IT'S GOING TO BE A BIG ONE!-Aug 2017 - Day 2 Royal Pacific Resort-IOA-Toothsome Chocolate Emporium

[miss_mouse]

Trip Report Index

4 Nights Royal Pacific Resort – 6 Nights Beach Club – 16 nights Bahama Bay


Day 2 – Friday 11th August 2017
Royal Pacific Resort,IOA, Toothsome Chocolate Emporium





‘’The Perfect Day’’


Just to start, I'm Lisa - the planner and reporter. Ade is my hubby and he's our driver and there's Hollie who is 18 and Louis is 15.


I woke a couple of times during the night, but went straight back to sleep.
The Royal Pacific bed was so comfy. We didn’t wake until 6am, which we were really pleased with. Straight into US time!
We were super excited, like little kids at Christmas.
We tried to look out of the window at our view but the windows were steamed up so we guessed it was raining.

We got showered and left the kids a note to get showered and ready when they woke.
We were off to investigate…..oh the feeling of the first morning is just the best!



I took this just about as we were heading out the door. This is now my incentive to loose weight for the upcoming trip as right now I can’t get these trousers above my thighs!



We stopped off in the little store in the lobby first.
There was quite a bit of Universal and RPR clothing and bits and pieces. Plus food items and toiletries etc…
We wandered over to Sapphire Falls later and comparing the 2, RPR would be so much lovelier with a bigger store and a quick serve too.



Out of the lobby and on to the bridge.
Not a raindrop or cloud in sight. It was a beautiful morning.
This was our first time visiting in the Summer. We’ve done trips in Feb, March and the rest in October, so we were concerned how hot this Summer was really going to be. Right now at 7am, it was perfect!



We wandered around the lobby of the hotel, taking it all in.



The evening sushi restaurant/bar becomes a breakfast quick service restaurant til 11am in the mornings.
There were pastries and various breakfast items for sale.
But all we wanted was a proper frothy coffee.
We only had 1 shot each instead of the usual 2 in our coffees so she charged us for a small instead of the large that we ordered which was nice. They did that every morning here. That never happens at home in Costa!



In the centre of the lobby is this sweet courtyard. You can access it from all around the lobby area, including the breakfast area.







We sat outside, chatting and feeling excited.
You work so hard to achieve these holidays, it’s these particular moments when you realise that it’s all worth it.



We’d whatsapped our family group chat making sure the kids were up and ready.
Hoping that we’d come back and they’d be ready to go.
We had early morning park entry at 8am……



Nope…..I don’t think they got the messages.

It was just before 8am and they’d slept really well.
We were really pleased. They’d needed it and it also meant that we’d all escaped jet lag and were straight on US time zone.



And the view was steam free and beautiful now.

We left at 8.30am which wasn’t bad going and we were really pleased that we’d had this quieter more laid back start rather than rushing out to be at the early morning opening. I think our bodies will thank us for this later!







I remembered our park tickets this time.
I think I got confused last night thinking my room card was a park card.
So many cards with the express cards too!
I bought our Universal lanyards from last trip.

The walk to IOA is beautiful. It’s so peaceful. We loved it!
I’d read before that it’s quicker from the Hard Rock Hotel which is where we stayed last time and over on the other side. It brings you out by Universal, RPR brings you right out by IOA. We found this walk to be quicker, plus we are on City Walk which we loved. We missed that being over on Hard Rock.
We prefer the positioning of Royal Pacific.









We stopped at Cinnabon for a breakie stop.



Hollie doesn’t like Cinnamon so we went next door to Starbucks for her. Handy being right next door to each other. We sat outside and took everything in feeling super happy and loving doing things at our super slow pace. This is how we like to do things.
We had little duck visitors wanting to share!



We went on straight through to Suess Landing.



This is our favourite area.
To the kids this is their childhood.



Louis loves the Lorax.
Sings that Grow song all the bloody time!



Hollie’s #1….The Grinch!
And in our family we are strong believers….never too old to meet the characters!



She was happy now!

Still on our go slow, we popped in to a store here.



Hollie was really interested in buying some Suess art.
They are all prints but numbered. We spent quite some time in here. It was lovely and quiet.



We then made our way to Hogwarts.

There was a delay in the queue and the express line took 25mins.



We grabbed butterbeers after the ride. Sharing 2 between 2, although I didn’t fancy it this time.
It’s too sweet for me. No queue which was a bonus!





And then in to Jurassic Park.





We all love it here so much. It just reminds us so much of when the kids when the kids were little.
I love that they still like recreating the photo poses from when they were tiny.





We saw the Raptor Encounter sign and were really excited.
We loved this interaction so much. We had so much fun.



We had quite a long browse in one of the stores here. We bought quite a few bits and pieces.
We bought Louis a lanyard for his Universal passes. Hollie bought a T Shirt which glows in the dark and Louis bought a Keyring. I think Ade may have bought one too.



We love this little secluded area. We always come down here and never see anyone else around. We seem to have this thing for finding quite little spots in busy places. Hollie changed in to her new T Shirt.











We did the River Ride next which was a complete walk on.





Love that ride!

The new Skull Island was closed unfortunately.



And through Toon Town. Going through all the stores for the air con.
Louis was desperate to do the other water rides but we said we would come back and do them another time and get changed just for them as you get so stupidly wet.





We went back to the Dr Suess store that we started in first thing.
Hollie was still trying to decide about buying that piece of art.
We did buy her a Grinch Lanyard and she did a Grinch pressed penny and left the art.




