Spring Break: Orlando – Thursday/Friday

Last Thursday I drove down to Orlando to visit a friend for the weekend. That night, we went out for Thai food at Thai House.

I had Thai tea and chicken fried rice, because I pretty much always order the same thing, as I’m looking to find the best Thai fried rice in existence. It was pretty good. 🙂

We didn’t get to do much else Thursday night because it was so late. However, Friday morning we got up early-ish, bought some cheap sunglasses at Target, and sandwiches/snacks & water for the park and headed to Universal Studios Orlando Islands of Adventure.

It was crazy busy but not too bad to get around. Our first stop was Harry Potter World.

We saw the castle.

And a friendly snowman.

And also got some butterbeer.

Which was delicious. So smooth and creamy. But also a lot of foam.

And some more of the impressive castle.

We went on the rides in Harry Potter World and I’d say they were worth it. The wait for the dragon one was pretty crazy but it was probably the best roller coaster at the park (or at least the most frightening) and the castle ride was more intense than I thought it would be too.

We went through the entire park, but we didn’t go on all the rides (but we did most!)

We visited Dr. Suess Land as well. I waited for the guy with the hoodie/hat/cape to leave but he didn’t seem to be going anywhere.

We also found this sign.

Then, and I had no idea this would be a part of the park, we also went to the comic book area.

This was by far my favorite part of the park. I lovelovelovelovelove comics. But not the new ones/superhero ones/Marvel. Classic comics.

Like this Cathy ice cream shop. (Ben & Jerry’s!)

Or Flash Gordon.

Blondie’s/Dagwood

Boris & Natasha from Rocky and Bullwinkle.

Or Hagar

AND MY FAVORITE. Betty Boop!

She was so cute! Kinda made me want to be her.

We finished off the night by going downtown and out for a few drinks. Downtown Orlando is really fun at night! Next I’ll be posting about Saturday, followed by a joint Sunday/Monday post.

Post & photos by: Melissa

Orlando Adventure Day 2: Shopping, Thai food, & going out

On Saturday, we headed to an outlet mall for some shopping and picked up a few things, then to the Florida Mall which I can say is the best mall I’ve ever been to despite the fact that there were SO many people. But it was Veteran’s Day weekend and I guess I can understand that. My favorite store we went to was H&M (Id been missing that.) In between the shopping trips we stopped at Sea Thai for lunch. The SEA in SEA Thai stands for South East Asia, in case you were wondering.

This was such a cute little restaurant, and looked really nice inside as well. You can get a glimpse of the restaurant here:

And here’s a look at the menu:

We both ordered the Thai iced tea, and it was so good! Very sweet.

I also ordered an appetizer: spring rolls! I always love these. It came with 3 spring rolls, but I was so excited I couldn’t help myself and forgot to take a picture first. 😦
Note the cute little shot glass full of a sweet dipping sauce.

I went for the Thai fried rice with chicken (naturally…)

My friend got the beef pad Thai.

The food was very good, and my only complaint was that we weren’t asked how spicy we wanted our dishes, so it ended up being a little too mild. I tried to fix this with hot sauce. My friend would have liked more noodles with her pad Thai, (as it was a little low on the noodle: beef ratio) but overall it was a great, affordable lunch.

After lunch, we headed downtown to walk around. We stopped by Lake Eola and it was such a nice, large lake and park for downtown.

We also had to visit the library, because of course I’m trying to be a librarian and it’s the largest public library in Florida!

There were some interesting displays in glass cases, here is my favorite (probably because of the white rabbit):

We also stopped into the library’s bookstore, where I found a book by one of my favorite authors for only $1. As a bonus, I haven’t read this one yet:

For dinner, we had some leftovers and food at home, before going out for drinks downtown. There was a $5 cover for an area with multiple bars and we started our night at the Other Bar with a late night stop at Jimmy John’s (where I had never been, though now I’ve tasted their bread.) One of the bars we stopped into offered a large variety of craft beers, and I took a very dark picture of the wall menu:

You can so almost read that, right? Thought so. Here’s a blurry beer to cheer you up and put into perspective how dark it was:

Overall a very nice day with some great shopping finds and a fun Saturday night out. Next, Day 3:Disney World!

Post by: Melissa
Photos by: Melissa