Around the United States Archives – Page 14 of 15

Disney World Tips

February 18th, 2017admin0 Comments

There are literally thousands of Disney planning websites out there with more Disney tips and tricks than I could ever imagine let alone write about. I wrote a very few of my own tips and take-aways for each park at the end of each blog and here I will just offer two reviews and one word of wisdom. On this trip we purchased Memory Maker and the Disney Dining Plan, both of which were new to us. I researched them both extensively beforehand and hopefully sharing my experience can help someone else make their own decision. Memory Maker At …

Hollywood Studios

February 15th, 2017admin0 Comments

We started the morning of our third day in Magic Kingdom and headed to Hollywood Studios a little after noon. For our family, Hollywood Studios holds the least interest. The boys aren’t huge Star Wars fans and Tower of Terror is definitely out as a ride option. (They do thrilling but not scary.) But we have to balance that with the fact that their absolute favorite ride in all of Disney World is there, Toy Story Mania. So skipping it entirely wasn’t an option. We figured a half day would be fine. JB had used a birthday gift card to …

Epcot

February 11th, 2017admin0 Comments

One of my regrets from our first trip to Disney was not spending enough time in Epcot. I was pleasantly surprised at how interested the boys were in exploring the countries and how much time we could have spent there. I wanted to avoid making this mistake again but with limited days and lots of ground to cover, I was left with roughly 8 hours there. We arrived around 1:00 and planned to stay for Illuminations at 9:00. That seemed like ample time to ride a few rides and wander around the countries. But as they say, the best laid …

Animal Kingdom

February 8th, 2017admin0 Comments

In order to fit in a full day at Animal Kingdom and still get to see all the nighttime shows in the other parks, we split our Animal Kingdom time into two days. We spent about three and a half hours there in the morning on the second day of our trip and then returned for our last morning of the trip. On our first visit, we had lunch reservations and FastPasses in Epcot for later in the day so we headed straight to Expedition Everest when we arrived at Animal Kingdom to try to take advantage of lower early …

Magic Kingdom

February 3rd, 2017admin0 Comments

Since Magic Kingdom has the most rides and the most ground to cover, I decided to use the Touring Plans website to map our a general path through the park. I had never used it before and was really impressed. I input our Fast Passes and lunch reservation times, told it what rides we wanted to ride, and it automatically calculated the best route to take through the park to maximize rides and minimize wait time and walking. We are definitely not the type of family to follow a minute by minute schedule through Disney World, but I liked having …

Disney World Trip Planning

January 20th, 2017admin0 Comments

We took our first trip to Disney World before our oldest started kindergarten. We figured the kids would be good ages (3.5 and 5.5) and it would be nice to fit it in before we became a slave to the school calendar. We booked for May 2013 but then had to cancel due to work obligations. In a last ditch effort to squeeze it in before school started, we booked for mid-August. Yes, August. It was a great trip. But it was HOT. I’m absolutely glad we went. But it was HOT. I have always advocated to my husband that …

The Bronx Zoo

September 3rd, 2016admin0 Comments

Continuing the animal theme of this trip, we decided to take the boys into NYC to visit the Bronx Zoo. Getting there from central New Jersey was possible using only public transportation but the trip would have been long and complicated, involving trains, subways, and buses. We decided to drive in, which was not without its own challenges, but we survived the George Washington Bridge and made it through the Bronx with only one interesting question about the surrounding area (“Mom, what are booty-enhancing jeans?”). My sister and her family also drove in from NJ and my brother and his …

Six Flags Great Adventure

August 31st, 2016admin0 Comments

Although I probably went more than twice in my life, I have two main memories of Six Flags Great Adventure from when I was a kid. The first was driving through the safari in the family station wagon. The second was going in high school for “Physics Day”, where we had to complete a worksheet with questions that applied physics principles to the rides in the park. The latter was memorable mostly for the novelty of going to an amusement park for a school field trip. The former was memorable because a monkey jumped on the hood of our car …

Adventure Aquarium

August 28th, 2016admin0 Comments

After seeing the Adventure Aquarium from afar while on the Ride the Ducks tour in Philadelphia, we headed back across the Benjamin Franklin Bridge to explore it in person. The aquarium’s claims to fame include housing the largest collection of sharks on the East Coast and being the only aquarium in the world with a hippo exhibit. The Ocean Realm and the Shark Realm are the two biggest tanks in the aquarium. The Ocean Realm is the larger of the two and houses everything from sting rays to sea turtles. It has huge viewing windows and (my kids favorite!) a …

Philadelphia

August 26th, 2016admin0 Comments

Every summer we spend a week in August with my family in New Jersey and we often take day trips from there to explore the surrounding areas. Philadelphia is about an hour and 45 minutes from my parents’ house. I had long been interested in checking out Adventure Aquarium (across the river from Philadelphia in Camden, NJ) and JB had just learned about the Liberty Bell in kindergarten. It seemed like a perfect time to explore Philadelphia. The drive was easy and to simplify things we parked right in the parking garage at the Independence Visitor Center. Aside from providing …