Sunday, Apr 26:
Got a little rucking in before the trip, while I could. Our car was already going to be really full of luggage for 4 people for a weeklong trip, so I wasn't going to bring a ruck, too. There's enough non-rucking fitness that you can do over the course of a week to manage without it.
I didi 3 mi in 1:08:36 with 30# in the rucker v3 shorty, wearing MACV2s at Rocky Branch trail. I was playing Ingress and doing fartleks of sorts between portals.
At night, I did glute and pec PT v2+ in 25:20, followed by HDT 23.1.1 (arms) in 41:34. While you can work out on vacation, it can be hard, when you feel like you need to maximize time with family, and you're already out and about for long days on your feet. I wanted to get in some quality work while I still could at home.
Monday, Apr 27:
Drove down to Florida with my parents. Took my dad to see Buccee's for his first time. I got to get some merch that I regretted not buying on my last visit. For their onesies, the one I got was a bit small on me (youth large or something), but the next size up (adult S/M) would've been gigantic.
We stopped by St. Augustine, since we had some hours to kill anyways, to align our arrival time with my sister's flight in to MCO. We visited Castillo de San Marcos with my dad's America the Beautiful pass.
By the time we were done with that, there wasn't a lot of time left before we had to continue our journey south.
We were sad to discover that the lion statues were taken away for repair back in January. I'm glad my mom and I got to see it while it was still there, since they will be away for a while, with an expected return in 2028 after the seawall is repaired.
We did a quick run-through of the pedestrian shopping alley and Flagler college before leaving.
Got some groceries, went to the airport and picked up my sister, before arriving at the AirBNB.
Tuesday, Apr 28:
We got 3-day park hopper tickets for Universal, since that seemed to be the best way to get access to the new Epic Universe park. After breakfast, we chose to go to Epic on our first day, to see all the new rides.
The concept behind Epic is that there are "portals" to different themed lands. Pretty much every park has the concept of lands, but they make it more siloed here, I guess.
I had watched Youtube videos to get ideas on what kind of itinerary to follow to maximize time in the park and minimize wait times. We ended up starting at Darkmoor and doing the Frankenstein ride. That actually had a pretty short wait time all day long, relatively speaking. Some rides are known for their wait line theming, which can be as much fun as the rides, and this was one of them. In the Frankenstein ride, you're part of an "experiment" run by Igor, and you get to see some monsters fight each other in an experiment gone wrong.
They also had a werewolf mini-roller coaster, which we went back to later in the day.
Harry Potter was what we were most excited about seeing. It's themed around Paris, so if you didn't know better, you might think it's just a Paris-themed land at first. The fake Parisian storefronts in the land give wandholders ways to pretend to do do magic with RFID tech, which we were excited to try. When I got my Gen2 wand online, I didn't realize that I had previously purchased a Gen1 wand at some point, so we go to play with both. The Gen2 wand lights up and vibrates, though, which is cool.
The main attraction is the Ministry of Magic ride. You start off in the French MoM, and then you take the floo to the British MoM. The experience and set is pretty impressive, and that's just the "waiting in line" part of the ride.
The ride is different, which is good... less like Frankenstein and Battle of Hogwarts (where you're in like a 4-person contraption that will move around and take you through different scenes) and a bit more like Tower of Terror, in that you're in a big box with about 20 other people. You still feel like you're seeing different scenes, but because of the bigger box, the movements aren't quite as drastic.
I could stay in the Harry Potter lands all day, but there was more to see in the other lands.
We did Stardust Racers a couple of times. It's in the main central area of Epic. It might be the most thrilling and fun roller coaster I've been on. You can choose between the green lane and the yellow lane and pretend to race against the other coaster. You spin around a lot, but not in a way that hurts your head like Hulk. You also do a double acceleration, where you feel like you've already accelerated a ton, and then acceleration pauses for a second before increasing even more. We heard that it's even cooler ride to do at night, too, as fun as the daytime experience is.
On the drives for the rest of the week, whenever I'd accelerate, I'd yell "starship cruisers!"
We went to Isle of Berks next, to see their How to Train Your Dragon show. Shows are a nice way to sit for a while and break up all the standing in line. AC is nice, too.
