Universal Studios Orlando - Spring Break 2025

 And that brings us to the present! Just 6 hours later, haha. 

Our most recent trip was for Spring Break to Universal Studios Orlando. None of us had ever been so I was excited to see how this compared to Disney. Spoiler alert. It's better. 

Not every trip is without it's hiccups though. Our first one came in the form of weather in Florida delaying our flight to Orlando. It was a direct flight so we just chilled at home until it was time to go. Our flight would be departing at around 11pm! 

Flight had no issues (yay Allegiant) and landed in Sanford airport about 1:30am. Not great for catching an uber for a family of 6 for a 45 minute drive. 

Waiting... 

We would get a driver, then they would bail. Again and again.  Tried Lyft, same issues. 

Eventually our savior, a wonderful woman that had been driving since 3pm that day showed up at 3am. We got to the hotel about 4am. 

We stay at a Universal hotel - Endless Summer Surfside. Highly recommend this resort. Can't say enough good things about the staff and accommodations! We stayed in a Two bedrooms suite, it had 3 queen beds. Great for big families. 

Nice kitchen area (never mind our mess). 

The only problem? My kids won't share beds! I ordered two sleeping bags from Target and we dealt with it. Eventually the girls gave in but Wes was always on the floor. His choice! 

Since I knew we'd be getting in late (but not that late!) I had planned our first day to be a pool day. It would probably be the chilliest day of the week but that's ok. 

Beats a Monday at work!

That night we had a reservation for Cowfish in City Walk. It was good - nothing crazy to rave about. 

After that we were going to play mini golf until we realized it would be $150 :( 

We got the package that had buy 3 days of park tickets, get two free so we would be in the parks the next 5 days straight. I didn't know what to expect but I knew we had park to park and we could take lots of breaks if needed. 

The transportation to the parks was shuttle buses, very frequent and efficient. 

We rode all the things! Well...mostly. Todd and Wes are the only thrill seakers, so they rode Rip Ride Rockit, Velocicoaster and Hulk where the rest of us said no thank you. 

One of the first rides we rode was Escape from Gringotts and it broke down towards the end. It was fine, only stopped for about 5 minutes and they let use right back on after so we didn't have to wait again. 

Loved that ride! The crowds were a little crazy in both the Harry Potter worlds but everywhere else was manageable. We had lunch at the Three Broomsticks. 

While were talking about food... some snacks. 

This was the best thing I ate all week, Cajun mac and cheese. 

All the fun. 

Audrey's highlight was the parade - she loved it! 

We went to dinner at Toothsome's Chocolate Emporium Friday night. It was a super cool place. Food was just meh. 

It all LOOKED good but taste was very bland. 

Audrey on her phone!!! I was so mad!

Our last day, Saturday we had two objectives. Ride Hagrids and go to Volcano Bay. 

The line for Hagrids had been 120 minutes - 150 minutes all week. According to all of our legs our best shot at making it that long we'd need to go first thing in the morning. We started with 120 minute wait and it took 75 minutes. Not too bad! We had watched all the videos on Youtube of the POV's on Hagrids but I think we were all a little surprised at how thrilling it was! Especially Audrey... I'm not sure she will forgive me for convincing her. I stand by my convincing, it was so fun!!

After that we were all ready to relax so we headed to Volcano Bay for the rest of the day. 

We set the twins lose and they went to ride all the slides while I relaxed with Erin in the lazy river, ate the food and drank the dranks. 

We had such a great trip. Of course, there was fighting and exhaustion but it's one of the trips we will talk about all the time. 

Until our next adventure!