Islands of Adventures -Seuss Landing

Universal was for the longest time a single park and then they did an expansion to include Islands of Adventure, City Walk now Volcano Bay and 5 on site hotels. Not too mention they have Harry Potters's Wizrding World that spans both parks. Islands of Adventure is broken up into several lands. I will be honest I have not been since 2001 so have not experiences Harry Potter for myself but this will be rectified as part of our December 2018 vacation.
So my favourite part of the Islands is Seuss Landing. I am a very big Dr, Seuss fan. Who doesn't love Horton, The Cat in the Hat, Mr. Brown and Sam I am. I grew up with these books and my children have grown up with these books.
Seuss Landing has three rides The Cat in the Hat. On this ride you hope on to a sofa and get to ride through the story book of what happens on a rainy day and your mom is not home. You can only imagine how your sofa will spin about to catch all the crazy action of the Cat along with Thing One and Thing Two. The second ride is the Caro-Seuss-el as you can guess all those crazy animals that Seuss have created in his books come to life as the animals on the Carousel. You will not find any horses here. I will be honest my mother and I both rode the Carousel (remember this visit was pre-kids) The last ride is One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish. This ride you are in fish cars that go up and down and you can fire water at the other cars as well as hope to miss some of the spray, The day we went was rather cool so we did not brave this one. Although as you can imagine they are all relatively tame kid friendly rides.
There is a spot where you can see the egg and nest that Horton sat on and yes you can sit on it too. There is a show with the Grinch, the nameless character from Green Eggs and Ham and the Cat and the Hat (not too forget Thing One and Thing two). It is quite Circus McGurkus Cafe Stoopendous (they have character breakfasts here seasonally). Needless to say this section of the Islands is much tamer than the rest and will be a nice place to start or finish up especially for families will small children or with those  who are young at heart.

Of course these pictures are from the non digital camera so they had to be scanned for you to enjoy!!

As always any questions or comments are always welcome and if you have a chance you can check me out at the following places!!
www.exclusivetoyoutravel.ca  or www.exclusivetoyourtravel.com
www.facebook.com/stephaniethatravelagentnextdoor

Value Resorts at Disney

I will admit that in the five times I have been to Disney I have only ever stayed at a Value Resort. I have stayed at both the All Star Music and the All Star Movie's Resorts and I have no faults with them at all.
I have seen the other resorts I even went to the spa at the Grand Floridian for a day. For me Disney is expensive and I want to maximize my dollars and that means staying at a Value. Especially now that I have a family of six, We are planning to go in December 2018 but it is still a bit early to price out a vacation but I imagine we will do either two rooms at the All Star Movies as my parents will once again be joining us or we may check out a family suite at the Art of Animation. They have built 3 wings that specifically cater to families of five and six. They do have Little Mermaid rooms for the Family of four however the drawback is that they are at the back of the resort so further to walk than the family suites would be. When booking a value resort if you pay the little bit extra for the preferred room you will be closer to the lobby and the main pool. Trust me this will make a difference after spending 8 plus hours at the parks and coming home with tired children who have more than likely dozed on the bus ride and no longer want to make that walk back to the room because they are too tired. The value resorts have two pools and usually a small wader for the littlest ones. Whereas the moderates and deluxe pools will have slides and extra water features that the value's do not.
We like the pool for a quick dip to relax and cool down and really do not need the extra features and if we really did we could take the time to go to one of Disney's Waterparks. Blizzard Beach being less than five minutes from the All Star Resorts.
Beds at a value resort are either two doubles or a king whereas the moderate and deluxe resorts provide two queens. My husband an I are heavier so instead of sharing with each other. He shared with our son and I took our youngest daughter.
If money were not a worry than I would probably check out a few of the other resorts. My list in no particular order would be the Animal Kingdom Lodge, the Polynesian Resort, the Wilderness Lodge and the Beach Club.
All of the value resorts have food courts as opposed to a sit down restaurant. Again I like this when travelling with the kids. If one feels like pizza, the other hot dogs and I want the roast beef dinner then we can all be taken care of. Although most sit down restaurants do tend to have the regulars for kids: pizza, mac and cheese and chicken fingers. It just makes it quick and easy and breakfast can be taken care of the same with someone having a full breakfast and someone else eating a bagel. We all get taken care of quick and easy.

Walt Disney World

So as a Family Travel Specialist I of eat, sleep and breath Disney. The funny thing is I never went to Disney as a child. My first visit was January 1998 just after the huge Ice Storm. Many people in the outskirts of Ottawa were still without power.
Walt Disney Work was still celebrating their 25th Anniversary so Cinderella's Castle was still done up as a huge Birthday cake. Animal Kingdom had not yet opened and Hollywood Studios was called MGM and Disney Springs was Downtown Disney and Pleasure Island (an adult only venue in the evenings).
This vacation lead to my mother and I doing Disney 4 years in a row. We did branch out doing visits to see Busch Gardens in Tampa, Sea World, Kennedy Space Center, Discovery Cove and Universal which that first year only had the one park and has expanded greatly since then.
The nice thing is that these parks are constantly expanding and adding new things so your vacations will constantly evolve. It is "not" like being dragged to the same museum every summer on your family vacation.
2001 marked my last solo trip with my mom as shortly after that I met my husband and we married the following year. My parents continued to go to Disney together over the years bringing back presents and stories for their five grandchildren.
I finally got to return to Disney in August 2011 with my children, my husband, my parents and my brother and his family. Eleven of us together, 3 rooms at the All Star Movies Resort. First time ever visiting in the heat of the summer, and I have to tell you summer, Disney and I do not go hand in hand. So we are headed back to Disney in December 2018. Yes I have a countdown and yes it is painfully over 500 days away!!

This picture is courtesy of disneyeveryday.com (Norm Robbie). I would have used one of my own but when I went to Disney that year I still had a regular camera (digital were just coming out) and my pictures are currently packed away in a box.