My parents were up for doing the water blaster Fire Brigade ride. Our team won, although I think we had a 1-person advantage. I do like shooting rides.
I don't think I've seen the HTTYD movie, but you can still appreciate how beautiful the set is.
We heard that it's good to visit Mario land after dinner, when the little kids have gone home. It was still pretty crowded when we went, though. I did not buy the Mario equivalent of a HP magic wand, so when I'd knock the question mark blocks, there would just be a sad noise instead of a happy gaining-coinage noise. At least there was something!
We did Bowser's challenge, but we opted for the single rider line to save time. That meant that we missed all the instructions on how to play, so we googled it while we were waiting in line. A lot of it has to do with where you're pointing your head when you pull the trigger to shoot your turtle shells and turn, which didn't come super naturally to me. The set in the waiting areas looked cool, though, so I'd like to go back and wait in the full line one day. I'm not even sure that we saved that much time, since single rider lines only take people when there are empty slots.
We ran through Darkmoor and Harry Potter and Stardust Racers again before the end of the day.
Wednesday, Apr 29:
We wanted to make sure we used our 3-day tickets during our trip, since they are time-boxed, and we wanted to be able to use them on good weather days, so we went to the OG Universal Studios, followed by Islands of Adventure, on Wednesday.
We did the Mummy (which is still a pretty impressive ride) and all the other rides in normal Universal, before making our way to Harry Potter world. They retrofitted Universal with Diagon Alley, which hadn't been there the last time I went to Universal, so I was excited to see it.
The main ride is Escape from Gringots. They have a single rider line, which we ended up doing after waiting in the full line once.
They also have tricks that you can do with your wand.
We visited Olivander's. I ended up being selected for the wand activity, maybe because I was dressed like a superfan. I was surprised that there weren't more people dressed in robes at all the HP lands. It was fun.
Since we had parkhopper tickets that could get you into multiple parks on the same day, we were able to take the Hogwart's Express. We had single-park tickets on our last trip, so this wasn't an option for us last time. It gets you between parks and saves you a bit of walking, but it's also a fun concept - through the fake window, you get to see different movie-inspired scenes. Out in the hallway, you also feel like different characters are walking by your train cabin. The experience is different based on whether you're going from Diagon Alley to Hogsmeade, or the opposite direction, too. My dad likes trains or the idea of trains, so he was looking forward to trying this ride.
We got close to the last train of the day, since the parks close earlier in the day on non-peak days. By the time we got to Universal, there wasn't a lot of time to do stuff before closing time. We did get to try a variety of magic wand tricks, though. The park does stay open beyond closing time by a bit, but the rides get shut down.
My mom wanted to take a bunch of pics on our way out as the park closed. That was actually a great time to take pics, since there were fewer crowds.
After 2 days on our feet, my parents (and probably me) were ready for a bit of a break. This was going to be a potential rainy day, too, so it was a good day for a rest day.
The "resort" had a fitness room with an Echelon tablet, where you could essentially play workout videos on a big screen. Maybe it does more than that? But that's what I could figure out. The workout library wasn't big. I don't know if there are different tiers of access or something, that would open up more. I found some good workouts for core and arms, though, which I repeated so that I could record the exercises to repeat in the future.
Strength 20 - Arms and Abs with Sam Jackson
(7 exercises with 45 on/ 15 off)
> curls with 10#
> row tricep kickbacks with 2x7#
>arm circles with 5#
> side plank DB raise to top with straight arm with 5#
> 15# sit-up curl to press
> bicycle
Strength 20 - Total Body with Ryn Tucker
(8 min AMRAP of 10 reps of each exercise)
> single-arm press with 15#
> bent rows with 2x15#
> squat and curl with 2x15#
(8 min AMRAP of 10 reps of each exercise)
> leaned forward tricep extension with 7#
> RDL with 2x15#
> side plank shoulder press with 5#
We splurged and had dinner out, instead of making our own food on this day. My sister and mom went to a seafood restaurant to order a la carte. My dad wanted to go to a buffet, so I went with him.
