Happy Friday! Short and sweet: just a photo that I love of Chris in Iceland on Reynisfjara beach.
Category: travel
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Obsessive-Planner-Spontaneous-Adventurer Combo
It’s true, part of me is an admittedly an obsessive planner when it comes to travel. I love pouring over guidebooks, websites, and blogs with trip reports before we land in a new destination. Sometimes I spend so much time zooming in and out of Google maps that I barely need a map when we arrive because I’ve already memorized the major roads. Scouring the reviews ahead of time on TripAdvisor gives me an idea of what restaurants and activities we simply can’t miss. I use OneNote to keep track of it all, including a day-by-day itinerary and packing lists made months in advance. Embarrassing fact: I sometimes even start packing weeks ahead of departure. At the moment I also have trip outlines planned as far as 2017.
Yikes! Control freak much?!
Well, not exactly – let me clarify since that’s just half of the picture. When I put together the plan for a trip, I loosely schedule options for most of the days, and I also include some unscheduled time for exploring. If it’s a beach trip with the idea of relaxing, I just make a few notes on things we’d like to do at any point (snorkel at a recommended beach, try a famous cocktail at a certain bar, etc.), and we just do them as we feel like it. If it’s one of our adventurous or sight-seeing trips, I do put more structure into the schedule as sort of a best case scenario itinerary, and I highlight the must-do items. That way if the weather is completely amazing and everything in the stars align throughout our trip, we have a detailed plan we can follow if we feel like it. Alternately, if the weather is crazy, or we sleep in, or we take a spontaneous detour, we can still try to at least hit the big-ticket spots. Obviously our flights and some excursions have a scheduled time, so we do stick to those as best as we can.
I do go the extra mile to research and plan our trips, but for me the point is to be informed and comfortable once we arrive, and to have a solid plan to make the best of the trip since our time is so limited. But if we get somewhere and we decide to toss the entire plan out the window for something spontaneous, we can totally do that, too (and we have in the past). I’m an odd mix of obsessive planner and laid-back spontaneous adventurer. Chris is the perfect go-with-the-flow kind of person, so it works out wonderfully – we can either stick to the plan, or explore randomly. I’m not at all devastated when we can’t follow the plan because it’s not set in stone and we just have it there as an option.
I know a lot of people love to set foot in a new country without a single bit of research and just let the trip unfold. That’s amazing, too, but because we only have a specific amount of vacation time right now, my only objective is not to spend my time on travel with my face in a guidebook trying to figure out rules and customs, the general layout, and what to see and do. I also don’t want to get home and find out I was in super close proximity to an amazing sight that I completely missed. And anyway, it’s so fun to see a monument, sculpture, church, or landmark and recognize it by name!
So that’s what works for us right now, and I love it! How do you plan your travel? Do you have a detailed day-by-day schedule, or do you mostly wing it?
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An Air-Conditioned Afternoon in the Odditorium
When Chris and I booked a long holiday weekend in Florida, the original plan was to spend two whole days at Universal Studios parks. Well, after we spent Sunday checking out the new Diagon Alley while also melting from the extreme heat, we were sort of done with the park. If I’m going to be outside when it’s in the mid-90s, I need to be by a pool or the ocean. They do have some great water rides at Universal, but with the crazy crowds that weekend, we didn’t want to wait in line for our opportunity to cool off. Plus, our flight home was scheduled for the evening and we didn’t want to sit in sweaty clothes on the plane (and I’m sure our seatmates appreciated the thought). So instead we decided to spend some air-conditioned time indoors before heading to the airport. Orlando offers a few options, but we thought the Ripley’s Believe It or Not! Odditorium sounded pretty interesting.
Don’t adjust your screens or blame my photography skills – the building really is tilted to one side!
The museum holds a mixture of art, interactive stations, puzzles, historic artifacts and things that are just…odd. You won’t see displays like these anywhere else! One of my favorite features is their huge collection of mixed media artwork. For example, this portrait of Beyoncé made entirely out of candy and a Mona Lisa composed from toast!
There are tons of hands-on interactive areas that focus on science, math, and history, so this is a perfect spot for inquisitive minds of all ages (and for hand sanitizer – bring some). You’ll also find plenty of silly photo opportunities that we obviously took advantage of with no shame. Photography is not only allowed – it’s encouraged!
Our tour ended with this trippy hallway that rotates a cylinder of neon lights around you as you walk (or stumble) through. The effect is surprisingly mind-bending and perhaps not a great idea if you just ate lunch or if you’re already a little tipsy. (We were not.) If you’re sensitive to motion-sickness, there’s an alternate hallway you can use to skip this crazy feature.
