Laughing Lindsay

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Spring in Orlando Theme Parks

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I know that lots of people plan trips to align with school breaks. So, I thought I would do a post highlighting the various festivals happening during spring in Orlando theme parks!

Spring in Orlando

Spring in Orlando

March and April tend to be very popular times to visit the theme parks since lots of kids have school breaks. So, many of the theme parks have special events to give the crowds more to experience as well as to draw more people in. Here’s a look at those special events happening in spring in Orlando in 2023!

Flower and Garden Festival

Walt Disney World hosts the Epcot International Flower and Garden Festival every spring and it’s one of the most beautiful times to visit this park. In years past, I have loved walking around the park and viewing the topiaries. Disney brings out some of the same topiaries every year, however they also refresh a few and add a couple new ones every year. So, it never gets stale. This year, they added a Princess Tiana and Encanto topiaries! Plus, there’s loads of beautiful landscaping around every corner!

I would be remiss if I didn’t mention the food at this festival. Unfortunately, I don’t have as much experience in eating food at this festival as I do with Epcot Festival of the Arts. However, in 2019 I really enjoyed the grilled street corn and would love to eat it again! This festival does a great job of highlighting fresh, in season fruits and vegetables.

Not to be out done in the entertainment category, Disney also hosts the Garden Rocks Concert Series during this festival. Some of the performers I’d be quite excited to see. Others, I’m not as familiar with, but I’d be happy to give them a listen. Note: the last concert is on July 3rd.

If you are heading to Walt Disney World between now and July 5th, I highly recommend spending at least half a day at Epcot just for this festival.

Mardi Gras at Universal Orlando

I already wrote an entire Universal Orlando Mardi Gras 2023 Guide. So, you know that I’m a huge fan of this fun spring event. I also wrote a review of the Mardi Gras Float Ride and Dine add-on last month. If you are planning to visit Universal Orlando Resort between now and April 16th, then you too can experience Mardi Gras at UO! Unfortunately, the last concert has already taken place here. However, there’s still the awesome parade and great foods to try!

Spring at SeaWorld Orlando

Lastly, SeaWorld Orlando is hosting the Seven Seas Food Festival on Thursdays, Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays until May 7th! If you are visiting this weekend or next, then you may also catch their St. Patrick’s Day Celebration as well! The park will also be celebrating Cinco de Mayo during the last weekend in April and first weekend in May. Both of those events will add some food and entertainment to the park.

Last year, I tried some tasty food at the Seven Seas Food Festival and really liked it. Unfortunately, we missed the Seven Seas Concert Series as we were tired from a full day in the park. The concert series is a mix of well-known artists, smaller bands, and tribute bands! I recommend looking up the schedule if you are heading there before May 7th.

Orlando Theme Parks in Spring

As you can see, all three theme parks celebrate spring with a special festival. So, which is your favorite spring in Orlando festival?

You can check out my other seasonal theme park guides here:

Lombard’s Seafood Grille Review

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I started writing my review of Lombard’s Seafood Grille in my Universal Orlando Mardi Gras Float Ride and Dine post. However, the original post quickly became too long (around 800 words). I thought it was best to make the review of the restaurant a separate post, so here’s my review of it.

Lombard's Seafood Grille

Lombard’s Seafood Grille

Lombard’s Seafood Grille is one of the few table service restaurants in the parks at Universal Orlando Resort. It is located in the San Francisco section of the Universal Studios Florida park. As the name implies, it features lots of seafood as well as some other dishes. It has nice theming inside. You are greeted by the water fountain pictured above when you walk in, which kind of sets the tone for the whole restaurant.

Meal Review

For this review, I ate at Lombard’s Seafood Grille in early February 2023 with my mom. As it was part of the Float Ride and Dine experience, we were both able to get a drink, appetizer, entrée, and dessert! My mom got a diet drink, which made her happy. I got a glass of water and a frozen lemonade. That was really refreshing after getting a little hot in the park.

For an appetizer, my mom and I both chose calamari. I will admit that we didn’t know what that was when we chose it! Haha! Needless to say, my mom was quite surprised to discover it was squid and immediately lost interest in the dish once she learned that fact. I ate about half of mine as I found it to have a good flavor. While the texture was a little weird, I assume that’s just because it’s squid.

