A Magical New Year: Day 5 - Harry Potter and the Macy's Holiday Parade

[Stewboy]

Index

Wednesday 2nd January

After an action packed start to the year, today we were going to be taking it a little easier. Despite this however, Jo was still awake at about 6:30am. She let me sleep for another hour until her desperation for coffee overcame her and she woke me up.

As we were drinking our coffee in bed, Isabella woke up feeling unwell - she was hot and had a bit of a headache. She had some Calpol and then joined us in bed for a cuddle and some milk - our relaxing start to the day wasn’t quite going to plan.


Morning Sears

Fortunately we had nowhere to be, so we took our time; I wrote some trip report notes while Jo and Isabella watched some TV. I then headed done to the Bayliner Diner to get more coffee and Isabella had a small breakfast of granola and Greek yoghurt to keep her going until our proper breakfast. This morning we were trying out one of the many breakfast places that seemed to have sprung up over the last few years. In recent years we’ve tried First Watch and Hash House A Go Go, this time it was the turn of Keke’s Breakfast Cafe, an Orlando restaurant that Jo heard about via The Tim Tracker. There was one near Mall at Millenia, so we got ready and by 9:45am were on our way.


Best buds ready to go

It was just after 10am when we arrived, and unlike when we visited First Watch a couple of days ago, there was no wait. Looking through the menu, we decided we liked the look of the omelettes, but Isabella wasn’t feeling hungry enough for her own so she shared a Ham and White American Cheese Omelette with Jo, while I went for the Western Omelette (ham, onion, green pepper and cheddar cheese). The service was friendly and efficient, the omelettes were nice, as was the coffee; another place that’s definitely worth a visit, especially if you’re looking for a nice omelette!


Keke's


My favourites


Western omelette


Ham & cheese omelette

After a lovely breakfast we decided to do a bit of outlet shopping, and headed to Premium Outlets International Drive, mainly to visit the Disney Character Warehouse. It was about 11am and really busy. They seem to have made the parking situation even more painful there by turning all the car parks directly outside the shops into valet, paid, and employee parking, so now you have to park in the car park across the road, and there really aren’t that many spaces.

Eventually we found a space about a mile (!) away from the shops, and then headed straight for the Disney Character Warehouse, where we spent a lot of time, and quite a bit of money. We did manage to get quite a few bargains though, and while I went up to pay, Jo and Isabella waited outside.


Fortunately we didn't see any snakes or gators...


But we did see some ducks


Premium Parking was proving popular...


Only half a mile left to go...


Opez...

The server was a friendly older man originally from Connecticut, who’d basically retired to Florida, and was enjoying the warmth. We talked about the weather a little, it was like being back in England!

After our Disney haul we headed into Bath & Body Works, which surprisingly is a much better location than the one at Mall at Millenia. They both have the same confusing double queuing system, but everyone ignored it which made it a lot easier for all involved, including the servers. Isabella bought herself another five hand sanitisers, and Jo managed to find the holders to clip to her bag.

Next stop was Victoria’s Secret where Jo bought some work out clothes and a candle. Once again there was more queueing - the outlet was very busy today.

The next stop on our shopping adventure was Vera Bradley where Jo bought herself a bag in the sale. We’d done pretty much all the shops we wanted to do bar one - the Nike Outlet. Both Jo and I were looking for some new trainers, and our search was successful. I also ended up with a couple of pairs of Nike Free RN 2017 for running - should keep me going for a couple for a few years!


So many trainers!

Time was now about 2pm - we were done and it was time to make the trek back to the car. The car park was even busier now with plenty of cars circling the car park on the lookout for spaces.

After leaving the outlet we decided it was time for some lunch, and after years of talking about it we finally decided to give Sweet Tomatoes a try. There was one just a short drive down International Drive so that’s where we headed. The block that the restaurant was on seemed a little run down, with lots of empty units, but the Sweet Tomatoes car park was busy; we parked up and went inside. As we entered we were confronted with a long and well stocked salad bar. We picked up a plate each and helped ourselves. At the end of the salad bar was the cashier. We paid - using one of the many vouchers Jo had received via email - and then headed into the main part of the restaurant to find ourselves a table. It was busy, but had a large seating area so we had no trouble finding a table. Once seated, we then had access to the rest of the offerings including pizza, pasta, soup, desserts, and self serve ice cream, amongst other things. As the name suggests, it’s mostly vegetarian, although there were a couple of meat/fish dishes.






Entering Sweet Tomatoes






From the salad bar








Soups




Pasta and garlic bread


Ice cream














The different food stations


It's still Christmas

I was always a little unsure of trying this place, but I have to say the food was delicious and there was a lot of variety. As well as the wonderfully fresh salad, we all tried different soups, some pizza, pasta, brownies, and some ice cream.

