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Medieval Times

8/18/2017

Medieval Times in Orlando

Believe it or not, this lifelong Floridian had never been to Medieval Times dinner show! Over the years I had always wanted to go, but never seemed to make time for it in all my travels. Finally, now that my oldest is 4 and 1/2, we made the decision to go. As we were driving there, about 20 minutes from our hotel, my husband was telling my mom and I that they don't give you any utensils. I thought, "that can't be true... soup is on the menu! How in the world would we eat it?" I had no idea what to expect other than watching a show of knights and horses. We had 3 adults (my mom, husband, and myself), my four year old, and my 7 month old baby in tow for the night.

The experience begins with being assigned a seating section. When you purchase tickets, there are different packages. We bought the basic seats and ended up in the last row. However, it was great. Visibility was fine and the extra space behind us came in handy. Other packages include things like priority seating, flags, banners, etc. We were given yellow crowns, which means we were to cheer on the Yellow Knight! Overall there are six sections in the arena, each with their own color scheme and knight. After getting your crowns, you move on the the photo op. It was our first time, well not my husband's, so we HAD to take a picture. Not bad for the first take right?

After the photo OP, you enter a room where a bar lines one entire wall. Two other walls are filled with merchandise and souvenirs. They sold everything from light-up swords to real swords! It was pretty crowded when we walked in and they began calling people by colored sections. Yellow was first! We were, swiftly, whisked up a staircase and in to the arena! I apologize for the lack of quality in the photos, I was holding the baby a lot and walking AND taking pictures, so they are a little crooked and blurry. Whoops!

Dinner

Whelp. My husband was right! No silverware. I drank my soup like a champ! The meal was tasty, baked chicken, corn on the cob, garlic bread, and a half roasted potato! We had a really nice waiter who gave us extra garlic bread, potato, and corn for the baby. Drinks consisted of lemonade, water, Pepsi products, and coffee with dessert. Looking back, eating with my hands was part of the fun. I did use a few napkins, simply because I hate food on my fingers. Some people say they bring in their own cutlery. When I go back again, and yes I plan to go back when the baby gets bigger, I plan to eat with my hands again. All in good fun!

Dessert was lemon cake. Bleh. I'm hoping it changes from day to day because that wasn't enjoyable for me. Give me something chocolately and I am good.;)

The Show

The show begins shortly after they get everyone seated. Roving salespeople walk around selling flags, swords, and other goodies that the kids go bonkers for. Yup, mine wanted a light up sword. The lady selling them never came to us and he kept asking for one throughout the show. We bought him a yellow flag to wave until we could get someone to come by. There are two flag sizes, we bought the smaller one for $3. The larger was more of a rectangular pennant and cost $5. They introduce each respective knight to their section while you have soup and garlic bread. Then once dinner is served, the main show begins.

I never realized how much my four year old would love it. Before the trip we showed him a picture from the website and asked if he was interested. He wasn't sure. Guess what? He was IN TO IT! Shouting, cheering, and shadow boxing through the whole show. Thankfully the row behind us was empty. It made me happy to see him so excited! Money well spent on this attraction. Our Knight made it to the final round of battle only to lose to the Green knight! Surprisingly, my 4 year old was okay with the end result. Phew! Crisis averted.

All the knights at Medieval Times

If you're wondering about my son's sword, we bought it after the show. It's probably for the better because he would have wanted to swing it around while watching the action. He carried it around with him everywhere for the rest of our trip to Orlando. I even had some of my own fun with it ;)

I highly recommend this experience for young kids and adults who are young at heart <3

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Rosen Shingle Creek

8/18/2017

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We recently stayed at this hotel for my husband's work convention and brought the kids and my mom along, so we had two standard double rooms next to each other. They could not secure connecting rooms for us. The hotel is beautiful. The staff were always happy and helpful. Our rooms were cleaned daily. The cleaning staff were always smiling and friendly toward us and the children. One day, the lady who was making up our room stopped and spent time just smiling and talking with the baby. It was nice to see the staff interacting with guests, rather than just hustling around them.

