Travel revenge is real. Almost one year post the uncertain Covid days, people want to travel more than ever, including us. This must be the longest ever flight that we are going to embark with the family, even for ourselves.
We have since travelled to Japan and Malaysia but this was going to be the most anticipated trip ever.
We were in a dilemma between Iceland and USA. Iceland was to chase after northern lights while USA was for Disney. Kids were really excited for USA and not so much for Iceland, which is quite obvious why. All their favourite Youtubers and products endorsed by Youtubers and, of course, theme parks were calling out to them.
And the winning destination, USA! I can almost hear the kids pop the party poppers in victory! We decided that Iceland could probably wait a bit more when the kids will appreciate. We had been to California previously so we have decided on Florida and New York for this trip. This post will be all about Florida.
Singapore Changi Airport
We are about to embark on the world’s longest commercial flight! How exciting! And the anxiety that comes with it! The flight was indeed an experience and I dedicated a whole blog post just to ink the memories.
We would be travelling for more than 2 weeks in nice cold weather in the US. We think we would miss local food the most. How would you find nice wontan, kopi and milo-beng in the States? So of course we must indulge ourselves with local food just before flying. Thank goodness that the check-in process at Changi Airport was so smooth and efficient, we had time for a quick bite after clearing our baggage and before the boarding time.
After a quick bite, we even had time to visit the two storey high world’s first butterfly garden in an airport. The park was lovely, although I’m not a fan of butterflies. My kids were giggling and reaching out trying to have a butterfly landing on them or getting butterflies fly past them at close distance. We love hanging about at Changi Airport.
The Flight (Full Details in Separate post)
We had a good flight on Singapore Airlines with 1 air stewardess, 1 chief stewardess and 1 steward(?) serving our section. Hot towels are now back and it really felt refreshing after a warm towel wipe. It was a rather full flight, as expected, but it didn’t feel that bad. There was some wait time at the toilets, especially after meal times but the serving of food and keeping of food trays was still efficient. There were no rowdy passengers (thank goodness) and I think everyone on the flight had a peaceful and comfortable ride to New York.
Orlando Airport to Disney World
By the time we landed in Orlando, it was already close to midnight in Orlando. For fear of not being able to get a transport to our hotel at Disney’s Art of Animation resort (see post here for a review of the resort), we booked an airport transfer service from Mears, who specializes in airport transfer services. We found out later that the rates were on the high side and we could have gotten the same service at a lower rate with other transport companies, which we did engage on some other days in Orlando and on the return to Orlando airport. But we did get a rather luxurious and spacious mini van for our party of six with 3 big luggages, 2 cabin luggages and our own backpacks and handbags.
Packing Food to USA
While it was close to midnight when we landed, it was actually almost lunch time back in Singapore. Being still in Singapore time zone on the first night, we started feeling hungry. We anticipated this scenario and actually prepared some instant food for supper, in the event that we are not able to find any hot food at this hour. There are regulations everywhere on bringing food stuff during travel, including in USA. We referred to this site for the list of permissible and prohibited food to bring in to the US. Processed food should be rather safe but we were prepared to declare these items and dispose them in the worst case scenario that they were not permitted. Luckily, for some reason, there was no lane for declaration and we were not asked for luggage content inspection. So our food stuff went through immigration successfully!
To minimise the space used for packing food, we only took 1 unopened cup of instant porridge, several opened packages of instant porridge content, 1 unopened instant noodle and several soup bases from this same instant noodle pack. This was in case we get an inspection, we can open the unopened packages to prove the contents of the opened packages. We intended to get the noodles there and use our own soup bases as the taste would be something that we are familiar and proven tasty. It turns out that instant noodles in USA, even with familiar brands, also tasted different and not as tasty.
We are also fully aware that chilli sauce/chilli paste/fresh chilli, chilli of any kind would be hard to come by in USA, so I brought our own pre-packed sambal chilli! Chilli just makes everything tastier! Fresh chillies seems to be prohibited, so I didn’t attempt to bring.
