Florida Trip: Weddings and Parks Galore

Hello, all!

As I mentioned in my January wrap-up, I recently went to Florida for one of my best friend’s weddings. Since most of our friend group had to travel, we decided to make the most of it and stay a few extra days to visit some of the parks.

We did Disney, Hollywood Studios (I finally got to see Galaxy’s Edge!), and Universal. I hadn’t been to Disney since I was maybe 8-year-old, I’d never been to Hollywood Studios, and the last time I went to Universal was around 6ish years ago, so I was very excited! We packed so much into a few days that I was absolutely knackered by the time I finally got home, but it was such a fun time.

Here are some pictures from my trip!

Saturday/Wedding: We all flew down on a Friday, some in the morning and some at night (two of us were in the bridal party so had to be in earlier for the rehearsal dinner), and the wedding was Saturday evening. I actually didn't take many photos of the wedding/reception itself because I was having so much fun just dancing and enjoying the night with friends. Here are the only two pictures I did take, and of course the quality isn't great because of strobe lights 🤷🏻‍♀️

Sunday/Magic Kingdom: Despite spending the night before dancing and (for everyone else but me) drinking, we hit the road bright and early to go to our first stop: Magic Kingdom. I will admit that I was more excited about all the food prospects than the rides because I actually can't do many rides because I get vertigo very easily. I can do kiddie rides, but anything with 3-D or a lot of movin' and groovin',  and it's Spin City for me. But I was more than content eating my way through the park while waiting for my friends. There were a few I did go on: the Haunted Mansion, Pirates of the Caribbean, and the Buzz Lightyear space ranger one (I forget the name, but you shoot at targets). 

There was so much happening around the park for its 50th anniversary, so I didn't even mind not doing a lot of rides. Also, just wanna throw out there that it was in the 30s this day. None of us packed appropriately and were buying sweatshirts to layer up cause we thought we were going to Florida to get a break from the cold! After spending all day at the park, we ate dinner at this cute Italian place that was supposed to be like the one from Lady and the Tramp, saw some fireworks, and called it a night.

Monday/Hollywood Studios: This was the day I'd been waiting for! I've been wanting to visit Galaxy's Edge ever since it was announced, and I couldn't believe I was finally there. My friend's boyfriend and my other friend's husband are both massive Star Wars fans as well, so this was emotional for us. Everyone kept joking about how badly we were nerding out, but seriously, nothing can describe rounding the corner and seeing the Millennium Falcon. All three of us just stood there for a moment, smiling like idiots, and then immediately shot forward to go take pictures with it. There are so many details every where you look. There were even droid tracks in the ground! This was also the only time when I went on the rides. I knew both Smuggler's Run and Rise of the Resistance had a lot of elements that are bad for people with motion sickness, but I made sure to take my medicine and even wore one of those motion sickness bands because there was no way I was missing out on them. There were times I had to close my eyes, especially with a lot of the simulated videos, but they actually weren't as bad as I thought and am so glad I went on them. After the rides, we had some blue/green milk (I loved the blue milk, but green wasn't my favorite--too tropical tasting), and then checked out some of the shops. To be honest, I didn't love the merch selection that was there. It was a lot of stuffed animals/toys that felt more geared towards little ones and really bland clothing pieces. I ended up picking up two shirts from one of the other gift stores that were in the regular part of the park. 

After we spent the morning running around Batuu, we checked out the other sights. I was a little bummed that all the Muppets stuff was closed, but it was still fun to see. We didn't spend too much time here since we had to drop some of our party off at the airport, but since it's not that big of a park, we still covered almost all of it.

Tuesday/Wizarding World of Harry Potter: Tuesday was the chillest day of the trip. The only ones left were me, my friend Jackie and her boyfriend Greg, since our other friends are teachers and couldn't take off too many days. We decided to hit up Universal, mainly for the Wizarding World, and we'd been there before, so we took everything at our own pace. We did a few rides, but really just spent the day ducking in and out of shops since it was freezing and rainy. I had been looking forward to buying a Hufflepuff sweatshirt, but when I got there I found out they discontinued the one I wanted which was a bummer, so I went with the newer design. After a delicious lunch at the Leaky Cauldron and another turn about the shops, we headed out to look at the rest of the park, before heading to dinner and back to the airport. We had a very late flight but ended up getting into JFK 20-minutes early, but then stood at baggage claim for over an hour. We didn't get home until almost 2am, so I was very happy I had thought to take the next day off from work as well.

All in all, despite my poor body aching after all the steps/miles we covered, I had such a great trip. I was very nervous about Covid despite being vaccinated, boosted and wearing a mask everywhere, because Florida really is like a lawless land, but thankfully, I took a test a few days after I got home and I was negative and haven't had any symptoms. 

Are you fans of Disney or parks in general?