The museum is located right in Orlando, and tickets are about $20 per adult (and $13 per child). You can save a few bucks if you buy tickets online. We spent a little over an hour in the museum, but you can easily spend a bit longer if you visit each station, watch all of the videos, and read all of the materials. I definitely recommend this as a rainy-day (or a super hot I-need-to-be-in-air-conditioned-place day) alternative activity! And they’re actually open every day of the year until Midnight, so it could even be squeezed into your post-Disney day schedule if you happen to have some energy left. Go see some odd stuff!
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Iceland Snapshot
Not too long ago, I started a new tradition of creating a “snapshot” post from our travels with a list of superlatives to sum up our bigger trips. It’s a fun way to me to reflect back on specific moments, so to continue that tradition here is my Iceland snapshot!
Best Moment
Ah, right off the bat this is the toughest choice to make, but I think I was the most elated when we received the phone call from the hotel front desk at 1:30am to see the Northern Lights in Borgarnes. It’s just not something I expected to get to see and it was a wonderful surprise.
Worst Moment
The trip started off on the wrong foot when our original flight was canceled and we lost an entire day of our itinerary. We sat at the gate for hours past our departure time before Icelandair announced that they needed to cancel due to mechanical issues. This might also be a candidate for the “Best Moment” category though because not getting on a broken plane is a very very good thing indeed. I’m grateful.
Funniest Moment
This might get filed under “you had to be there,” but one of the funniest moments of the week was a cocktail sauce incident on our third night. We stopped into a random restaurant on the way to Höfn where we decided to order a couple of burgers. The server/owner didn’t speak much English, and we had a bit of a funny miscommunication. I asked if the burger came with mayonnaise on it and his answer was no, to which I replied, “great! That is perfect since I don’t want any mayonnaise.” (Mayo is the One Thing that I just can’t eat, not even if you paid me. I get goosebumps just thinking about it.) After he dropped off our food and left us to enjoy the meal, we discovered that the burgers were completely covered on both sides with a copious amount of pink sauce oozing from the edges. Upon his return to the table, I asked what was on the burger and he explained that it was a house cocktail sauce made from…ketchup mixed with mayonnaise. He left, and Chris and I just dissolved into quiet hysterics. I didn’t want to hurt his feelings so I didn’t return the burger, but I couldn’t stop giggling for the rest of the meal (that I didn’t eat).
Best Meal
Chris and I both agree that our best meal was, oddly, a pizza that we split at Hotel Höfn. We popped into the hotel restaurant right after we checked in. We had just finished a long, active day and it was 9:30pm so it may just be that we were starving, but man it was delicious and so satisfying. And interestingly enough, it didn’t make me feel terrible like pizza does here at home. I wonder if they use different (better?) ingredients in Iceland. I didn’t get to take a picture of the pie on account of how fast we inhaled it, but I do have pictures of my second and third runner-up favorite meals. Oh, and on the left? That’s fish and chips…served with “cocktail sauce!” When I didn’t touch it, our server asked if I didn’t like cocktail sauce. I politely explained that the rest of the meal was so wonderful but that cocktail sauce isn’t my favorite, and then spent the rest of the afternoon giggling some more.
Something We Learned
Our Iceland trip taught us a bevy of new facts! (But not the word bevy – I already knew that one.) I’m most proud of learning how to correctly pronounce Eyjafjallajökull, but we also learned a lot about Icelandic history and about geology including volcanoes, geysers, and fumaroles.
We’re Thankful We Packed
The first several days would have been miserable without our waterproof layers. I wore my waterproof jacket and shoes every single day actually. For more details, see my post on packing for Iceland in the summer.
We Didn’t Need To Bring
I didn’t end up needing a heavier coat – I was worried about whether or not a waterproof jacket was going to be enough even in August, but it was perfect. Any other time of year I think you’d do well to bring a warmer coat.
Trip Regrets
I’m writing this post over a month later and I honestly can’t remember anything I regret about our trip. We loved every minute of it. Of course, I would have liked to spend more time in Iceland – I think another week would have been perfect to take our time on the Ring Road and to include some sights along the western coast.
Reasons To Go Back
Puffins! We didn’t get to see a puffin and I’d love to see/photograph those cute little guys.
Favorite Photos
Chris’s favorite photo from the trip is one that I took (the waterfall photo below), and my favorite photo other than the Northern Lights is one of his (the chunk of ice from Jökulsárlón).