On our way to the hotel, we asked our Mears driver whether he knows where we can get some food along the way and he kindly brought us to Wendy’s which was, amazingly, still open! There we had our takeaway supper. Now that our bellies are contented, we can look forward to a fresh day ahead. Meanwhile, let us sleep off our jetlag…
Itinerary
A Resting Day to Adjust to Time Zone
After a good night’s sleep, we woke up leisurely for the first breakfast at the food court at the resort. How cute were those waffles! Food was average though. Then we had a walk around the resort to walk off the filling breakfast. The low-lying sky liner were so cute too! And scenery was like in the postcards.
Stocking up at Target
The first thing to do on this day, grocery shopping! Yes we need to get that water, our breakfast for the next few days and, what the kids can’t wait to get, Feastibles and Prime! And they went OMG! And wow! Taylor Swift vinyl album! We love Target!
And its thanks to our transport service from J&A Transportation for bringing us around. We found them from TripAdvisor and definitely recommend them to anyone who needs transport service in Orlando. Price is reasonable and service is tops! And Juan was really as what people are saying on TripAdvisor. Double thumbs up for Juan!
Universal Studios Orlando
After a quick lunch of Shake Shack, we headed to Universal Studios Orlando. As we had already planned for four days of Disney, we decided that we would have to skip Universal Studios. The trip would be too costly. Imagine the entry tickets plus the express passes. But we still wanted to drop by Universal Studios, just for some photo moments, since we are here.
CityWalk
Without buying any tickets, anyone could visit the Universal Studios Orlando CityWalk. It’s like a mini town bustling with shops, restaurants and cafe. But just going into the CityWalk, you will need to go through the security bag check. It’s a rather strict bag check with metal detector scanning gate, almost similar to airport security. We were quite surprised at the level of the security. We were allowed to bring in our food and drinks though.
The CityWalk was a nice place to just eat, drink and shop. Hard Rock cafe is also there, so we got some souvenirs. And we found Chinese food by Panda Express! We bought a box of fried rice, but it was rather tasteless, so, nope to Panda Express for us.
Character Dinner
We had our first Disney characters encounter this day at the character dinner with Chef Mickey(!) at the Contemporary Resort. The first part of the dinner we were mostly looking out for the characters in case they come and we were not at the table. So it was kind of hard to walk away to take food from the buffet table. Until we finally had our pictures done with all the characters when we could have our dinner in peace. Lol. There was some wait time to get our table as it was rather crowded. The buffet selection was ok but we had fun waiting and taking photos with the characters, just that the characters came by themselves without accompanying staff and it was hard getting a group photo unless you get help from other diners with a group photo.
If you missed any character, you could also inform the ground staff and they would inform the character to come to your table. Excellent service!
A few days later, we found that we lost a soft toy at the restaurant. We were so exhausted from the theme parks that we didn’t realize till that late. We called the Contemporary Resort and were advised to log a lost and found report at their website as it had been a few days and any lost item would have been sent to the central lost and found storage area. So we did and hoped for the best. It was a favourite stuffed toy of my kid and it was almost heart-breaking to have lost it.
Luckily, at Disney, lost items were taken seriously, even if it’s a toy. We really did receive a reply the next day that the toy was found! The poor kid was so relieved! We arranged for a pick up at the concierge and the kids squealed in excitement to be reunited with the her buddy. Appreciate the excellent service of the Disney crew.
Disney Springs
We ended our first day in Orlando with a short shopping at Disney Springs. We took a shuttle bus to Disney Springs en-route to our hotel. Disney Springs is Disney’s equivalent of Universal Studios CityWalk, except that it’s much larger. We didn’t really explore as the shops were closing by the time we reached. We probably conquered a grand total of 2 shops while we were here. Lol. Wished I had more time here for shopping!