After 45 minutes worth we’d had our fill. We’d thoroughly enjoyed it, and were glad that we’d finally got to try after all those years of promising to visit, especially given the financial troubles they’d experienced a couple of years ago. Another place I’d definitely recommend, it’s not expensive either - one of the reasons it was probably so busy.

Now it was time to make the short trip back to Cabana Bay. This afternoon we were heading to Universal Studios to catch the Christmas parade. Back at the resort we got ourselves a coffee and headed up to the room. As we sorted out the bags of shopping we discovered that two of the pairs of trainers still had the security tags on them, and we’d been incorrectly charged for some of the Disney purchases. So annoying, especially as this now meant a trip back to the outlet, which was not something we were planning to do again this trip.

After a brief discussion, we decided that wouldn’t be today as it would spoil our plans, so we forgot about it for now, got ready, and headed to the buses at about 4:30pm. Once again we were lucky with the buses and got straight on one, and by 5pm we were in Universal Studios.


Off to Universal


Here we are

Universal’s Holiday Parade featuring Macy’s started at 5:30pm so people were already staking their places. After initially finding what we thought was a decent place to watch from opposite Starbucks in New York, we were advised by a cast member that actually we were better off heading down into Hollywood near where the parade starts and ends, as the place we were standing was a busy walkway and our view would be frequently obscured.


Busy

[Stewboy]

We headed round to where he’d suggested, and found a space outside Schwab’s Pharmacy next to a bin! Isabella sat in front of the bin on the pavement so that no-one would be able to get in her way.


Parade view #1




Parade view #2

















































































The parade started minutes after we found our spot, and it was a lot of fun. Admittedly not as good as the Disney Christmas Parade, and a little random at times, but we all enjoyed it and Isabella had some nice character interactions including a cuddle from a snowman.

It would’ve been nice to have seen it the other side of Christmas, as it had a really nice Christmas atmosphere, including fake snow, but we were glad we managed to catch it before it stopped.

The parade was about 20 minutes long, and once it was over, we realised just how the busy the park was - much busier than it had been at the start of the holiday. Just like our last visit to Disney World a couple of years ago we were surprised to find the parks getting busier after the New Year.

With no attractions less than a 25 minute wait, we wandered back to the exit, but as we passed the Horror Make Up Show it was just about to start so we thought we’d watch it - we’d not seen it for years!

It was a lot of fun and Isabella enjoyed it. However, at one point they got a young Chinese mother from the audience to participate and made her baby cry when they pretended to chop the mum’s hand off!










Horror Make Up Show

[Stewboy]

Once the show was over, we decided to leave and made our way through a packed CityWalk to a line for the buses. We thought our bus luck had finally ran out but we ended up being the last people in line allowed on the waiting bus - surely our luck with the buses wasn’t going to hold for the entire trip?!






Busy busy busy!

It was dinner time now, we’d obviously decided not to bother with CityWalk due to the crowds, and had instead decided to eat in the Bayliner Diner again. I quickly popped upstairs to grab the resort mugs from the room and then we decided to order burgers and a hot dog ‘From the Grill’ again - once more they were delicious.








From the Grill

After dinner we headed back to the room, and Isabella was bathed and in bed by 8pm. Jo and I had our showers then watched about half an hour of ‘Ready Player One’ on the iPad before going to sleep at about 10pm.

A nice relaxing day over with, tomorrow is another fun filled day including a visit to Islands of Adventure and Volcano Bay, plus Cowfish lunch, Longhorns dinner and some Voodoo Donuts!

TFR

[caitlinsmummy]

Another great day. I'm glad to see that Isabella was feeling better after the morning.

What a pain having to go back to the outlets! I think I should have made a trip back too, everytime I walk in a shop with my MK bag an alarm goes off but there's no tag on it

The parade looks great fun xx

[mouselover22]

KeKe's looks good

You are the masters at getting lots done in a day

[mick]

A good day the parade looked fun, how annoying having to go back to the outlets another day

Glad Isabella felt better as the day went on


Joan

[Palm trees]

Your parade photos are great! Shame about the forced return trip to the outlet, especially with the parking situation.

[Floridafour]

We noticed how busy the outlets were on our last trip. So annoying about the tags, at least you noticed before you got back home. Another great day 🙂

[sheluk]

Another fabulous day Sears fam!

Kekes is well and truly on my list for next time. I think they are quite well known for their French toast?!

We love sweet tomatoes. The wholesomeness is so refreshing after so much food. My husband insists we go there at least once a trip for a salad top up.

Shame about having to now make another journey to the outlets! Glad you didn’t go back today as your afternoon sounded fun.

We saw the Macy’s Christmas parade there back in 2012 and
It looks much better (& longer) now.

It almost feels like you are retreating back to the calm from the crazy looking at those
Nighttime pics from citywalk! X

[Cinderella]

What a pain about the shopping 😟