Family vacation
 

We were toying around with doing a driving trip to Myrtle Beach, SC but before we book I want to touch on another option with the CP travel nuts.

Driving to Orlando which surprisingly is only 1 hour further. It will be the hottest time of year unfortunately but I wanted to know about how much you can get done in one day at Universal Studios and Seaworld. The rest of the time would be Cocoa Beach or some other beach.

The entire family would be going so it will be a LONG 2 day road trip going there and getting back. We would also only have 5 full days to enjoy the stuff around us.

Opinions.

Update - We are booked for Orlando now so I'm only looking for suggestions close to there.

If you like gold, MB is totally awesome... Add to it that Charleston, SC is one of the places I would really consider retiring to, and you have a vacation that has a LOT of potential.

It's never bad to go see the mouse, or the splashing whale, but my kids always remember the other trips even more. Once my son got into diving, especially the green water diving, things got totally interesting outside of mouseville...

There will be NO mouse on this trip if we go to Orlando.

Just go to Walley World.

We did the Harry Potter/Hulk/Dr Seuss Universal last year, and did everything we wanted to pretty easily in a day. They have multiple parks to chose from, that is the only one we went to as we spent the rest of the vaca as Disney.

Thats Islands of Adventure right? Is there much for a 5yo to do there? Seems like it is geared more for the big kids. Either way, that daily ticket price of $96 is disturbing.

Not that I'd ever want to do it again, if you do, do it in the rain... Ur gonna get wet, and the rain drives many people away.

But I say teach the son how to dive, and go see the fish the natural way. Once bored of the blue water diving, upgrade to green water diving and see what you won't see plastered across every screen in the world...

And last, go do a wall dive, or feel the power of yanking the tanks and snorkeling with the whale sharks. Not done the latter with the son, but did in the military, just beautiful!

All of it worth getting certified and building vacations around..

Dr Seuss is all little kids stuff. There is a small roller coaster that a 5 year old could ride in the Harry Potter area, and a couple water rides, maybe something in the old comic strip area. Spiderman 3D ride would be okay as well. Some of the bigger rides you'll be waiting with them alone for a while, we went on the smaller roller coaster multiple times waiting for the bigger kids to finish with the often breaking harry potter broom ride.

It does seem a bit over priced, luckily someone else was paying for us.

how many kids and how old? It seems like that would make a difference.

Great point..

3 or 4 depening on if our oldest wants to deal with his siblings in a car for 2 days. LMAO

6, 10, 13, 18

Universal and IOA are the best theme park attractions in Orlando, in my opinion.

Disney is cool for the experience but really the rides aren't as good as Universal/IOA unless you're <12.

I've never been to Sea World or Aquatica but in the hotter months I'd imagine they'd be fun. For what it's worth, I hear Aquatica is more fun.

Cocoa Beach is ok. Coming from the Midwest I'm sure any place with sand will look like heaven, but if you're really trying to kick it on a nicer beach, I'd head to the gulf side. The drive to, say, Clearwater from Orlando as opposed to Cocoa/Daytona from Orlando is only about a 25-30 minute difference.

Just my 2 cents, playboy.

eh, its only one hour to Cocoa beach from the condo we are looking at. my worry about Universal is not getting everything in in one day. Since they have those damn skip the line rich people it really throttles things from what I have read.

save some room for Aunt Edna

That would be tough. If you're trying to hit all the big coasters while also spending time in Seuss Land and Harry Potter world for the little ones then I doubt it.

At peak tourist times you're looking at 2 hour wait times for rides like The Hulk.