I can hardly believe it’s been 15y since I did a post on this. I guess our biennial trips through to 2018 were similar enough to not really justify full reports. Though 2014 was quite different as $son0 and I did our PADI Open Water certification, which was a major distraction from the parks.

Then came the plague years, though we hadn’t booked anything for 2020 due to $daughter0 exams – phew! I wrote a little about our last trip in my April 2023 monthly update.

Getting there (and back)

After many years of avoiding Orlando airport (MCO) it reconfigured so that past problems went away[1]. We used it for our 2018 trip flying Norwegian, and it was the same formula this time around with Norse[2]. The family used the Mobile Passport Control (MPC) app, which got them through almost as quickly as my Global Entry[3] :)

Weirdly Norse didn’t have a Saturday return flight, though flying back on Friday evening was in some ways preferable to a Saturday where you have to leave the villa by 10 then spend the whole day killing time before the flight.

As I drafted this post, whilst still in Florida, I was going to say that Norse’s punctuality seemed better than Norwegian’s had been; but they ruined that on our return flight. The inbound flight was a couple of hours late arriving after the plane being diverted to Miami earlier in the week, and never catching up to schedule. Norse emailed:

We regret to inform you that your flight Z0784 from Orlando International (MCO) to London Gatwick (LGW) is delayed due to customs clearance delays beyond our control at Orlando Airport, which impacted the previous flight’s turnaround time.

But that doesn’t seem like a full and honest explanation of what happened. There were then delays getting away from the gate, and we spent an age on the taxi way waiting for air traffic control to route us around storms and a SpaceX launch. The flight made up a bit of time once in the air, putting us at the gate 3h late :(

Car rental

We stopped getting convertibles after the 2010 trip and switched to intermediate SUVs. This time around we ended up with a 2023 (I think) Mitsubishi Outlander with around 11000 miles on it. It had Apple CarPlay[4], and seemed in OK condition, though not very well cleaned :( Something terrible had happened with the previous occupants and a milkshake, or a bottle of sun cream or similar – yuk.

Having booked a voucher (again) with US Car Hire, I was able to complete the process using a kiosk without any lines or human interaction

Visitor Toll Pass

The booklet we got from the villa rental place mentioned the Visitor Toll Pass app, which seemed to work pretty well. I booked the pass before leaving, and picked it up from the vending machines between the Alamo booth and the parking garage. I got a gentle nudge by email the following day to add my license plate, though it seems all the tolls I’d passed had picked up the transponder.

Villa

After using Chris Rackstraw’s place 7 times over 15y I was sad to hear that it wasn’t available to rent this year as she’s planning to sell it.

After some looking around we chose a place from Debbie’s Villas not far away in Emerald Island Resort. It was absolutely lovely, and worked really well for us. The resort facilities also went down very well with the whole family.

The attractions

We pretty much alternated between park days and ‘rest’ days with other activities, which has been our pattern for previous visits. Trying to go all day every day is just too exhausting (and not really much fun).

SeaWorld, Busch Gardens, Acquatica

For the past few trips we’ve got tickets to Discovery Cove that have included access to the other parks in the area (and parking), which has allowed us to dip into SeaWorld for the morning then head out around lunchtime.

Things were a little different this time around. I guess the shine has worn off for me at Discovery Cove[5], so I looked for a package that didn’t include it. What turned up instead were tickets for the three main parks, including parking[6], and 3 days of ‘All Day Dining’ for $180pp. All Day Dining changed the dynamics for us a little bit – more on that later.

Our first visit to SeaWorld found the park unusually quiet. This was great for getting on all the rides without having to pay more for Quick Pass, and the new Pipeline surf ride is absolutely top notch for thrill dynamics[7].

A couple of days later we also found Busch Gardens unusually quiet. We’d done all the major rides by lunchtime, and spent the early afternoon doing repeats on our favourites, including front row on Iron Gwazi and SheiKra.

Our visit to Acquatica came at the start of our second week, and things were obviously busier, though it certainly wasn’t packed. In some ways attendance was at an awkward middle where rides were running at half or third capacity. Having learned from previous trips we splashed out on a cabana (in the Black Friday sale), which provided a comfortable base for a relaxing day.