The Theme Parks
We knew Disney World is huuuggee and that if we are going for 4 parks, it would be at least 4 times bigger than the other Disneyland parks. But, we didn’t expect it’s going to be so complicated that you can actually hire a Disney park planner service to help with the planning and park strategy! These services come with a fee, of course.
We have therefore decided to plan it ourselves, with the kids. So we divided the tasks among us and conduct “check point” meetings to discuss how of our tasks has been completed and go through the plan. It’s that complicated. I will dedicate another post just for Disney world, including the planning, the strategy and a review of the rides that we went on.
Besides the complicated planning, be also prepared for the cost. There are several options just for buying the admission tickets. Then comes the cost for express queue, the lightning lane queue, via the Genie+ pass. We only went for 4 out of the 6 theme parks as the other 2 were water parks which we are not even considering since it’s winter time.
We managed to cover the rides that we planned to ride, thanks to Genie+. We figured that we would probably not be coming again in the near future and would be such a waste if we had to queue 2 hours for each ride, so we already included the cost of the Genie+ pass during our planning.
The next four days of the trip were spent on the 4 theme parks and we averaged 20,000 steps a day each just by walking around the parks! Maybe it’s a good way of workout and kids did not complain of the walk. They really enjoyed the parks despite the exhaustion at the end of each day. The cooling weather probably played a big part in this though.
Disney’s Oak Trail Golf
Finally, after 4 days of intense walking and unlimited fun, it’s time to slow down our pace and go for a relaxing golf at Disney’s golf course! It was a dream-come-true to play a game of golf in the cold weather. You can finish the entire game and don’t even sweat. Something that is impossible for us folks living in hot, sunny Asia.
We picked the Oak Trail course as it’s a 9-hole course and easier for the kids. We took quite some time to figure out how to get to the golf course from our resort as no staff seemed familiar how to get there. The getting-there information on Disney’s website was also outdated so we were quite lost, especially even the staff were unaware. The transportation info has since been updated. We finally managed to find a senior staff who told us that there are no more shuttle services to the golf course and the only way we can get there is to call for a cab or uber. And he proceeded to help us call for a cab. Lucky for us to get someone who can help!
So after all the figuring out, we were, as expected, late for the booking. We quickly rented our golf clubs and trolleys at the rental store and bought some balls and tees there. And we brought our own golf gloves. By the time we are done with the measuring of height, getting the right size clubs for the kids, we were late for the tee-off and got rushed through the first few holes by the staff there so that the next group could go on time. So the kids were grumpy at the start because we kept rushing to push forward, and hurry up etc.
By the 5th or 6th hole, we managed to get back on schedule and enjoy the serene environment and experience golf with nature and wild life. We have seen footages of crocodiles appearing during golf games, but we didn’t expect we will encounter it for ourselves. Luckily they were still babies and didn’t seem to be bothered by us. It’s kind of cool. As for the big birds, we still have no idea what species they were? But they were equally chill and totally not afraid of flying golf balls over their heads.
After the game, we bought some merch from the souvenir store, freshened up with some snacks and drinks and got ready to proceed to our next destination after meeting up with our driver at the golf place. Great game of golf, except, we need to be on time if we ever go again!
Vegetable Picking at Vo-LaSalle Farms
We went for fruit picking on many of our trips, but vegetable picking was a first! During Covid period, many people were stuck at home for quarantine and goods import/export were affected due to cross border regulations. Many people took up a new interest to grow food at home. Even the government in Singapore were encouraging people to grow own food at home, by giving out free seeds to grow your own vegetables. I tried too but did not gain much success so I was elated to visit a vegetable farm and see how successful the farmers at Vo-LaSalle Farms were in growing big, fat, crunchy and juicy vegetables. We gathered some tomatoes, broccoli, eggplant and celery and it got us all so excited. The price was reasonable too. Happy us!
