Cocoa Beach

After our 4 days in Orlando, we headed to Cocoa Beach for 2 additional days. I really wanted to hit the beach on the Gulf Side, but was nervous to make reservations due to the Oil Spill. Instead of the Gulf Side, we headed to the Atlantic Side. Several people recommended Cocoa Beach....so I thought Okay...we'll try it. YUCK for the town of Cocoa Beach. It's a run down town. Thankfully we had a nice hotel, Hampton Inn with a very nice mineral pool instead of chlorine. Hampton Inn's beach access was not a public beach so it wasn't crowded or dirty. We enjoyed the beach and the pool so much!!!! It was great. As far as food, we hit the grocery and got some easy meals to eat from the room so we didn't have to go to restaurants (especially since the choices weren't that great). We did have take out pizza from an amazing place.....Little Venice. Matt picked up the pizza and said it was very clean...two surfer dudes making the pizza dough.... we might consider going back for this great pizza...yep it was that good!

Afternoon Swims

Owen is nicknamed "rain man" because he has to have routines. The apple doesn't fall too far from the tree. Owen gets this behavior from his parents!!! Despite being on vacation, we developed a definite routine. We would get up and go to the park when it opened, experience the park as long as we could, have lunch, do a little more park, then come back to the hotel and swim. Of course, you can't go swimming unless you have your "special coffee".

Character PIctures

Simpsons Family, Shrek & Donkey, Sponge Bob, and Doc from Back to the Future

Character Breakthrough!!!

Owen has been petrified of characters ever since our big trip to Disney when he was 18 months old and met "cow" at a chick fil a grand opening. It didn't help we had character meals daily. He never wanted to go to Chuckie Cheese because of the character, I had to inform the school when Smokey the Bear came...the kid was just plain SCARED. Well, Spiderman was at Universal and this is his first photo with a character since he was 18 months old. He of course had to have Dad with him, but they both like Spiderman. We also rode the ride. (It was for you Ms. Brooklyn! )

Emeril's Restaurant

Good Food was part of our trip! With Matt cooking, he has turned into a "foodie" so Emeril's Restaurant was a must! Emeril's is located on City Walk at Universal. In order to take advantage of the evening park time, we went as casual as we could to Emeril's. I really wanted to dress nicer, but a few rides were calling our names at Island's of Adventure. Emeril's was the first restaurant ever that I've been to where we had 3 waiters taking care of us. It really was a neat experience....only would have been better if Emeril was actually there.

Emeril's Restaurant More Pics....

First food pic is our appetizer...Fried Green Tomato....it was very good. Then Owen and his pizza. I had the filet...and Matt had DUCK. Now he wants to make DUCK.... ick!

The Wizarding World of Harry Potter

Our entire vacation was planned around the Wizarding World of Harry Potter. Abby feel in love with reading with the Harry Potter books so it definitely holds a special place in our heart. The World of Harry Potter is loved by Abby and Owen...and Matt likes it too. I could take it or leave it and didn't really get into it until I played the Lego Harry Potter game. I watched the first three movies and had enough knowledge to understand the Universal version of Hogsmeade Village and Hogwart Castle.

I did a little research and knew we needed to get up early and be in the park as early as possible to wait in line to GET IN to the world of Harry Potter. We waited in line for 35 minutes until the World opened for us. Our first plan was to wait in line for Olivander's Wand Shop. We waited an hour in line to experience Olivanders. 25 people are allowed in the wand shop per show...if you have seen the movies, the wand experience is very similar to what Harry goes through to get his wand. The shop is definitely a replica of the Olivanders in the movie. Out of the 25 people, the wand guy picks ONE person to get his/her wand chosen for them. Abby wanted to be that person so badly. She wasn't chosen, but thankfully, neither was Owen. It was a cool experience. The village is really cool and looks exactly like the movie...minus the hundreds of FL tourists! After the wand shop, we bought wands for the kids, got some butter beer ( I guess it's a HP thing ?? ), then headed off to ride the Forbidden Journey.
The line of the Forbidden Journey is rather long....but constantly moves. The castle part of the line is really neat ....looks just like Hogwarts! The ride was amazing....felt just like you were on a Nimbus 2000. It was a little scary with dementors (sp?), the creepy spiders, and that snake. Since I did the research, I knew where to sit to not get wet by the spit of the spider. Abby and Matt got spit on...hehe.

We rode the flight of the hippogriff...kind of a lame ride....checked out Honeydukes...then ate lunch at three broomsticks.

Of course we took tons of pictures...which will follow....

HP PIcs

More Harry Potter PIcs

The 2010 Wallace Family Vacation

And we're off to Orlando......Owen just didn't seem to understand even at the ripe age of 7 that this was going to be a LOOOONG car ride.

Birmingham, AL

The first leg of the trip was from home to Birmingham AL. We decided to go an alternate route to avoid Atlanta and I-75. Matt's dad usually takes this route when he goes to FL ...a little longer in miles....but NO TRAFFIC which is worth it's weight in gold. Our trip started on our 16th wedding anniversary. We had dinner after checking in to our hotel at The Fish Market. The Fish Market is a locally owned neat little restaurant. In the picture above, Matt and Abby are enjoying Lobster Bisque.

Five Guys Burgers....

Thanks to my iphone and our GPS....we were able to find a Five Guys Burgers to eat lunch at when we hit Florida on Saturday. The food is amazing here. If you have never ate at one, you must try it. Fresh ingredients....hand patted burgers, fries from actual potatoes nothing frozen.... It's Abby approved as well!!

Double Tree - Castle

Doubletree Castle was a nice and inexpensive place to stay. The pool was perfect and secluded unlike most hotel pools. It was perfect for the kids since the deepest area was 4 ft. Our only complaints about the hotel was the lack of channel choices and NO FREE WIFI!!!!!

Bad Ass Coffee Company

Bad Ass Coffee Company is a local Orlando Coffee shop on International Drive. They had free Wifi and were close to our hotel that lacked free wifi. On Sunday, we ate at this local coffee shop and paid way too much for our food and coffee. They only brew Kona Coffee ....and were hawaiian themed. We got some great photo opps!

Lego Store.....Owen's Long Awaited Visit...