Vacation 2012: Finally in Florida!

Day 4: Orange Beach to Orlando

Miles driven: 390

At long last: our ultimate destination!

It took a lot of driving, but we finally made it to Orlando. Because we have friends who live there, we were anxious to get into town in time to meet them for dinner. Fortunately, traffic was moving, and we were able to get to Orlando with enough time to check in to our hotel (LaQuinta near Universal on Major Boulevard) AND survive an afternoon thunderstorm before meeting our friends for dinner.

Tourists that we are, we chose the restaurant for this dinner: NBA City at Universal City Walk.

The moving sidewalks between the parking garage
and City Walk qualify as a ride in our book!

In front of the restaurant, the kids compared their hands to NBA players'.

"Logo Man" looms large.

How's the weather up there?

Katie also tried on Sheryl Swoopes' hands for size.

It was AWESOME to see our friends G&K! K was in
our singles group back in the day, and it'd been years
since we'd seen her and her husband.

The basketball menu

In spite of the stellar company and decent food, we were disappointed with NBA City. For one, the TVs that were supposed to be showing classic NBA games were instead showing the last game of the Heat-Thunder finals. (As if we wanted to see THAT again!) That  and the "resort fee" tacked onto the bill left a bad taste in our mouths. Nonetheless, we're happy we got to check it out and even happier that we could see K&G!

Afterwards, we explored City Walk a little.

She's a fan.

Palm trees, gorgeous sunset: Yep, we made it to Florida!

Islands of Adventure (See Hogwarts on that horizon?)

Universal Studios

It was a relief to finally be in Florida, and it was exciting to get a sneak peek into what the next two days would hold.