Orlando, FL - Universal Studios

#167 (January 14, 2023): Today we officially embarked on Leg 3, the Southeast Loop! We left Nashville and drove 6.5 hours south, parking at Love’s RV Stop in Cordele, Georgia. We are excited to be on the road again and for the adventures that lie ahead! Love’s RV Stop is our first campground that is completely automated—no attendants. It’s quick and convenient with plenty of clean, level, paved, spacious 50-amp pull-thru spots. Absolutely perfect! Oh, how we wish there were more of these spread throughout the country for times such as this!

In preparation for our upcoming trip to Universal Studios, we watched Harry Potter (#1) and the Sorcerer’s Stone since none of the kids have read the books or watched any of the movies yet.

#168 (January 15, 2023): Today we finished the long road to Orlando, Florida. We parked at Mill Creek RV Park, which ironically only appears to have 2 RV spots! The rest have been converted to full-time tiny houses. Unfortunately, Emily got a late start booking this leg of the trip (mid-December, sigh!). Turns out, just about every campground and RV park in Florida is completely booked during this prime snowbird season. We have tried to dodge peak seasons everywhere we have gone so far, but we have landed in central and southern Florida at the peak of its season! Evidently, we aren’t the only ones living in an RV trying to dodge the winter’s freezing temperatures! Ha! To make matters more difficult, many campgrounds on Florida’s west and east coasts are closed or unavailable because of recent Hurricanes Ian & Nicole. Needless to say, we are just thankful we found a spot!

At sunset we watched the skies to see SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy soar into space leaving behind a bright white tail across the sky. And then, about two minutes after liftoff, we could see the two side boosters and the center core slowly floating back down towards earth. Wow! How cool! Afterward, we continued our Universal Studios prep by watching Harry Potter (#2) and the Chamber of Secrets.

#169 (January 16, 2023): Universal Studios has an awesome January deal for Buy 2 Days, Get 2 Days Free (over a 7-consecutive-day period)! So today was Day 1 of up to 4 days that we can spend at Universal this week. Woo-hoo!

The biggest highlights of this first fun-filled day were the Race Through New York Starring Jimmy Fallon ride, The Bourne Stuntacular show, and drinking frozen Butterbeer in what we call Harry Potter World. Of course, we bought a Harry Potter wand (actually it was Professor McGonagall’s) to share amongst the family so that we could practice our spells this week.

Emily was surprised at how few rides were the same from 25 years ago! Most have been replaced with newer movie themes (which is somewhat understandable, just not what she expected). She enjoyed riding E.T. Adventure as a throwback to her teenage memories of visiting Universal Studios back in the day!

We swung into A Lot of Fried Rice (a restaurant) near our campground on the way home, which we all loved. Afterwards, we continued our Universal Studios prep by watching Harry Potter (#3) and the Prisoner of Azkaban. When the movie was over, Neil declared he wasn’t watching any more movies until after he had read the books first. He had seen enough to gain a better appreciation for Harry Potter World, but he wanted to save the rest of the series until after he had read the books.

#170 (January 17, 2023): Chris stayed back at the RV while Emily and the kids went back to Universal Studios (later crossing into Islands of Adventure) for more fun. Since we hit most of the non-Harry Potter rides yesterday, today we headed to Diagon Alley for some Harry Potter inspired fun.

Highlights from today include the three Harry Potter rides and their amazing riding ques (Harry Potter and the Escape from Gringotts, Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey, and everyone’s favorite Hagrid’s Magical Creatures Motorbike Adventure), as well as riding the Hogwarts Express between King’s Cross Station and Hogsmeade Station (in both directions) and eating lunch and drinking more frozen Butterbeer at The Leaky Cauldron. We continued to practice our spells with our wands as we found them.

After Chris joined us mid-afternoon, he, Lily, and Joanna enjoyed riding the more-thrill rides such as The Incredible Hulk Coaster and Jurassic World VelociCoaster. We stayed ‘til closing so we could enjoy The Nighttime Lights at Hogwarts Castle.

On the way home, we swung back into A Lot of Fried Rice for some more yumminess (and yum-yum sauce) for dinner!