Standard Double Queen Room

Family Friendly?

Being that the majority of my blog is about traveling with kids, and as a family, I would not call it an overly family friendly hotel. The only things for kids to do are swim and the arcade. There wasn't a playground or even any fun pool equipment (slide, sprayers, etc). I would have liked to see more for kids to do on property, seeing as though a lot of people bring their families along for conventions in Orlando. They provided a real crib and not just a pack n play, which was nice. Once my son got hurt, explained below, we didn't have the pool option any longer. So staying on the property was tough. Four year olds can only go so long before they need something to do! The good news is that it's a very quick trip to SeaLife Aquarium, Madame Tussaud, and the Orlando Eye. There is a Publix supermarket across the street from the hotel which is nice to pick up snacks or other needs.

Food

There are a lot of dining options onsite. We ate at the Osceola Buffet for breakfast one day, 18 Monroe Street Market for lunch twice, and Mi Casa for dinner once. The food was decent for hotel food. It was nice that a few of the restaurants were all on the same strip/hall. We were able to look at menus and decide between the Burger joint, Mexican, sushi, etc. other restaurants were scattered about the property. There is an ice cream shop downstairs near the market. Surprisingly I never got anything, I wish I had because I'm an ice cream lover!

Mi Casa had GIANT margaritas and table-side guacamole mixing. This seemed to be the popular order of the night when we went. This Mexican restaurant was pretty good for hotel food. I wasn't expecting much but I enjoyed my meal. Service was good. Our waitress was attentive, refilled our drinks often, and even gave us a cup to go! We had the Churros and loved them. They were crunchy on the outside and soft on the inside. A little heavy on the sugar, but nothing we couldn't brush off. We enjoyed sitting "outside" in the hall watching people walk by from the convention center to the main part of the hotel.
The coffee shop serves Starbucks and Tazo teas. We both had a coffee and it didn't taste like typical Starbucks, so I think the baristas were a little rusty. But for a standard tea or regular coffee it would do just fine.

The burger restaurant, Tobias Burgers and Brew, was closed on the weekend, which I thought was rather strange for a hotel. I guess we should have tried it at the beginning of our trip, during the weekdays.
Osceola Buffet was massive. We ate there for breakfast and there was plenty to choose from. Ranging from exotic to ordinary, the options could please any family or group. Cereals, breads, pastries, cheeses, spreads, typical things like eggs & bacon, as well as unique options that I hadn't seen before such as different styles of scrambled eggs.

18 Monroe Makret Street- This place has both hot, made to order items, as well as a small selection of grocery items. Cereals, dry goods, cookies, and lots of sweets. There was a cooler with salads, fruit, cheese platters, and such. The hot items are ordered at the hot bar and then you pick them up a few minutes later when cooked. My Wall Street sandwich (Turkey, Swiss Cheese, Red Pepper Mayonnaise, Lettuce, Tomato, Multigrain Artisan Bread) was pretty good. They don't skimp on the turkey, there was actually so much that I took some out and ate it after the sandwich! A few days later we ordered a large cheese pizza and it wasn't very good. They try to make it healthy but it was just dry and tasteless. I wish I had ordered something else. Don't expect anything to be cheap. It's onsite and the hotel is in the business to make money, so there is an upcharge for not getting in your car/taxi and heading across the street to the grocery store.

Size

Be aware that the hotel property is HUGE. There are multiple conventions going on at the same time here, but plenty of space so you don't really feel like you're always on top of each other. Some parts of the hotel were FREEZING (near the strip of restaurants) and others were humid and warm (by the elevators). It could just be the nature of where people congregated and architecture of the building? I'm not really sure, but it was strange to have such extremes. Just be prepared to walk a lot!