SeaWorld was definitely busier when we popped in a couple of times on the second week, but not problematically so (even though many rides were running at low capacity, and some of the restaurants we’d have liked to try were closed).

Disney

We bought non expiring 10 day tickets back in 2012 that we’re still eking out, so we only had one day in the Disney parks.

Compared to Sea World and Busch Gardens it was busy. Disney certainly know how to pack in their ‘guests’.

We all started in Animal Kingdom with the customary ‘safari’ and then the ladies headed for Epcot to drink their way around the world, while I took $son0 to Hollywood Studios for some extra time in Galaxy’s Edge. The group reconvened in time for some rides before the Fantasmic show to end the day.

It was a fun day, but I’d be negligent not to mention how money grabbing the modern Disney experience has become. First there’s the tickets, where it’s hundreds of dollars just to walk through the gates (but not much more to come back every day for two weeks). Then there’s the preference for Disney Hotel guests, so a bunch more if you want to make advance reservations for stuff. But for that there’s $$$ Lightning Lane passes and even more pricey Premier Pass. It seems the ideal Disney ‘guest’ is someone willing to drop something like $1000 per person per day for their taste of magic. They seem to have learned from the airlines, where most of the profit comes from the folk up front flying first and business class; but that means e14n for the rest of us :(

St. Petersburg

Maybe not strictly an attraction, but we visited some friends in St. Petersburg during the middle weekend, which led to me doing some #WeirdCarMastodon posts after stumbling into a classic car show over the road from their apartment building (and on our way to an art fair).

Oak Ridge Gun Range

I quite enjoy a bit of pistol shooting when I’m in the US, so this wasn’t our first visit to Oak Ridge Gun Range, a tourist friendly indoor range not far from International Drive.

They gave us a Sig P320-M17 to try, and it was so nice we didn’t bother swapping for anything else. I particularly liked the red dot sight, which is something I’ve used in games but never before in real life.

Boggy Creek airboats

A trip out to Boggy Creek for an airboat ride has become one of the essential parts of any trip to Florida. We usually stop in Denny’s at Poinciana for a bite to eat on the way, which gets us a more authentic diner experience than the places near the parks.

It’s been interesting to watch the place grow and get more commercial over the years, but this time there was a more relaxed vibe. It was a pleasure to sit in the shade by the dock whilst waiting for our trip, and there seemed to be plenty to keep younger families occupied without strip mining their wallets. We also seemed to luck out with alligator sightings this time, though the best part of these trips is that they’re always different.

Food

SeaWorld all day dining

We wouldn’t normally buy food in the SeaWorld/Busch Gardens parks, but as all day dining was included in our tickets we gave it a try.

SeaWorld day 1 – $son0 was obviously going to pig out on his favourite, chicken tenders, so he got in an early serving at 1100, whilst on the other side of the park $daughter0 and I grabbed some drinks and a fruit bowl (which was just 3 tangerines). We reconvened as a family 90m later for lunch, and were disappointed to find Lakeside Grill closed. No tacos for us that day. Instead we went for BBQ at Voyager’s Smokehouse, which was OK, though the line seemed to be deliberately engineered for slow service.

Busch Gardens – we grabbed an early(ish) lunch together at the Dragon Fire Grill & Pub, which had something for everyone. My grilled chicken sandwich was very tasty. 90m later $son0 was topping up with chicken & funnel cake at Sheikra Eats, whilst the rest of us just got some drinks and cookies.

Acquatica – after reading some reviews we opted to not use all day dining here, as it can’t be used with the cabana service, and lines can get long at the limited places that do food. The family platter of chicken tenders we ordered for cabana delivery were pretty good (especially with the mango habanero sauce).

SeaWorld day 2 – once again $son0 kicked off with an early batch of chicken tenders at SeaFire Grill, whilst $daughter0 and I grabbed a drink and snack at Expedition Cafe. The pork egg rolls were good. Once again Lakeside Grill was closed, so no tacos :( Lunch later at Waterway Grill was a bit of a disaster. My steak tasted OK, but was impossible to cut with a plastic knife. $wife didn’t like her pulled pork at all, and $daughter0’s chicken was pink and obviously undercooked. If we’d paid full price we’d be very unhappy. We headed back to Expedition Cafe hunting for carrot cake, but it had all gone, though chocolate cake seemed to make everybody happy enough.