#171 (January 18, 2023): We are all thankful to have a free bonus day to go back and re-ride our favorite rides and to slow down and enjoy Harry Potter World even more, making sure we found and practiced all the spells. We ate lunch at The Three Broomsticks in Hogsmeade and took a break later in the day at The Leaky Cauldron, sampling more Harry Potter specialties such as Butterbeer ice cream, Otter’s Fizzy Orange Juice, Tongue Tying Lemon Squash (aka lemonade), and Orange Marmalade soft serve from Florean Fortescue’s Ice-Cream Parlour.

In our opinion, Universal Studios and Islands of Adventure knocked it out of the park when they created Harry Potter World. The theming was spot-on! We truly felt like we were on another continent in Diagon Alley and Hogsmeade, not Orlando, FL. So, so fun!!

#172 (January 19, 2023): To get a better “taste” of Florida, today Emily and the kids went to Showcase of Citrus in Clermont and picked fresh Florida oranges. While there, they took a 1-hour ride on the world’s largest monster truck (a converted old school bus with military axles and gigantic monster truck wheels), touring the 2,500-acre property, learning about citrus, Florida’s native woodlands and birds, and numerous exotic animals from all over the world. What a random combo of topics! It was a fun, informative, and unique experience for sure!

We enjoyed throwing fresh fruits and vegetables from the 40’-long monster truck to the Asian water buffalo, Texas Longhorns, African Watutsi, and a bully-of-a-Billy goat who had been banished to this Outback to live with these much bigger peers (bless!), and then to some American bison, and finally to some zebras.

We learned that citrus descended from mandarins in Asia, but it now thrives in Florida, where most oranges grown here (80%) are sold as orange juice. In fact, most of the oranges from this grove are transported just 20 minutes away and pressed into Florida Natural orange juice. We identified native birds: ibis, red-shouldered hawk, vultures, and sandhill cranes. We learned that zebras have fewer pests because their stripes seem to confuse flies and mosquitos (nice!). Although this property was once desired by Walt Disney for his Epcot, he was outbid by the current family who later planted the citrus groves. Today Disney’s Animal Kingdom now trucks semi-truckloads of animal waste to the property to be composted into fertilizer (we saw the trucks arriving on our tour, which was cool).

Back at the petting zoo near the fruit stand, the kids enjoyed feeding more exotic animals such as the ostrich, emu, guinea fowl, kangaroos, zebu, New Zealand pig, and a camel (who was very naughty and greedy but never spit at us thankfully), as well as more familiar farm animals such as goats, sheep, a pot belly pig, chickens, turkeys, ducks, geese, a donkey, and a miniature horse. Our favorite animal to hand-feed was the capybara, a South American native that we have studied in the past and we were thrilled to see and touch in person; it reminded us of a giant, straw-haired, well-mannered guinea pig, and it loved our fresh cabbage! He was so sweet and gentle!

We ate delicious Venezuelan cuisine from a food truck (Pastelitos Abuelo Juan) on site for lunch. It was so, so good! For dessert, we ate fresh-squeezed lemonade creamsicles and orange juice/lemonade swirl creamsicles, while sitting on horse saddles (yep!).

We picked a few oranges from the tree (pineapple oranges) before filling our bag with other better-tasting, already-picked varieties at the fruit stand: temple oranges, red navels, yellow navels, honeybells, and valencias. Although our overall favorite was the temple oranges (quite sweet!), these oranges just don’t compare to the California oranges that we loved so much at Orange Grove RV Park in Bakersfield, CA. They are harder to peel, with lots more seeds, not near as sweet, and quite ugly actually. We can see firsthand why these oranges are primarily grown to make juice! Had we come here only to U-pick oranges, we would have been disappointed, but thankfully all the other random combinations of unique experiences that Showcase of Citrus offers, well made up for that.

That night, we watched Harry Potter (#4) and the Goblet of Fire, while Neil listened to #1 on audiobook.

#173 (January 20, 2023): After 2 travel days and 4 days of all-day adventures, today we stayed home to rest, catch our breath, and knock out some schoolwork. At night, we continued our Harry Potter week by watching Harry Potter (#5) and the Order of the Phoenix, while Neil continued listening to #1 on audiobook.

#174 (January 21, 2023): Even though we have one more free bonus day at Universal Studios/Islands of Adventure for more fun, we are exhausted and need one more day to stay home, catch up on school, and plan our next destination’s adventures before leaving tomorrow (evidently, January is peak season for Florida’s national parks too!). At night, we watched Harry Potter (#6) and the Half-Blood Prince, while Neil finished listening to #1 on audiobook.