And with that, my Iceland trip series is complete! Until we go back someday, of course. 🙂 I hope the information has been interesting, entertaining, and/or helpful to anyone planning a future trip to the land of fire and ice! (Definitely let me know if you have any questions – I’m happy to help!)
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Welcome to Diagon Alley
Calling all Harry Potter fans! Chris and I spent our long Columbus Day weekend on a quick jaunt to Florida to visit Universal Studios, and I can now confirm that the newest additions are awesome. Ever since Diagon Alley opened in July, I’ve been dying to see the new section of the Wizarding World of Harry Potter. I had such a great time last year with Casey when we geeked out in Hogsmeade, and I couldn’t wait to see what else was added to the park.
We arrived at Universal Studios first thing on Sunday morning, and went straight to the Wizarding World. Up until this weekend, I managed to avoid most articles and photos of the new stuff so that I’d be thoroughly surprised. I was actually so in-the-dark about everything that I didn’t even know how to get to Diagon Alley from the London area! (The entrance is tucked into the red building in the photo below and you come out through an opening in a brick wall, of course.)
We made a beeline straight for the Escape from Gringotts ride, but sadly it was (temporarily) nonoperational and they had closed the ride. Not even an alohomora spell could get us into the bank. Womp womp. So the next thing on my must-do list was to drink a frozen Butterbeer and to see how Chris liked it (he loved it, too). It’s totally fine to drink it for breakfast, right? Especially on such a hot day – the day’s high promised to be over 90 and it felt like we were already there by 10am!
After recovering from our Butterbeer brain-freezes, we wandered around a bit to see the amazing details of the buildings. And of course Diagon Alley has all of the shops that you would expect to see – some of them are functional and some of the storefronts are just for decoration, but they’re all fun to inspect and explore. Lots of spots around Diagon Alley also interact with the new wands from Ollivanders! (I didn’t purchase a wand only because I didn’t want to carry it around all day and stow it in lockers when we went on the rides, but we enjoyed watching other people perform spells at the marked locations. Here’s a great review of the interactive wands.) I especially loved wandering down the dark and mysterious Knockturn Alley. Once your eyes adjust, you’ll get to see all kinds of wonderfully creepy things including Borgin and Burkes.
We checked one more time to see if Escape from Gringotts was up-and-running yet, but it was not, so we left Diagon Alley to ride the Hogwarts Express over to Hogsmeade in Islands of Adventure. Wouldn’t you know it, the train was also on the fritz! Had someone put a hex on all of the new rides?! Argh! I was bummed, but not defeated – we decided to just wait for another ride nearby. After we waited in the queue for The Mummy and finished the ride, we heard that Gringotts was ready! And it was worth the wait – I think walking through the elaborately designed bank was just as fun as the ride itself. One of the goblins looked up and glared right at me.
Our wait for Gringotts was over an hour – have I not mentioned yet how super incredibly crowded it was at the park that day?! Universal does such a good job though of making sure your time in queue is interesting (and air-conditioned) and therefore not too painful if you are in a lengthy line. We had a long wait for the Hogwarts Express as well, which was functioning again shortly after we ate lunch. Note: make sure you purchase park-to-park admission between Universal Studios and Islands of Adventure or else you won’t be able to ride the train! If you’re a Harry Potter fan, you’ll want to see both parks anyway (smart on Universal’s part, eh?) so go ahead and get a park-to-park ticket. And while we’re talking about tickets, I’ll mention that both this time and last time I was at Universal Studios, we bought two-day passes so that we’d have plenty of time to see and do everything with some flexibility for bad weather. It really depends on the crowd levels and your own interests as to whether or not you can cover both parks in one day.
You really do walk through the brick wall between platforms 9 and 10! I meant to have Chris take a photo of me walking through, but I forgot! Not that I wanted
manyany pictures of myself that day – I was a hot, sweaty mess so there is literally not one photo of us at the park. Oops!
The journey on the train was really cute and authentic. Once we arrived in Hogsmeade, Chris and I rode the Dragon Challenge and the Forbidden Journey (a favorite), and we actually lucked out with short lines on those two. On the Forbidden Journey, we decided to go through the single-rider line and figured we could just meet at the ride exit afterwards, but we ended up being put on the same car anyway, so we saved 40 minutes and we rode together – bonus!
Despite the crazy hot temperature, massive crowds, and broken rides, we had a fun time and I’m really glad I had the chance to see the new parts of the park. If I had a do-over of the trip though, I’d pick a cooler month weather-wise and not a holiday weekend. For more photos of the Hogsmeade side of the Wizarding World, check out my post from last year’s visit. I just wish we could have brought home one last Butterbeer!