Nothing in Orlando is even close to 2 cents so this post is a bargain. I may\u00a0sound a bit crochety in this post but please don’t mistake it for dislike of theme parks or regret that we visited. \u00a0I am frugal. \u00a0A\u00a0tight wad.\u00a0 Maybe even cheap. \u00a0So I am a foreigner in this land of the hemorrhaging wallet and will share some of my thoughts from our visit. \u00a0We had a blast in Orlando and the kids were overjoyed to do the parks so I’m happy we were able to\u00a0share the experience as a family.<\/p>\n
They get you even coming into the city on the toll roads…and I’m pulling 2 extra axles so my price is double. \u00a0Welcome to Orlando! \u00a0We were totally stoked to score a VERY reasonably priced campground <\/a>in close proximity to Universal and Disney World…this would be our only bargain and we were grateful for it.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Disney World\u00a0Magic Kingdom<\/strong><\/p>\n Like a herd of cattle going to slaughter we all lined up in our\u00a0vehicles to pay the $20 to park. \u00a0We lined up to get on a tram which took us to our choice of lines: monorail, ferry or bus. \u00a0We took the bus which takes you to the security line and after a successful security check you get to the line at the front gate. \u00a0This is all good practice for all the standing in lines you’ll do the rest of the day. \u00a0Now, we did score 2 Thunder Mountain rides and one Splash Mountain ride that had zero lines, but that was a start-of-the-day anomaly. Steph <\/a>and Caden <\/a>wrote some good posts about our day at Disney World that you should read for all the fun details.<\/p>\n We hit all the highlights of the park and saved some dough by bringing a picnic lunch. \u00a0For dinner though we splurged and went to a restaurant that was marked with a single ‘$’ icon meaning it was less expensive than the others. \u00a0However, we were still able to unload $50 for pretty basic food.<\/p>\n At Disneyland in California we had a very memorable viewing of Fantasia (ask me about it sometime) and so my hopes were set pretty high for the night show at Disney World. \u00a0The crowd of people is insane and you have to stake out your territory early and defend it like a wild dog. \u00a0Everyone is sitting and waiting. \u00a0Everyone can see the Magic Castle. \u00a0But for some reason, when the show starts someone stands up. \u00a0So the people behind them have to stand up and so on and so on until we are all standing up. \u00a0Now none of the kids can see so moms and dads start hoisting their little ones up on their shoulders. \u00a0This makes it hard for even the adults to see. \u00a0But the show was really great. \u00a0They project video onto the castle. \u00a0To make it look right they must predistort the video so that when it lands on the distorted shape of the castle it looks correct. \u00a0The things they did in that show were pretty stinking cool. \u00a0They wrapped it all up with a stellar fireworks display. \u00a0After reversing all the steps we did to enter the park we got home late and exhausted but with smiles on our faces. \u00a0See, that’s the magic of Disney: getting you to willingly hand over large quantities of cash to them with a smile on your face!<\/p>\n Universal Orlando Island of Adventure<\/strong><\/p>\n On their way to a day of princess hunting at the Magic Kingdom (you can read about that here <\/a>and here<\/a>), Steph and Brielle dropped us boys off at Universal Orlando well before they opened. \u00a0We went to buy our ticket and the lady asked how many days we wanted and we said\u00a0“one please”. \u00a0She rang it up and it was way more than I expected. \u00a0She had rung up a 2 park pass. \u00a0I explained that\u00a0we just wanted a single park pass for Islands of Adventure. \u00a0She said they don’t promote, advertise or recommend just a single park ticket. \u00a0“Of course you don’t, but you do sell them and that is what I will be purchasing”. \u00a0She said “Well, you will only be able to look<\/em> at the Hogwarts Express. \u00a0You will not be able to let your boys ride on it and they will miss 50% of Harry Potter world and the park.” \u00a0Is this lady trying to guilt me into dropping an extra $150 right now? \u00a0Clearly she does not know who she is dealing with. \u00a0The boys and I were fully aware that there were two parks and that we would only be doing one. \u00a0The boys researched them both and picked the one they wanted. \u00a0After much mental preparation and prying loose of my own purse strings\u00a0 I came into this knowing what I was going to spend. \u00a0The quickest way to lose a sale on me is to try to sell me something.