Parking & Driving

Self Parking was a pretty far walk and cost was $18 per day. Thankfully I was aiming to reach my step goal on my FitBit ;) so it didn't make a huge difference to me except in the rain. If it was rainy or exceptionally hot I would cut through the convention center to get to the main part of the hotel. A lot of people double parked along the curbs to be closer to the front even though there were plenty of open parking spots. I could forsee a lot of dings and dents as some of the corners are tight.

I know this isn't the hotel's fault, but it's something to be aware of. When exiting the hotel via car, you go out to a fairly busy street (Universal Blvd). I am surprised that there is not a traffic signal here. One day I sat there for 15 minutes (no exaggeration) and I could not make a left turn because the traffic was so heavy. This wasn't during rush hour, it was 10am. So on the following days I made a right turn and then a U-turn at the next signal. Just something to note.

Oopsies!

We had a small mishap with my 4 year old at the beach/zero entry pool a few hours after we arrived. He accidentally fell backward and hit his head, splitting it open a little. The manager and head of security were nothing but exceptional when helping us with this matter. They sent security (trained in first aid) to check him out and determined we needed to go to the hospital. My son needed staples in the ER. The manager followed up with us and even surprised him with milk, cookies, and a stuffed bear that night to help him feel better about the experience.

We also left a bag, with all of our shoes, in our room and didn't realize until we got home that night. I called the hotel Monday morning and they offered to ship the bag to us. I called the following day and was told they had already shipped, it turned out they hadn't shipped them yet. We were leaving town again in a few days and needed all of our dress shoes! They ended up arriving Friday afternoon, but we were already gone on our next adventure.

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Legoland Part II

8/18/2017

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Legoland Florida

A few years ago I went to Legoland with my older son and some extended family, you can read my previous review here. We really enjoyed ourselves and felt like it was an anxiety free experience. Those of you who frequent "the mouse" might know what I mean when I mention anxiety. Wait times at Legoland are negligible, which adds to the positive experience. Now that he's a bit older, and taller (more rides to ride), we decided to go back. I was really excited because he had a good time back in 2015. Two years older and wiser, I figured he'd love it. He's been watching the Lego cartoons on Netflix lately and building stuff with Duplo blocks. So he had been talking about this all summer long. Every time we'd get in the car he'd ask "Are we going to Legoland?"

The day started off strong. We arrived at opening hour and saw that the priority parking was now covered under these neat solar panels. For an additional $5 fee I'll take shade/ covering for the car. On a hot day in Florida, it can be brutal to get back in to a heat box. Back in 2015, priority parking just meant being closer to the front gates. This is a nice upgrade and worth it depending on the weather situation.

We had to purchase our tickets upon arrival due to the promotion we took part in. Something that I love about Legoland is that they always have something to keep the kids busy. While I waited in line, my husband took him over to a table with Legos to play with. I had mentioned last time that each ride has a small play area to keep kids occupied with various Lego brand products. Those were still being utilized as well.

Rides

My 4 year old is 39 inches tall. Although according to the Legoland measuring sticks, he's 40 inches! This was a huge win in our book because he was able to go on The Dragon roller coaster. This was one of our first rides and I was nervous that he might chicken out. He LOVED it. I'm not a coaster fan, but rode it anyway and had fun! Other rides that we sampled on this trip-

Duplo Tractor*
Duplo Train*
Ford Jr Driving School
Rescue Academy
Royal Joust
The Quest for Chi
The Grand Carousel*

The not-so-great news is that after being in the park for 2 hours the skies opened up on us. Beyond dreadful downpours. Now, I live in Florida and I am used to summer rains. This was just way to heavy to deal with. We didn't ride any more rides at this point because most were closed due to lightning. My one gripe- Legoland does not have many covered areas. We were standing, 3 adults and a double stroller, under a small overhang from a food truck. Not enough room to keep us dry. So we went to a ride that was closed and had a roof. The employee told us we could not stay there because he was leaving. Wow...
*Took the baby on with me.

Rain, Rain, Go Away!