Cont...

[miss_mouse]

Cont...

Totally unplanned on the way back to RPR we decided to have lunch at the Chocolate Emporium.
It was only just after midday. We had already done so much today!







It really is beautiful around here.

We all fancied a picky lunch. Bits in the middle of the table and everyone dives in.



Penelope the proprietor introduced herself and was super friendly.
The whole theming here is so much fun.



We went with 3 appetizers.



Loaded tater tots.



Loaded pulled pork nachos.



And pork belly sliders topped with bacon dipped in chocolate.

It was all so much fun and quite different.
It’s a really good way to try things and this also keeps the price down.



$38 Not bad! And we left quite a bit of food. We left $45 as the service was amazing and we had such a great time.



We’d been seated upstairs, so we wandered down to the store now for a look around. It’s a really cool store.
We’d planned to get one of these but were just so full. Next time!



Lovely walk back.
This is the little beach area as you reach the RPR.



We got ready for the pool and headed down.
The kids didn’t want to come but said they would join us. Their room keys weren’t working so they went to reception to sort them and said they’d come and find us.

We easily grabbed 4 lounges along with 4 lounge covers and towels from the hut thing.
It was such a lovely afternoon.
The kids came down in a rather awkward way and sat with us only in only an awkward way that a teenager can do. Like right on the edge of the lounger. They couldn’t understand why we would want to sit there surrounded by semi naked people and with that they left and went back up to their room!

We didn’t stay long as we wanted to head out for some yummies and also to AT&T.
As we were here for almost 4 weeks, we decided to get sims for our phones.
We did this on the road trip and it worked so well.



Ade lovin’ his Suburban. Although we did all prefer the Tahoe.

AT&T was on Sandlake Road, so we headed on to Publix after on the same road. It’s just a few minutes from Universal.



We do love Publix!



But why would someone plastic wrapped potatoes? I just don’t get it? !



And tinned meats? They have enough to have to add signage?
I think of tinned meats and all I can think of is corned beef and it’s been that long since I’ve had that my kids are probably unaware of it’s existence.

We had fun shopping as always and then I felt rather embarrassed us all traipsing in with our Publix carrier bags through the RPR lobby. I guess it could have been worst. Could have been Walshart!



We then had a tea time picnic with Jurassic Park 3 which just happened to be on TV.
The kids still talk about this now. It was so cozy and just felt perfect!
We had fresh fruits all nicely chopped up…water melon, pineapple, strawberries (we were already craving fruits) we had lays, Louis’ faves tostitos and salsa and various other picky bits. We also grabbed muffins for the kids for snacks and loads of water, Gatorade and coke.
It was so relaxing, I even had a mini snooze.



We watched a storm go by in the distance, the pool was cleared but no rain came.
If you look over the top of the building on the left of the crane you can see the volcano from Volcano bay erupting.



After a while we freshened up and thought we’d go in search of Sapphire Falls.


We loved seeing IOA from our hotel and there was a constant ROAR in the distance as Hulk went around.



We could see Sapphire Falls in the distance and just followed the path around.



Everywhere was well lit and really pretty.





Our room was the right hand building and the top 2 windows on the right.





Sapphire Falls





We loved this hotel.
We would love to stay here but really want the express passes that you get with RPR and not at Sapphire Falls unfortunately.



The quick serve here was great. Quite a lot to choose from and the décor is very us.





Hollie and Ade had milkshakes and Hollie declared the mango shake to be the best ever!

Louis seemed a little off tonight, he said he was just tired.

We wandered back.
The kids were in bed by 9.30pm and us 10pm.
This was the most comfy bed ever.

Looking back, I can’t believe how much we did on that first day and yet it felt so relaxed.
This was one of our favourite days of the whole trip. It just felt perfect!

I’d written at the end that Louis had taken more photos today than during the whole of our last trip which was NYC/DC and a long roadtrip to Indiana.

One word ..PERFECT

Thanks so much to all of you who are reading along, I appreciate it so much.

If you would like to see this day in video, mostly IOA and our lunch at the Chocolate emporium, I have my Orlando videos here. Unfortunately I can’t seem to link up to specific videos though.

[JellyEllieBean]

Sounds like a perfect start, I’ve never seen the Seuss Art place, where abouts in Seuss Landing is it?

[Eccle]

It sounds like an amazing day, and the resort looks beautiful. I also love that your kids are still happy to do the character meets and recreate old photos, I hope mine are in the future too!

[Orlandoguy]

Sounds like an amazing day, never stayed at the resort your at, we’ve only stayed at hard rock several times and portofino once, looking forward to more reports from you

[Fuellady]

What a great day... I love that you can take things at an easy pace but still fit loads in. Lunch at Toothsome looks so good, I've heard lots of good reviews.

It's nice just chilling out in the room with snacks and a good film, great way to end the day

[fletchie148]

Looked an amazing day
We are looking to try toothsome thus time around hopefully
Looking forward to reading more

[floridasarah]

What a fantastic first day, I will look forward to reading more and am just off to watch the vidieo.

[codym]

It read like a perfect day too So nice how your kids get on so well. We visited Sapphire Falls last year too, it’s beautiful and we’d definitely consider staying there if it gave the express passes, such a shame it doesn’t.

[GALE88]

What a perfect first day, you all look like you had such a lovely time.
Thanks for sharing.