I certainly wouldn’t chose to pay the $60pp for all day dining in the parks, and even at ~$45 that it can be found for online I’m not sure it’s worth it (unless you’re prepared to organise your day around gaming the system). But… as something that came included with tickets that were already reasonably priced it was a nice addition.

Disney

I was asked to join the ladies for a trip to Disney Boardwalk, which turned into a visit to the Cake Bake Shop[8]. The entire experience was Disney dining at its best, a beautifully curated performance with amazing attention to detail. Yes, it’s contrived, but it’s wonderfully contrived. Walking in I saw a high chair that had been made to match the other quite fancy furnishing, which was an obvious sign of thoughtfulness. The food was delightful, and service was excellent. It’s a bit pricy, but given that it’s a high end experience that might rival 5* hotels back home it’s not unreasonable. My negroni was very pink, but also very good.

Reports from the Epcot drinks around the world heaped high praise on the snacks at Morocco, particularly the hummus fries; and they finished with poutine in Canada. Meanwhile $son0 and I chilled at the ABC Commissary in Hollywood Studios, and later I got some shrimp tacos there, which were delicious (and I think very good value at $12.99) – I wish I’d taken a picture.

It became something of a family tradition to have our final evening at California Grill, timed to coincide with the fireworks. But recent changes to the booking system favour Disney hotel guests, and it’s become impossible to get reservations at sensible times, so we missed out in ’23. This time around I lucked in by finding an 8.30 slot on the booking app – so it’s obviously worth rechecking periodically. The $89pp three course menu gets mixed reviews online, but we all really enjoyed it (even our fussy eater). It was a great way to close out our time in Florida.

Staying connected

It’s weird to look back to 2010 when the villa didn’t have WiFi and I was fiddling around with PAYG SIMs just for voice calls.

Of course the villa this time had WiFi (and a decent enough cable service underneath it), and WiFi was fairly ubiquitous throughout the parks (though oddly missing in the cabana area at Acquatica).

eSIMs

The three of us with iPhones all got GigSky eSIMs, which were less than £7 for 3GB valid for 15days, and seemed to work pretty well throughout.

Next time around?

I’m not sure there will be a next time. The kids aren’t kids any more, so who knows what life will be throwing at them in two years time. Though they do seem keen to return, with talk of ’27 (and even ’29). Also they do have 2 days left on their Disney tickets (and $wife and I have 3 as we had a left over day from our 2003 trip).

I’ll close with the same question I asked in 2010 – any other suggestions?

Notes

[1] Though things are still a little weird, with baggage collect before customs.
[2] Same execs, same planes, same silly rules, but I guess OK for leisure travel (and I’ve used them a couple of times for biz trips in recent years). Norse is supposed to now have integration with TSA Pre, and I’ve entered my Known Traveler Number (KTN) when asked, but it hasn’t come through onto my boarding cards :(
[3] The family were pre-approved for Global Entry prior to our last trip, but the wait for enrollment on arrival at O’Hare was ridiculous, and $wife wasn’t well, so they never completed the process :( I guess that the fact that they didn’t return in the past two years might suggest that they didn’t really need it after all, though TSA Pre would have been handy for our internal flights in ’23.
[4] The one wrinkle with CarPlay seemed to be that if my phone was sufficiently low on battery I’d get an ‘overcurrent detected’ message on the screen, and no data connection to my phone. A quick look online suggests it probably didn’t like something about my USB A-C cable (and it’s not like I’d brought a huge selection with me to deal with fussy cars). This didn’t happen with a lightning cable to my daughter’s slightly older iPhone.
[5] Possibly not helped by the demise of my Apple Watch last time.
[6] Given that parking is $35/day it’s often worth paying a slight premium to get tickets that include it.
[7] The artifice for Pipeline is that you’re surfing, so the ride is done standing up, with a harness that moves freely up and down. The bits that make people scream are where you lose contact with the ‘floor’ due to acceleration upwards that’s greater than gravity. Once you notice this, it’s obvious on other thrill rides; but Pipeline has perfected it.
[8] One slight error was we arrived at Disney Boardwalk without a reservation, and they no longer allow general parking, which meant a drive to Disney Springs, and a bus trip back to the Boardwalk.