So after being denied shelter in a downpour. Not to mention lightning and thunder all around us. I took out the map. While figuring out what to do next, we bought a single poncho to throw over the stroller for the baby. There was no sign of the rain letting up. I decided we were going to the Imagination Zone. It is a huge indoor complex with everything you could imagine Lego. Play areas. Classes in physics and robot building. Giant bins of Legos. Interactive exhibits. Truly amazing spot at the back/ mid-point of the park. I am kicking myself now for not having taken pictures of the Imagination Zone. Just believe me when I tell you that it is hours and hours of fun for young kids.

Here's the only catch. We were nowhere near the Imagination Zone. So I made my family walk through the pouring rain to get there. I knew it was going to rain for a while. We needed something to keep busy. We couldn't stand under a single awning meant for one. It was cold in there. Thankfully my mom brought an M&M blanket along and I threw that around my shoulders while I warmed and dried the little guy. My husband took our older son to play in the Zone. We spent a good hour there before riding a couple more rides while it drizzled, then we decided to just head home.

Photo Ops

The park has plenty of photo opportunities to snap a cute pose with Lego sculptures. From Mini Land, an impressive display of real life cities across the globe, to giant Lego people!

This time the experience wasn't ideal. By no fault of Legoland, our day wasn't as planned. We had fun. I plan to come back again. Perhaps when the baby is 4 or 5!

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Toothsome Chocolate Emporium

8/18/2017

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As soon as I had heard about this place, I knew I'd want to try it. Chocolate? Yes, please! The Toothsome Chocolate Emporium & Savory Feast Kitchen is located in the City Walk area of Universal. Parking is FREE in the garage and you go through security as you leave the garage and head toward City Walk. I like this single point of entry concept for Universal and Islands of Adventure. Plus it makes the City Walk area more secure as well!

The Wait
Toothsome does not accept reservations. I learned this the day prior when I called to make one. Whoops! They are a walk-up establishment. We came specifically for the restaurant; we did not visit the parks as we were in town for a convention. So we put our name in and I was told it would be an hour wait. This was on a Thursday evening at 7 pm in July. I only mention all these details so that you get an idea as to how busy the place actually is! Our initial wait was an hour. We were asked to wait by the dessert kitchen... I had not even seen the menu and already decided to go light on my meal to ensure I had room for all. this. goodness.

About 20 minutes later, we were finally seated. We had a table on the first floor near the restrooms. The initial wait was offputting. The rest of our evening seemed to take a long time was well.. I am not sure if this is business as usual or that we happened to hit it on an exceptionally busy evening. We were finished with everything around 10 pm that evening. That's a little rough when traveling with a 4 year old and 7 month old, but we made do. ;)

Food

I chose to go somewhat light on my entree, to save room for dessert. Because, of course, that is what I came for! All of our food was good, portion sizes were filling, and everything was flavorful. Next time I come, I may share a dessert so I can try a more filling entree! Between the three adults we had:

Brisket and Wild Mushroom Meatloaf
Red Reuben
BBQ Chicken Flatbread

Dessert

This is what I call the main event! Dessert. It was pretty late, and I was kinda full from the flatbread, but there was no way I was going to pass up on dessert. Everything was amazing. I couldn't finish mine, as it was very rich. Again, servings were nice sized! Our desserts were as follows:

Marshmallow Crisp Milkshake
Flourless Chocolate Cake
Chocolate Cream Pie

Characters

There were two characters circulating the restaurant that evening. One was a Steampunk Robot named Jaques and the other was his companion Professor Doctor Penelope Toothsome. They came around separately so that everyone would get a chance to meet someone. The robot had a neat device that masked his/her voice to sound very electric!

Steampunk Robot Jaques

The Rest...

When you first enter Toothsome you are greeted with three options. Walk straight and put your name in for a table. Off to the left is the "to-go" dessert counter. You can order milkshakes and small desserts to take with you. To the right is a full-size chcolatier. Upstairs is a sizeable bar where one can eat, drink, and have a good time. There is a lot of additional dining space upstairs as well. Some parts overlook the downstairs dining room and others overlook the candy shop below.