Day One: Universal Orlando January 2010 Trip

Orlando, Florida: Earlier in the week, the National Weather Service predicted winter precipitation for the state of Florida for the weekend. Being a native Floridian, the news of this excited my wife and she couldn’t wait for the possibility of seeing snow. However been through it a hundreds times growing up in Pennsylvania, I wasn’t thrilled and was thinking about packing up and heading further south.

But as any good husband would do, I put aside my hatred of winter weather and focused on giving my wife the best chance to see the wintry mix without breaking the bank. So I did some research and browsed the weather sites and learned the best bet to see snow would be the Central Florida area. Our hometown of North Port would be too warm when the moisture came through and it was only going to be a cold rain. Jacksonville, Gainesville and the panhandle were predicted to be cold enough but the rain line had already moved through. So the best place looked like Central Florida, the cold front and precipitation line were going to arrive at about the same time.

So I made a few phone calls to look for a good deal on a hotel room. While the priority was to let the wife see some snow, I thought it would be best to work a theme park visit in with the trip so it was a win-win for the whole family. With the Walt Disney World Marathon taking place this weekend, we took a pass on WDW. Then we got a good price on a last minute room at Universal Orlando’s Royal Pacific Resort.

When my wife picked me up from work, I told her my idea and she agreed with the plans. So we headed home to pack some clothes, load up the dogs and hit the road for the three hour drive to Orlando.

We arrived at the Royal Pacific Resort around 8:30 and checked into our pet friendly room. This is one of my favorite things about the Loews Hotel Group is that all of their resorts are pet friendly and they allow your pet to stay with you inside your guestroom for only a $25 one-time room cleaning fee. A great deal over leaving the dogs at the kennel for the weekend. This is the third time we have stayed at the Royal Pacific; our honeymoon in 2003, Christmas 2005 and now.

We moved our suitcases into the room and retired for the night….temperature at bedtime, 45 degrees.