Posts Tagged: Florida
Sand Dunes are Gone/ Jacksonville Beach
“The sand dunes are gone.” After Hurricane Matthew, I was talking to a family about their upcoming beach photos and I said we can take pictures here, here and the dunes. And she looked at me and said they were gone. I was perplexed how could the dunes be gone? I guess the dunes did their job and helped protect the coast.
On the beaches I’ve noticed a lot of board walks are unusable, trees are down, a TON reeds have washed up upon shore, people’s fences are completely obliterated and their homes exposed. There are still some piles of sand dunes but the ones that are left are a lot more narrow and small. Others that are left are jagged. I know that some beaches along the coast are still closed because of the destruction like Huguenot Beach.
The picture of the building seems like just a building but it’s supposed to have sand dunes in front of it. There are a ton more “treasures” on the beach to collect now. There are also some large ditches. I am not sure if those are from the wind from the storm or something else. We’ve seen the large trees be turned into seesaws. These photographs were taken around 7th south Jacksonville Beach. It was strange to drive up to the parking lot and see the ocean their used to be sea oats and dunes that gently blocked the view. These photos were taken in the afternoon and to document some of the aftermath of the storm.What things have you noticed that are different at the beaches now?
Continue after the jump to see the rest of the photos.
Universal Studios with Young Children
This is a continuation of our trip to Universal Studios and Islands of Adventure. You can see the first post here.
Universal Studios/ Annnual Passholder Perspective
I have been wanting to blog our trips to Universal Studio’s (and all of our travels really) so here is to back blogging. It’s kind of fitting because the newest Harry Potter Book comes out this coming week so maybe it’s perfect timing rather than late. We had annual passes to Universal Studios from July 2014-July 2015. There’s already a new ride at Universal Studios the King Kong ride so I guess it means we have to go back right? This is part 1 of 3 posts about Universal Studios and Islands of Adventure.
HOTEL
Our first trip to Universal Studios as a family was in July of 2014 and we stayed at the Loews Royal Pacific Resort with my in-laws. We spent two nights at the hotel and had three days at the Parks. We got annual passes to the theme park. This trip was planned because Diagon Alley had just opened up and there are some serious Harry Potter Fans in our family. One of the reasons that we stayed at the Resort onsite was Express Passes were included for the hotel guests. The Express Pass is kinda like the Fast Pass of Disney. If you don’t stay at the resort they are about $100 a day per person. Sounds insane right? If I didn’t have an annual pass and this was my only trip to Universal Studios for a while I would definitely want the Express Pass. This way you can do more rides in a day (rather than paying for more days at the park and another hotel night). Three days was definitely a good amount of time to go to both Universal Studios and Islands of Adventure especially with the express pass. Another nice thing about staying in the resort was being close enough to walk to the park. We took the water taxi one time but it was much quicker to walk. We were also able to enter the park an hour earlier than other guests. We fully took advantage and showed up at 7am to line up and enter the park. Time at the park is important because the more time you have at the park the more rides you can ride. We had long days at the park even with our two kids.
The rest of the year we stayed at this Hampton Inn because it was close (we didn’t get express passes the rest of the year). Where have you stayed while visiting Universal Studios.
PHOTO TIP/SHOES
Here’s my one photo tip for this post. Take the picture that everyone else gets (with everyone in the party in the same frame). On every vacation I try to get a picture of the whole party at least once (many times it is just once). That’s our family of 4 soon to be 5 (I was 5 months pregnant in that photo!). Teva‘s are my favorite shoe to wear for amusement parks when it’s warm because they are super comfortable and can get wet.
FAVORITE RIDES
My absolute favorite ride of ANY theme park is the Popeye Ride at Island’s of Adventures. The reason being is EVERYONE gets soaked on the ride. Some water rides only some people get wet but on this ride the whole barge get’s wet. I love it. It’s especially nice to go on in the afternoon. Matt’s favorite ride at Universal Studios is the Revenge of the Mummy. My daughter’s favorite ride was the Cat in the Hat. My son’s favorite ride was one fish two fish red fish blue fish.
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