I chose a lobster roll for my entrée and was very pleased with it. It had pretty big chunks of lobster and tasted fresh. I loved it! My mom got the filet mignon and she seemed to enjoy hers as well. It was a 6 oz steak, so not the biggest steak, but adequate for my mom.

For dessert, I went with the key lime pie and mom got the chocolate cake. I liked the key lime pie as it was a good combination of tartness and sweetness. I was happy I chose it. My mom’s cake seemed like it had been frozen and just removed from the freezer. The frosting was still kind of frozen. So, it wasn’t a bad dessert, but I think mine was better.

Final Thoughts

Overall, it was a pretty good meal. Our server was awesome and everyone working here was super nice! So, if you are looking for a nicer place to sit down in the park, I recommend considering Lombard’s Seafood Grille.

Mardi Gras Float Ride and Dine at Universal Orlando Review

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Last year, my mom and I visited Universal Orlando Resort during Mardi Gras and had a blast. This year, we decided to visit again, but we wanted the chance to be in the parade and throw beads! So, when Universal introduced their Mardi Gras Float Ride and Dine add-on experience, we signed up almost immediately! Keep reading to see if we think it’s worth it!

Mardi Gras Float Ride and Dine

Float Ride and Dine

This Mardi Gras Ride and Dine experience is the only guaranteed way to ride in the parade. We paid $55.24 each (after AP discount) to eat at Lombard’s Seafood Grille and to ride in the parade. This experience booked up quickly as did some of the more popular restaurants for our dates. So, if you are interested in this experience, I recommend booking asap. We did this experience on Monday, February 6, 2023 as the two days prior had already booked up by the time my mom called to book it.

Lombard’s Seafood Grille

For our dinner, we were allowed to choose a non-alcoholic drink, appetizer, entrée, and dessert from the regular menu at Lombard’s. I got a frozen lemonade, which was a nice surprise as the server initially told me I couldn’t have it. However, he checked with management who said we could have any non-alcoholic beverage. With it being the third day of this offering, they were still learning everything, so it’s understandable that my initial request was denied. My mom was content with her diet drink.

I initially was going to publish my entire review of the meal in this post. However, the post grew to around 800 words! If you are interested in reading my Lombard’s Seafood Grille review, you can click that link. Otherwise, I will just tell you what we had here. We had calamari for the appetizer. I had the lobster roll and key lime pie. My mom went with the steak and chocolate cake. Overall, it was good meal, especially for a theme park restaurant. You can see our food in the Instagram post below.

Riding a Float

I will say we were disappointed with the lack of communication from Universal prior to and on the day of this experience. It was hard to plan the day not knowing what to expect. Unfortunately, we were never told how to retrieve the pictures that were taken before or during the parade. The code I was given to retrieve pictures never brought any pictures up and the UO Twitter account told me that we were supposed to purchase pictures in the park up to 24 hours afterwards! So, we missed out on getting any of our pictures! The chaos of the event reminded me a little bit of our experience doing the Universal Holiday Tour.

At dinner we were given our lanyards, which instructed us to meet at 4:55 to begin lining up. Everyone put on an apron-like thing and sat with their assigned float group after signing a waiver. Team members did a good job of getting everyone hyped up for the parade. Then, they led us backstage to our floats and went over some general guidance before the parade started.

Aside from the confusion, we absolutely loved riding the float! It was amazing to be able to look a stranger in the eyes, toss them some beads, and make them happy. My mom has already said that riding in the parade was the highlight of this trip for her! Pro tip: pack light for this event as we weren’t told we could store our stuff anywhere and had to just put it in the floor of the float.

Is it worth it?

While the Mardi Gras Float Ride and Dine is an expensive experience, it is worth it in my opinion. If they offer this experience next year, we will probably book it again. So, have you ever tossed beads in the Universal Orlando Mardi Gras parade?

Epcot Festival of the Arts 2023 Review

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I have been fortunate to attend every seasonal event at Walt Disney World’s Epcot theme park over the years. Hands down though, my favorite is Festival of the Arts! I was lucky enough to be able to attend it again last week and I’d like to do a quick review of it and share why it’s my favorite one!

Festival of the Arts

Festival of the Arts

Walt Disney World pretty much always has an event going on at Epcot these days. However, my personal favorite is the Festival of the Arts. It’s a short event celebrating art in all of its forms that takes place during the winter months of the year. In my opinion, this event could be lengthened as it only lasts for 5 weeks! This year’s festival ends on February 20th. So, if you are wanting to experience this year’s events, you better go now!

