit nervous/hestitant, but was super curious whenever people "Ohhed and ahhed" at the dolphins. She was scared but didn't want to miss it. The dolphin show was my favorite one at Sea World. I loved the high energy and how many tricks they did.
Next, we went to Pacific Point to look at the Sea Lions. Kayla was pretty interested in them, so we went next door to the Sea Lion show. They still had the mime at the beginning of the show making fun of the crowd as they came in which was funny. And the sea lion show was still a funnier show, but it wasn't the same as when I was younger... definitely moved towards being more educational... which isn't bad... just different than when I was younger.
We got a pretzel on our way back to Sesame Street land for the last parade of the night.
What can I say... we didn't want to miss out! Girl loved watching her Sesame Street Parade!
Nana, Kayla, and mama.
After watching the parade, we left to go pick up Cody at BW3's. I was driving home, and somehow took a wrong turn and we ended up at the gates of the Animal Kingdom! We had to drive all around like crazy to make it back to our place. And when we got there Kayla had a major meltdown, so we had to look through pictures of the day to settle her down.
The next day Cody and I went to Discovery Cove. I had always heard of Discovery Cove but I never knew what it was. Basically, it is an all inclusive resort in Orlando! They had all kinds of fun areas to explore in the park, and all the food/drinks were included. Cody and I wanted a day to ourselves and we were trying to figure out what it might be, and once we came across this we were like omg yes!! This is what we have to do!!
We even paid a little bit extra to have a nice day bed to relax in while we were there. The only issue is that you have to get there at like 7am to get the best reservations for things/be there the whole day. So we got up SUPER early to get there at 5:30am and sneak around so we didn't wake Kayla or Deb up, and they closed at 5pm. It was also slightly chilly the day we were there... not enough to ruin the day for us, but it was definitely not as warm as it could be.
We had the view of the dolphin area by our day bed. It was fun to watch the dolphins.
They did have wetsuits that they passed out to us. It was a nice relaxing day.... it just went by too fast!!
The food that they served was actually really good. We liked the food and had no complaints. They also had non-alcoholic frozen drinks that they served. This made me sooo glad that we didn't pay extra for the alcohol package, because the tasty frozen drinks they served were great for me.
Here are people doing their dolphin excursions. We had ours originally booked for the morning, but asked to delay it until the afternoon so that it would be a little bit warmer out. We were really glad that we did that! The dolphin water was COLD! I guess dolphins like water in the 60s.
Here we are in our wetsuits. Our favorite area to swim in was the monkey island. The water was 85 degrees and very pleasant to be in. They had a trainer come out to talk about the monkey's at 10am, but it was too cold for the monkeys to come out. We saw them hopping about their island later on in the day though.
Here is a picture of us posing with our dolphin, Ookie. Before our swim we got to learn about the dolphins at Discovery Cove. They have 43 dolphins and it takes them 10 years to train a dolphin to learn all the interactions they have with guests. They do various tricks and things with guests and some can only do portions of the 30 minute interaction. Ookie is in her 40s and weighed over 500 lbs! They said that she can pull double her weight!
I actually got to go first in our group with her! I got do my dolphin ride, which is something that I've been wanting to do forever! And I got to give her lots of pets too! Something we learned, it that you pet them past their blowholes because they don't like their eyes or blowholes touched.
Here's Cody during his ride. They did some tricks/jokes with the dolphins. They made funny sounds, pretended to be a shark, and did various jumps. It was a fun 30 minutes.
Here we both are! And yes we bought a 4 picture package, because I got like 50% off for being a platinum pass member. After our dolphin swim, we decided to skip the snorkeling area because we don't love snorkeling and it was colder water. We went back to see the monkey's and otters in the warmer water. We were very thankful to Deb for our day out together and for her to watch Kayla for us. It was a nice relaxing day for us, that was much needed.
The only bad part about getting up so early for Discovery Cove, was that we were tired the next day for Disney and didn't get up as early as I would have liked. It takes a long time to get into the Magic Kingdom, and I had a question about our tickets so I had to wait in line there, then we had to take the monorail, and then go through bag check... It was like 11am by the time we were in the park. I am normally a rope drop person, but oh well...