After dinner, we went to Disney Springs, which we typically visit each time we go to Orlando. There was more to see that we didn't get to, even though we stayed until after dark, but we didn't want to stay out too late before doing another long day at the parks the next day.
Friday, May 1:
We had some un-timeboxed park hopper Disney tickets to use, so we took a break from Universal to see some Disney Parks.
We started with Animal Kingdom and the safari.
I had not been to Pandora before. That was my parents' favorite ride of the trip. Its setup reminds me of Soarin', in that they had a big group of people in a room with a big panoramic top-to-bottom screen. The vehicle you were in was more fun here, though, since you're in something that feels like a motorcycle, vs an airplane seat. The waiting areas for the lines were pretty good, too.
My parents were up for Kali River Rapids, too, which was fun.
Expedition Everest was down for maintenance, so we didn't get to do that.
Next, we drove over to Epcot. Spaceship Earth is different from what I remembered. They probably had to redo the part of the ride about what the future would be like, now that we're in the future, vs what the world was like when this ride first opened. They had a new component to the ride where you got to answer questions about your interests, and then they took your picture and had a little animation about what the future could be like based on how tech is now, which is geared towards your interests.
There was a water play area that was Moana-themed that was new to us, so we walked through that area.
Mission to Space, as corny as it might be, is probably my favorite Disney ride. They really make you feel like you're accelerating away from earth on a space shuttle with their centrifugal force or however they do it.
We didn't go through World Showcase on this trip, since we wanted to get to Magic Kingdom and do stuff there before the day's end. Magic Kingdom was open the latest out of the four parks, so it was a good place to end the day.
Magic Kingdom just feels different... maybe it's the crowds? Maybe it's the castle? It feels like the park to be at.
I was playing Ingress all trip long. There are many portals at all of the parks. I came across someone's impressive multi-layered field.
We got our favorite smoked turkey leg.
At the parade, everything started well, where we found a group of people who were all seated in front of the castle. Everyone would be able to see everything. But then one person ruined it by standing, so people behind them started standing, and then nobody except the front row could see anymore.... ruined.
I went on the Seven Dwarves ride for the first time. As it was ending, fireworks started, which was fun. We didn't get to see the fireworks show, but we felt like we squeezed a lot into one day! My sister and I also rode Space Mountain.
Saturday, May 2:
Another rest day from a park perspective. The fitness room was closed by the time I tried to go, so I worked out in the condo.
18A "Lower Body Prep" in 19:43, "Lower Push BW" in 41:18, subbing in the KB squats with prisoner squats, since I didn't have any weights. Pretty good substitution.
Sunday, May 3:
My mom stayed home today, even though we had a rest day yesterday. The walking and standing was a lot. My dad, sister, and I went out to Islands of Adventure to round out our Universal 3-day pass.
We did King Kong for the first time. It had a short wait time.
We went to Hogsmeade and did Hagrid's motorcycle ride. Because I had a robe, the cast members made me sit in the sidecar and wouldn't let me ride the motorcycle. I wonder if they were afraid that robes would get caught on the track or something.
We waited in a long line to take the Hogwarts Express back to OG Universal.
Then we went back to Epic, to take advantage of the opportunity to see that park.
My dad was able to catch us on camera on Stardust Racers. It helped that I had on a red shirt.
In Mario land, we rode Yoshi, since we hadn't prioritized that on our first day.
You get some unique views of the land from up there.
We went again at night, which Youtube had recommended. It was different, but not that different, in my opinion.
The Donkey Kong ride was still down for maintenance, unfortunately. That area looked pretty neat.
Monday, May 4:
We stopped by a different, smaller Buccee's by a Costco on our way back. The statue was much smaller and wouldn't be big enough to carry a person. The inside seemed similar enough, though. The rest of my family got food from Costco while I played frogger across the road to get to Buccee's.
Our pit stop this time was Mickler's Landing. We found 4-5 shark teeth. I found the most in the area near the entrance to the beach, surprisingly. I used the digging technique this time, for the most part, and it seemed to be pretty successful. I wonder whether I found more at the beginning than at the end because I was looking more carefully and slowly at the beginning.
We stayed for a little over an hour.
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