May trip to Universal - day 3

Let the fun begin!!!
After an early breakfast and check out we drove to our Universal Orlando hotel - Universal's Cabana Bay Beach Resort! It is a Value resort, but offers great family suits and very affordable. Short 3-5 minutes shuttle ride and you are at the park!
Cabana Bay is located right nest to Volcano Bay, brand new water park which just opened this May.

May trip to Universal - day 2

Some people sleep and rest while on vacation, but we don't. Alarm is usually set for around 7 am and we are off till 11 pm or later.
This morning wasn't different. Alarm was set for 7 am, we got up and went to breakfast.
I love Embassy Suits for their breakfast. A lot of options, cook to order omelet, eggs, waffles/pancakes, sausages, bacon, potato, yogurt, fruits, cereal and many many more.
This hotel ( Embassy Suites by Hilton Orlando Lake Buena Vista Resort) also had a kids corner right by the restaurant, which was great! Kids finished eating and started playing nearby. We had time to finish our breakfast with out any rush and fussy kids.

May trip to Universal - day 1

This will be a long line of posts, 10 days to be exact.

Day 1 started pretty late. Girls had school that day and I was picking them up early. Pick up went much longer then expected, since they were saying good bye to every one at school and then we got stuck in some of the Atlanta's traffic.
My kids are used to road trips, so we planned on only stopping once, but ended up stopping twice, which again added time to our travel and pushed arrival time to later.
By the time we got to Orlando it was already 9 pm. On the way we called Domino's pizza and placed an order for pick up, got our pizza and went to the room to eat and sleep. It was the easiest dinner option. For our first night we got a room at the Embassy Suits and I will post more details about this hotel in my next post.
( Embassy Suites by Hilton Orlando Lake Buena Vista Resort). 

Miami, Florida.

This will be my Welcome back post. 
It's been a while since I wrote anything and I think it's time to come back. 
I've decided to make this blog about our travel. Destinations, hotels, restaurants etc. Mostly it will be about Universal Orlando Resort and Walt Disney World. Both are located in Orlando, Florida. 

This post is about Miami. Since it's not our first visit there, we didn't do much. Plus the main reason for going there was visiting friends, so we spent most of our time with them. 

Spring break 2017. 

Disney World, May 2016 Day 2

Good morning! We are off to the Magic Kingdom park!

Disney World, May 2016 Day 1

We stayed at the Port Orleans Riverside, our favorite resort so far and took a ferry boat to the French Quarter to use the pool and water play ground there.

Clearwater Beach, Fl - day 7 - last day

Our last day at the beach. We decided not to go anywhere but the beach!
All morning we spent there.

Clearwater Beach, Fl - day 6 - Salvador Dalí Museum and Downtown St. Petersburg

Every day we tried to add something special to our trip. This day it was walking around downtown St Petersburg and visiting The Dali Museum.
At first I didn't want to go there, I thought my kids will be bored and won't be able to understand anything there. But after reading some comments online I changed my mind. Yes, Ashley was bored and Jeremy didn't care, but Emily liked it. You can get a kids tour called "Mr. Moustache". Tour designed especially for elementary-middle school aged kids. Only available in English.To go with the audio tour you get The hunt book. There are different riddles and questions and you have to figure out the answer. The tour was interesting and funny.

Clearwater Beach, Fl - day 6 - Beach

Yes, beach every day, can't skip it! But Emily wasn't too happy that day - there was no waves, at all! So she couldn't ride her board, no matter how hard she tried. So it was time for just swimming and building a sand castle and water sliding! There was a giant water slide right on the beach so we went there. Ashley couldn't go, she was too short, but Emily went few times and loved it!

Clearwater Beach, Fl - day 5 - LEGOLAND Florida

We couldn't miss it! Being only a little more then an hour away from it we decided to go. Plus we have annual passes and it was so worth it!

Clearwater Beach, Fl - day 4 - Fort De Soto Park

This was a great place to visit!
If you interested in history of this park there is a great article on their county's main page. A lot of interesting facts and details about it -  Fort De Soto Historic Guide

Brief history if you didn't want to read from the link above. 

The park is made up of 5 island anchored by the main island, Mullet Key where the fort and main beaches are located. 

This park has few different sections and areas to visit. You can even do camping there. We explored 3 area - East beach, Fort and North Beach.

East Beach is a great area to come with small kids. Water is very calm and clean. Beach is the least
crowded and there is an incredible view of the Skyway Bridge over Tampa Bay.

Clearwater Beach, Fl - day 4 - Beach

Finally we got a sunny morning! No more clouds or rain.
Nice view from our balcony

Clearwater Beach, Fl - day 3 - pier 60

Continuation to the previous post.

After the museum weather cleared up and we decided to check out the main pier in Clearwater Beach.  Parking there was a nightmare! We drove around the parking lot for 15 minutes trying to find a spot to park.
The Pier 60 was a nice area. Very specious and pretty. But I wouldn't come here to swim... Very crowded beach area.
There is a playground right on the beach, but also very crowded. There is no room for parents to sit, you have to watch your kids at all times because its open on all sides.

Clearwater Beach, Fl - day 3 - Dunedin Fine Art Center

In the morning we woke up to see a very bad storm outside. High wind, heavy rain and not even a little clearing in the sky. It was a little disappointing, but nothing we can do.
We let the kids play for half a day and after lunch took them to the museum - Dunedin Fine Art Center. This is like a hidden treasure there.  Not many people, very inexpensive (we only paid $6 for all of us) and there are a lot of stuff for kids to do, especially  in a rainy day.

Clearwater Beach, Fl - day 2

Day 2 started early. All kids woke up around 8 am and were ready to go to the beach. Weather was still not so good. Not raining, but very cloudy and windy. Eventually it did rain.
In the morning the beach was all empty, just some occasional runners would pass by.
Waves were huge and we couldn't really swim, but kids still had fun jumping over them.
                                         

                                        

Clearwater Beach, Fl - day 1

We are back home now! One week went way faster then I expected, but then time always fly on vacations.
We rented 2 bedroom condo with a friend. I had my mom and 3 kids and she had her 3 kids. We stayed about 20 mins south of Clearwater beach - on the Treasure Island. Later I will write a little more detailed review of the island and the area together. Condo complex was - The Palms, will post more about it too. Right now about our first day.
Drive from Atlanta to Treasure Island is 7 hours according to google maps, but with 3 kids you can easily add 2 more hours. Even we only stopped 3 times, it still took additional 2.5 hours. Jeremy is still nursing often so it was hard to plan our days.
That day we left home early. Woke up at 4 and left at 5 am. We prefer to leave around that time or even earlier for any road trips. Yes it is harder on the parents, but much easier with the kids. All 3 of mine slept all the way till Florida boarder, which was 4 hours away. We stopped at the Welcome center, used bathrooms, walked around, I fed Jeremy and we had a small picnic breakfast. I packed everything with us.

Disney's Port Orleans Riverside

I will start writing some of the reviews for recently visited places.
Disney's Port Orleans Resort - Riverside

We stayed at this hotel at the end of May 2015 for 6 days. We were a family of 6, my mom went with us. So 3 adults and 3 kids, one of them is infant.
Hotel is pretty large, so think of it when you book it. From some buildings it can be 10 minutes walk to the main building. Grounds looks gorgeous and even if you do have to walk, there is always something to look at.