We were here during the 50th anniversary!
Here's our group.
We walked in just in time to see Mickey's Celebration Cavalcade... which is basically a mini parade with 2 floats. This is what Disney is doing right now because of Covid... they are shortening up their parades. Which was a bit of a bummer, but Kayla was very excited to see Minnie (she also thought that Mickey was Minnie too).
Here's the star struck girl watching them go by.
Next we ran over to go see Mickey. The wait was only 5 minutes long. They had several rooms that they split people off into. So we were in a small room with about 20 other people to take a picture. Disney is extremely strict about masks being worn indoors... even during pictures.
We were in the back of the line in our little room, and Kayla was SO excited! She kept waving and saying "HI MINNIE!! HI MINNIE!!!" She went right up to him with no hesitation when it was our turn.
Waving hi!
She even blew him a kiss! It's a shame should couldn't go up to him and give him a hug because I'm sure she would have.
Here's our family picture with him!
Here are some more characters that randomly popped up around the park. You never knew where/when they'd be.
Picture with characters kinda behind us.
Next stop was some castle pictures.
Smile! The sun was a little bright!
Daddy and Kayla. Did I mention she was a mega daddy's girl during this trip?
Family picture. Then we were off to ride the Little Mermaid Ride. At first, Kayla was a little scared/nervous but she also seemed like she liked the ride.
Then we were onto Dumbo. They have a little circus play area where you can play for a while during your wait for the ride. Kayla had fun in there.
We tried to keep her in the 2-3 year old section... but she had her eyes on the bigger slide.
There she goes! Such a cool concept. You got a buzzer just like you would waiting at restaurant and it buzzed when it was time to go to the ride. A lot of kids wanted to just stay in the play area instead of going on the ride!! It was a great idea, and I wish they'd continue this concept with other rides too.
On the ride with Daddy (we all couldn't fit into one). This was actually my first time on Dumbo too! I never went on it when I was in the parks before, because I felt a little silly. That's the cool thing about going with your baby! You can do and go on anything and it's all good!
After Dumbo, we walked around Tomorrowland, and Kayla took a little nap. Cody walked around with her while Deb and I went on the Carousel of Progress. We didn't realize how long of a ride it was (like 20 minutes) and it broke down!! When we were leaving the area, there was a mini parade coming by and the noise from it woke Kayla up from her nap. So we all went to get some ice cream (Happy Birthday to me!)
Love this picture!! There are 50 statues up around the Disney parks for the 50th anniversary, and I loved the picture of Mickey/Minnie right in front of the castle.
Of course we had to get pictures with them! Not that you can see the statues...
I love this picture!! Such a happy baby!!
Here we are on the carousel. Kayla did not like the carousel at the zoo about a month before this picture, so we weren't sure what to expect... but her smile says it all! She was happy with this one!
Selfie!!
Next we went on "It's a small world" and Kayla really liked the ride. It's colorful and has a cheerful song.
We ate dinner at the Columbia Harbour House, which was really decently price food and you got a good amount for your money. There are definitely always value places at Disney to eat, and this was a good find. I spent hours researching places to eat at Disney, and luckily this place really wasn't too far from It's a Small World. This is us on the Liberty Square Riverboat... which was our last ride of the day.
Here we are lined up about 30-45 minutes before the firework show. So happy to be there with my baby!
Our day at Disney wasn't as full as I would have liked, but we still had a good time. Disney is much more tiring than Seaworld, because it is constant walking/standing all day long. Whereas at Sea World you sit down for 30-45 minutes at least for each show so it really breaks it up. But there's no such thing at Disney... it's walk... wait... stand... all day. And they didn't have the trams working (due to covid???) so it was tough walking back to the parking lot.
Nana and Kayla!
Fireworks show! There's nothing quite like how Disney does it. Kayla was definitely clinging to Cody during the fireworks, but she did good for it being her first time seeing it. I'm glad we made it the whole day and was able to see it. There were a few moments ahead of time where that was in question, because Kayla had a major meltdown after our boat cruise. But phew! After a long day, we made it!
