Come Fly With Me

Mikey took his first airplane ride in June. We went to Orlando. I don’t recommend going to Orlando in June.

There’s a whole rhyme and reason for how that happened based on the work-school-summer camp scheduling game, but I wouldn’t do it again.

Anyway … This was our first attempt at a “big vacation.”

Everyone keeps telling us we need to go to Disney because at 7 years old, Mikey is at the “perfect age” for the park. But here’s the thing: Disney is expensive. Very expensive. And Mikey doesn’t even really like rides all that much. Or Disney movies.

That’s why we decided to give Universal a shot, instead. Mikey is very into Kung Fu Panda, Minions, Shrek, Jurassic Park, How to Train Your Dragon, etc.

So, like the virgin theme-park-goers that we are (or were), my husband and I went online and booked five days at a Universal resort, figuring we’d get that locked in, then purchase the park tickets after some more research.

Those of you who are professional theme-park-goers are laughing right about now.

Imagine our overwhelm and surprise at the whole process. There are several different parks that make up Universal, and we knew from the beginning that we weren’t going to do them all. With two “travel” days, that left us with three “park” days.

The water park was a sure thing, since that’s right up Mikey’s alley. We waffled a bit between which of the other parks do to. Epic Universe opened only a few weeks before we went, and while Mikey would have lost his mind at Super Nintendo World, something told us it would just be too busy and crazy during the opening few weeks.

We settled on the original Universal Studios park and put the tickets in our virtual cart. Next came the upgrades.

Now, we aren’t total idiots – we know you can get the “fast pass” at these parks to bypass the lines. But what we didn’t know was that the price to upgrade is more than the cost of the original ticket. Add the two together, multiply that by three people, and start to sweat.

THEN you can upgrade further, because apparently the “fast pass” only allows you to get to the front of the line one time for each ride. So if Mikey decides he wants to ride the Minion Mayhem ride over and over again, he can only beat the line once; the rest of the time he’ll be sweating it out with all the other common folk.

We waited weeks before locking in the tickets – going back and forth between “go big or go home” and just no way.

In the end, we decided to risk it and just buy admission to the park.

The big day came and we boarded an airplane at Westchester County Airport. Obviously we had Mikey take the window seat so he could marvel at the clouds and landscape.

And of course the first thing he noticed was the screen on the back of the seat in front of him, and once his headphones were plugged in and he was watching whatever the heck he was watching, it completely left his mind that we were in a big metal box thousands of miles in the sky traveling at a very high rate of speed to get to a very fun destination.

The child did not look out the window once. We were even sitting right at the wing! Nope. He didn’t care.

He did, however, eat about 9,000 calories worth of snacks. Oh, and he also used the bathroom four times. FOUR! The flight was 2 hours and 10 minutes long. After the third time of both my husband and I shuffling out of our seats and into the aisle to let the child out, then doing the same when he came back, we made him sit in the aisle seat.

That last time he needed to use the bathroom we told him to go find it himself and said a little prayer that he didn’t open the wrong door.

We touched down at Orlando Airport and it wasn’t too crazy. We got our luggage quickly and requested an Uber.

And then we stepped outside to wait for the Uber and we melted.

It was so hot.

It was so, so hot.

And it so, so, brutally hot for the first two days of the trip. You stepped out of the building and the sweat immediately beaded up on your skin. You left the car and right away your clothing stuck to your damp body. The pool water was hot. Even after the sun went down and you tried to hang out by the pool, it was just so dang hot.

The good thing was, we had never been so happy in our decision to just buy the basic entrance to Universal Studios, and not upgrade. Because it was only about noon when we were in the bowels of the park when a sweaty, hot, already tired Mikey turned to me and said, “Mom, can we go back to the hotel and go swimming.”

I wasn’t even mad about it.

Because it wasn’t a total bust at all. We did the two Minion virtual reality rides, the Transformer ride, visited the Kung Fu Panda dojo, met Shrek at his swamp, and ate some junk. Honestly, the “experiences” were what Mikey enjoyed more than the rides.

So, we dragged our sweaty, tired bodies out of the park, through City Walk, and back to the hotel.

The next day was Volcano Bay, which is where we made our money back. We were there from sun-up to sunset and loved every minute of it.

Well, maybe not the “fearless river,” when you have to put on a life vest and  “take a thrilling whitewater ride along a roaring river of churning rapids and chopping waves.” That felt like being shaken up like a martini in a cesspool of about 14 million strangers who are all being propelled round and round and round.

But Mikey loved it so we did it over and over again.

Also, after the first two days of unbearable heat, things shifted and we got some beautiful Florida weather. Bright warm sun that gave way to a quick shower in the afternoon, only for the skies to open up again to cooler nights that could be enjoyed by a firepit.

So after five days of fun in the sun, we boarded the plane back home. We were definitely bloated from eating all the junk, but we weren’t totally broke and – thanks to investing in 100 SPF sunblock (the lotion, not the spray) – we all magically avoided sunburn.

Just as we buckled in on the aircraft, plane wheels just coming off the ground, heads pressed back into the seat from the incline of takeoff, Mikey – who was in the middle seat this time, with a Patrick stuffy from SpongeBob on his lap that was just about as big as he was – turned to me and said, “I have to go to the bathroom.”

The way home always seems so much longer than the way there.

Holly Crocco is editor of the Putnam County Times/Press and mother of a 7-year-old boy. She can be reached at editorial@putnampresstimes.com.