Saint Augustine
Juan suggested that we should go to Saint Augustine, the oldest city in the U.S as it was really beautiful. So we decided to take a look there. Saint Augustine was about 1 hour from the vegetable farm, so we reached there close to evening time. We were not expecting that it would be so crowded. We were at the tourist area so likely most people there were tourists. It was really beautiful at night where everywhere is lighted up. But it was so crowded we almost lost each other in the crowd.
There’s a wide variety of food options here but there was a long queue at almost all the restaurants. We were craving for some seafood or pasta and not the usual burger kind of food, so we wandered around till we chanced upon this Mediterranean restaurant, Athena Restaurant, where they serve pasta and Greek food. So we popped in. It was once of the best meal we had in Florida so far.
Wild Florida Drive-Thru Safari
It’s time for more time with nature on Day 7 of our trip, driving through Wild Florida Safari in the comfort of our own car. We met some really cool animals with majestic horns, lovey dovely camel couple, big, strong and fury bull, comedic ostrich who pecks at our window and chill grazing animals while slowing driving through with our windows wound down. It was drizzling slightly, so we were getting ourselves wet but it was still nice. The kids were wowing away and laughing at the silly ostriches who either blocked our car or pecked at our window. We were warned to wind up the window when we see the ostriches. The rangers were so right.
We could also go up-close to the giraffe for feeding. The leaf of cabbage was sure expensive, but it’s all for the fun and experience. The hungry giraffe hungrily gulped down every piece of lettuce we fed to it.
NASA’s Kennedy Space Center
It has always been fascinating and unreal that we can actually shoot out into the sky and into the space and there are so many planets, stars and galaxies out there. And we will wonder how big is an actual rocket? Why do you need such a big craft to fly into space when there are only a few passengers? What do astronauts wear to space, how come they look so stiff in the whole outfit? All the questions and more have been answered with a visit to the NASA’s Kennedy Space Museum. It still feels unreal that an actual rocket is that huge and so many people, equipment, machines and computers are required to launch it. But now we know that there are a lot of R&D, trial and errors behind each and every mission and the technology just keep advancing and engineers getting more creative coming up with state of the art technology to explore what we would have never known.
The NASA’s Kennedy Space Museum is an actual NASA facility where rockets are launched into space. The entire attraction is quite huge and you can spend a whole day there. As we have only planned for half a day, we shortlisted the attractions that we wanted to go. It was also a rainy weather through the day so it made it harder to navigate through the attraction. There were no sheltered walkways everywhere. So it was a good thing that we had our ponchos that day and helped us get around without getting too wet.
We went behind the gates via the space center bus tour and visited some indoor exhibits and saw the incredibly huge Saturn V rocket, and the rocket launch pad from far. We also watched the demonstration of the rocket launch with real and now obsolete computer room and the IMAX movie. We had a quick bite of cold sandwich and wrap at the visitor’s center for lunch, just to save some time on meals. Lunch was ok but not fantastic, could have better food choices offerings.
Dragon Ball Themed Restaurant
Due to the wet and cold weather, it was hard getting around the center and we felt that we had seen and done enough so we left for dinner. The daddy managed to find a Dragon Ball themed restaurant, Soupasaiyan, nearby for our Dragon Ball fanboy at home. The food was actually good! Nothing like a bowl of hot soup on a rainy day. And the fanboy left satisfied with some merch and good food.
Bye Bye Orlando, Hello New York!
This day is our last day at Orlando. We have heard that Orlando is a nice and happy place before we came. After 8 days here, we really felt so. The weather was cooling, not too cold, the place is clean and neat and people are nice. We had lots of fun here too. As our flight is in the afternoon, we had some time to relax a bit before setting off to the airport.
After a day of fun the previous night, everyone knocked out and went to bed early while the poor mummy (me) was struggling with the luggage packing. We wanted to reach the airport early after the initial struggle with the incoming flight here (details in this post) so I needed to make sure the luggage is almost ready to go the next morning. Luckily we did reach early as we hit yet another drama at the Orlando Airport.
Bye bye Orlando! It was a great trip here and we enjoyed ourselves a lot!
Baby Adventures 