The next day, we FINALLY had a day at the resort to relax! We went to the Big Kahuna Pool and saw their Gator land alligator show. It was actually a pretty decent show with a variety of different reptiles, and we all got to hold/pet a baby alligator at the end. This was our favorite pool, it was nicely heated and had little play areas for Kayla. We had a nice time until the rain rolled in for the day.
So our big regret, was booking the Luau at our resort. It was super pricey and it was raining really heavy out. So we tried to cancel, and they were really nasty about it and told us that they already charged our card and that they wouldn't offer a refund.
They moved the luau inside and it was terrible. There were only 6 items on the menu, and it was all very bland.
Bleh... here's the plate of slop we were given.
So it was moved inside, and there was barely any seating. They had 4 performers only and the show was super short... The whole thing lasted from 6pm-7:10. The show started at 6:45pm and was done really fast.
Here's a picture of the room.
But I will say, Kayla did have fun at it. Here she is drinking her virgin drink. Mine was nasty... definitely not like the Blue Hawaiians I had in Hawaii or even on our cruises.
She was into the show and was bouncing and jumping around in her chair.
Here we are with all the performers.
The next day, we went to the super crowded down town Disney store in the morning to do some shopping. It was hard to find stuff though, because it was so packed. Also, EVERYONE wanted 50th anniversary merchandise. We did find a Christmas countdown with Mickey and Minnie on it that we absolutely loved this Christmas though! So glad that we found it.
Unfortunately, it started to rain once we got home and got to the pool. It rained for a while, and then cleared up some. Sky and Liz came to hang out with us for the day.
Cody and Sky definitely had a lot to drink that night! This is them drunk dialing Chance...
Liz and I got to hang out a bit which was nice!
Cody did not make it the whole night... here he is on the couch sleeping... we won't talk about anything that happened after this picture...
On our last day, we went back to Sea World for the day. We got there just in time to run into the noon Dolphin show. Kayla was much more into the show this time!
Next we got to go see the manatee exhibit. I like how they have underwater exhibits so that you can see the animals better.
The sea turtles were in the same area. Kayla liked reaching out to the fish... she loves sea creatures!
Mr. turtle swimming right up to us. Then we were off to Expedition Everest for lunch. We bought the all day dining so we had to get some food!
Then we were onto the Antarctica: Empire of the Penguin Exhibit! It was really cold in there! But Kayla LOVED seeing the penguins!
Here she is reaching out to them!
Here's nana, daddy, and Kayla. We had such a good time seeing the penguins! Afterwards, Kayla feel asleep for her nap so I rode Kracken (which Cody) and then Mako by myself, and we got food at the Seafire Grill. They also had Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer playing in there.
Afterwards, we went to see Elmo's Christmas Wish which was a big hit with Kayla.
It was a really cute show.
Elmo came right up our row and Kayla was really excited. It was cute how into Elmo she was during this trip!
Sea world's meet and greet lines, were not up to snuff with Disney's. We waited in a pretty short line for over an HOUR to see Santa! We ended up having to bail so that we could make it to the night time Christmas Sesame Street Parade. And I'm glad that we left because it was packed, and the parade was completely different than what we'd seen before, and Kayla was definitely into it.
Kayla liked all the pretty colors of the night time parade!! Afterwards, we went and ate at Voyager's Smokehouse and then got back to our resort and packed. I was SOOO happy that everything we bought actually fit into our suitcases! We definitely bought more on this trip than any other trip... but what else can you do when you're traveling with a sweet little baby?
This trip to Orlando was very special! I've always wanted to take my baby here! This was a trip many years in the dreaming! I was surprised by how much more we enjoyed Sea World than Disney. It was just the right speed for our group over Disney for this trip. Kayla was super into Sesame Street and she loves sea creatures, so Sea World was just perfect for her this year. I'm so glad that our first family trip went so well, and that it was enjoyable for us. I will say, we didn't love the time of year. It was a little bit cold/rainy. I would want to stick more with the March/April time frame that we usually go instead in the future. But it's hard to go wrong with a trip to Orlando. Can't wait for our next trip!
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