<\/p>\n With that behind us we took our spot first in line at the entry gate. \u00a0Caden <\/a>and Dacen\u00a0 <\/a>both describe the park in a lot of detail so I’ll just add a few comments. \u00a0I know nothing about Harry Potter but Hosmeade was really well done and the boys were over the moon excited about it. \u00a0The Forbidden Journey ride was spectacular and so was the Dragon Challenge. \u00a0The latter is a roller coaster where you cannot have ANYTHING in your pockets because you spend a large portion of the ride upside down. \u00a0It was an extremely thrilling ride. \u00a0But when I got off the ride I could tell it fooled my inner ear. \u00a0The boys went and did it again but I had to sit it out. \u00a0Am I getting too old? \u00a0Later I gave it another try (there are 2 different coasters) but same thing happened to me. \u00a0This really bummed me out because I love roller coasters. \u00a0We also did a couple of the rides where you get wet. \u00a0What I did not realize is that you get SOAKED…like torrential downpour soaked. \u00a0Had I realized this I would have (a) worn quick drying clothes and (b) brought a couple ziplock bags for phone, wallet and camera. \u00a0They have human dryers you can use but at $5 a pop we let mother nature do the work. \u00a0We had so much fun together…a very memorable day.<\/p>\n So what?<\/strong><\/p>\n I believe the ticket price at the parks is probably fair given the complexity of running such a business. \u00a0What surprises me though is that so many people are willing and able to pay this price for a visit. \u00a0And that much of what they have paid for is the privilege to stand in a line and spend even more money. \u00a0I count myself pretty lucky to have come out of the Orlando theme parks with just paying for tickets, parking and 1 meal each day. \u00a0I watched people gnawing on $14 turkey legs, throwing back $5 drinks, carrying $20 stuffed animals, wielding $11 toy swords, standing in $5 human dryers, waving $40 Harry Potter wands and wearing $110 Harry Potter robes (LOTS of people were wearing these heavy black things in the heat of the Florida sun…they have gone completely nuts IMHO…but I wear shorts year round in Colorado so I guess I’m nuts too). \u00a0I realized that where my biggest expense was the ticket, many people (perhaps even most people) spend more inside<\/em> the park than they do\u00a0to get in. \u00a0I’m not saying its wrong to do that, just noting that it is different than the way I operate.<\/p>\n Like I said before, I’m sure glad we got to enjoy these parks as a family and I know it will be something we all remember for a very long time. \u00a0We are blessed to have the means to be able to treat ourselves to such an outting and I wouldn’t trade it for anything.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Nothing in Orlando is even close to 2 cents so this post is a bargain. I may\u00a0sound a bit crochety in this post but please don’t mistake it for dislike of theme parks or regret that we visited. \u00a0I am frugal. \u00a0A\u00a0tight wad.\u00a0 Maybe even cheap. \u00a0So I am a foreigner in this land of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_s2mail":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[13,29],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/thewachs.com\/wachsacrossamerica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1129"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/thewachs.com\/wachsacrossamerica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/thewachs.com\/wachsacrossamerica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thewachs.com\/wachsacrossamerica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thewachs.com\/wachsacrossamerica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1129"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"http:\/\/thewachs.com\/wachsacrossamerica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1129\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1143,"href":"http:\/\/thewachs.com\/wachsacrossamerica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1129\/revisions\/1143"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/thewachs.com\/wachsacrossamerica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1129"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thewachs.com\/wachsacrossamerica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1129"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thewachs.com\/wachsacrossamerica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1129"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}