2017 Winter break – Florida road trip – Day 80/29

Publishing at 11:58pm. Pheww!!!!

I don’t feel like doing a detailed day by day post about the recent winter break trip. So here are the bullet points

• Stay at extended family’s place for a night. Visit of ex-neighbor Akka with her family from my childhood who have last seen me when I was around 10 years old. Both the Akka and the cousin’s wife were persuading me to move to NC and I was this close to start wrapping up as soon as we reach home 🙂 🙂
• Visit to Universal studios and sea world (yes we ditched Disney).  Spent 2.5 days at Universals and we split as two groups on second day. The girl and me spending more time at Harry potter rides, the boy and M spending more time at Minions. For the uninitiated, there are apps that show wait times of each ride and we made the best use of it. 

  

  With Optimus Prime

  

  HP castle light show

  
  

  

  

  Shamu show

  
  
• Visit to Orange tree farm by name “Showcase of citrus” and monster truck ride in swamp. This was a last minute decision and totally worth it. It’s very close to Disney and Universals. I gathered the details from Trip Advisor.
   

  

  Orańges everywhere

  

  Cat tree at the farm

  
  

  

  Iñvestigatiñg Ańt colony

  

  Monster truck

  
  
• I loved the live shows and parades more than the rides. The Christmas themed ice skating show, Shamu show, Universal parade. I was awestruck at the humongous effort behind each of this act.
• Hogwarts express train ride and paddle boat ride deserves a special mention. They didn’t have Hogwarts train ride when we visited in 2011.
• Was constantly talking to Adi about how technology is controlling every move of these theme parks.
• M household as usual only looked at roller coasters from a distance. We were more than happy with carousels and mini train rides.
• Skipped water park and beach as weather was not great and kids were also at the edge of catching cold.
• Chanced upon a colleague and his family at Universals. We took pictures and shared it in office team whatsapp group 🙂
• Night stay and local tour at Charleston on the way back. We made a poor choice of hotel and LHB referred to it as ghost house after the trip.
• 13 hours of non stop drive to home. The sight of LHB getting off the car as the first guy at 2am and running into the garage showed how much he missed home or how much he hated the ghost house.
• That moment when we tucked ourselves under the blanket in our own bed after being away for a week. Home is heaven. All of us were giggling for no particular reason and drifted off to a peaceful sleep.

 

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