Weekend in Orlando

Today I'm linking up with the above lovely ladies for Funday Monday to tell you all about our weekend in Orlando/Universal Studios! Link here/here.

We drove to Orlando on Thursday night to avoid waking up at 4am to make it to the parks when they opened. We were so glad that we did this because as you know you walk 10 miles every day in a park and those extra hours of sleep we got by driving down on Thursday was well worth it. 

On Friday, we got up, grabbed a quick chick-fil-a breakfast and headed to Islands of Adventure first. I had heard that the Wizarding World of Harry Potter gets packed quick, so we wanted to go ahead and do that as soon as we could. To say that Universal has Hogwartz and Hogsmeade themed is an understatement. It was just like you stepped into the movie. I'm not a die hard Harry Potter fan, but it was very neat to see everything that they had, and yes we even tried the butter beer...it's interesting to say the least!

Tarl got the regular and I got the frozen, the frozen is much better than the regular!

After we finished at Harry Potter, we headed over to Universal Studios. We paid the extra when we booked the vacation and got the Park Hopper...I cannot stress enough to do this if you are planning a trip! 

Out of the two, Universal Studios was both of our favorites. We loved the themed cities, Beverly Hills, 

New York (yes, I finally got to go to NYC!), Springfield (The Simpsons), and even San Francisco.

It was beautifully decorated and they had rides for each specific city. 

When we're on vacation we enjoy ourselves with food and snacks. If we see something that we want, we go for it. We don't wait until 5:00 for drinks either...after well, it's 5:00 somewhere, right?

We had reservations at The Melting Pot on Friday night, so after we saw Universal, we went and got ready for dinner. I wore my white skinnies, Vince Camuto pumps, Victoria's Secret Keyhole tank, and my gap coat...dinner was amazing as usual!

We enjoyed our hotel so much. It was enormous and it was even warm enough on Saturday to enjoy the Pool Bar and laying out with the sun basking down on us. The hotel was only one mile away from Universal and we had a pretty cool view of the park, although the pictures do not do it justice.

Tarl and I have a mutual love for The Melting Pot, but it is definitely something to save for. We had saved for this vacation, and had no set plans for dinner on Saturday. While laying out by the pool, we both agree'd to go back for round 2 and that's just what we did. It was just as good the second time around!

As much as we both enjoyed Universal Studios, we also felt like we had cheated on Disney a little bit, so we went to Downtown Disney on Saturday night before dinner and walked around. It definitely gave us a small taste of our week trip planned there in September, and put us wanting to go into overdrive!

We are now counting down the days! (198!)

While in Downtown Disney, I snagged this lavender bath bomb from Basin and used it as soon as we got home last night. The scent was amazing, and it made my skin feel silky smooth. It was just what I needed after the walking around and going non-stop all weekend.

Here are some more pics from our trip...

We got these pics from my mother-in-law on Saturday. She took the girls on a small little vacation of their own. They rented a hotel with an indoor pool and hot tub so they could enjoy swimming, although it was cold out where they were! Cadence loved it!

As much fun as we had, we were both ready to come home and see our girl. We enjoyed the last bit of the sunshine yesterday (the one thing I love about this time change!) by sitting around with my parents.