Festival Food

I actually really enjoy visiting Orlando during these cooler months as it’s more comfortable outside. That means I feel like actually trying some of the festival’s foods! My personal favorites from Festival of the Arts includes: Sushi Donut from Japan, Deconstructed Key Lime Pie (the first picture in my Instagram post below) from The Deconstructed Dish, and General Tso’s Chicken Shumai from China. I also enjoyed visiting Figment’s Imagination Station for the Pop’t Art, which was basically a tasty blueberry cookie and the Rainbow Cake was neat. My mom raved about all of the food we tried at the festival and even remarked how much better the food was here compared to some other theme parks’ festivals. I think there is something here for everyone to enjoy.

Festival Entertainment

I love how Disney is able to bring art to life during this festival. You can walk around and look at paintings. However, you can also participate in art by painting some squares in a huge paint by number mural too! You can also pose in large art re-enactment for photos! You can even catch some stars from Broadway performing during this festival! I love walking around and looking at the chalk art at this festival and doing the scavenger hunt! I just feel like there’s so much to see and do at this particular festival, that it makes it more fun than some others!

Conclusion

Between the beautiful foods, fun art entertainment, and great weather it’s easy to see why Festival of the Arts is my favorite Epcot festival. Also, I know that when I initially started blogging again, I stated that I would cover other things outside of Walt Disney World. However, I’ve come to accept how much joy Disney brings me and I hope anyone reading these posts is ok with me blogging about it too.

Universal’s Loews Royal Pacific Resort Review

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Back in December, my mom and I spent a night at Universal’s Loews Royal Pacific Resort while visiting Universal Orlando Resort. It was our first time staying in a Signature Collection Hotel at UO and it did not disappoint.

Royal Pacific Resort

Royal Pacific Resort

The last night of our stay at Universal Orlando Resort in December, we switched from Universal’s Endless Summer Resort – Surfside Inn and Suites to Loews Royal Pacific Resort. This was our first time staying at a “Signature Collection Hotel“. It was also our first time getting the Universal Express Unlimited pass since it’s included with a stay here! The price difference this trip was worth it for both of us to skip the lines!

One of the other perks of staying at Royal Pacific Resort is supposed to be the ability to ride the boat over to the theme parks. Unfortunately, the boat dock was being refurbished during our stay and we weren’t notified until we checked in. So, we were disappointed to discover that we couldn’t enjoy this amenity on our trip. We were pleased to discover that there was a walkway to the parks, which is a huge advantage over the values. It is a bit of a hike, but we were told it was quicker than waiting for a bus. So, we walked each time.

Upon entering this hotel, I realized that we were staying somewhere really nice. We loved the island theming as it’s very relaxing. I enjoyed the laid back vibes that counterbalanced the rush of visiting theme parks. We also appreciated that this hotel houses everything indoors, so we didn’t have to worry about walking with luggage in the weather!

Standard Room

Perhaps it’s because we had just spent 3 nights in the value hotels or perhaps this resort is just really nice! Either way, we had a very comfortable stay at the Royal Pacific Resort. The room was much quieter than at Surfside or Dockside. In fact, we both slept great! The beds were comfortable. The shower tile and bathroom vanity took the room up a notch. Even though it’s a standard room, there was more than enough room for the two of us.

Royal Pacific Food

One of my favorite things about traveling is trying new foods. So, I was happy to discover how good the food at Royal Pacific is! I enjoyed the Tuk Tarts from Tuk Tuk Market. I’ve also heard great things about the luau they host on Saturday nights. Unfortunately, we were staying here on a Monday night and didn’t get to experience it.

The standout dining experience of this trip was the Islands Dining Room. We had breakfast here both mornings and enjoyed it each time. The first morning, we got the buffet. The second day I got Hawaiian Pancakes while my mom got Tahitian French Toast. We were very pleased with our meals here! Everything tasted fresh and delicious! You can see the food in my Instagram post below.

Overall Review

I think you can probably tell that I enjoyed my stay at Royal Pacific Resort. In fact, it’s currently my favorite Universal Orlando Resort. I should be staying at two other UO hotels soon, so stay tuned to see if it remains that way. Have you ever stayed here? What did you think?