As I am preparing for our next adventure in a few days, I thought it would be a good time to share the first vacation Nate and I ever took together.
Nate and I had our first date on November 11, 2019. I will tell the story of our first few dates in another post, but this is important now because we left for our first vacation together on January 30, 2020. We were going with his mom, sister, and sister’s friend to Florida for Nate’s birthday. I had only met his sister once, and had never met his mom. I’m pretty sure I worked all day on Thursday and our flight was later (my first time on an airplane and my first time in Florida!) , because I remember it being so late when we got there that we couldn’t find anywhere to deliver to us at the hotel in Orlando, so we just went to bed. When we got up the next morning, we met his mom for breakfast in our hotel lobby (his mom and sister stayed in the hotel next door to ours), and then we met his sister and her friend to walk to Islands of Adventure. I’m pretty sure I spent the whole walk admiring the palm trees 🌴 He said it had been a long time since he had been there, but he remembered the Incredible Hulk Coaster being his favorite, so that is where we stopped first. The whole time we were in line I was very nervous, because I had never been on a roller coaster that goes upside down before. I was also too scared to tell anyone in the group that I wasn’t really sure I wanted to ride it, so I let them strap me and and send us on our way 🤣 I ended up really enjoying it, despite being petrified. I must have looked scared when we got off, because that was when Nate asked if I was okay and I told him that was my first time on a roller coaster like that. And that was the first of many times in our now almost 6 year relationship that I told him I’m glad I did something out of my comfort zone because of him. I don’t remember all of the other rides we rode, but I do remember doing one in Harry Potter World that I really liked. Looking at their website now, I think it was Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey. But I think my favorite part of the park was Seuss Landing. I don’t think we rode any of the rides there, but we did stop for lunch there. Having grown up with 4 younger siblings, we watched a lot of the animated Dr, Seuss movies, with Horton Hears a Who being one of favorites, so being around all the animation that was life-sized was really cool. We rode the Hulk ride one more time and walked back to our hotel.
It was about 3ish pm when we got back to the hotel. Nate had gone to pick up our rental car (a convertible 🤩) and I stayed at the hotel to shower, since we were going to dinner that night. When Nate returned with the car, we actually had more time than we thought before dinner, so we went to the pool for a little while we waited for everyone else to be ready. For dinner, we went to Fogo de Chao in Orlando. We actually took and Uber since we planned on drinking. If you’ve never been to Fogo de Chao, I highly recommend! It is a Brazillian steakhouse chain (we don’t normally eat at chain restaurants on vacation), and their food is delicious. They have various meats on swords and walk around the restaurant to ask if you would like to try some. If you do, they cut off a piece for you right at your table. They also have a really awesome salad bar, that had a lot of foods I had never heard of at the time. One of them was heart of palms, and I love it! We actually eat it at home now. After dinner, it was pretty late, so him mom went back to the hotel, but us being the young 20-somethings that we were, wanted to hit up some nightlife. We ended up at WonderWorks, somewhere none of us had been before, and got half off admission since it was an hour before they closed. An hour was enough time for us to get through it. We even did the ropes course thing they had at the end, which was also something I had never done before (are we noticing a theme?). I really enjoyed it, and would definitely recommend it for anyone, even with kiddos! After that, we walked to a bar that I remember being very open and airy, and enjoying being so warm in January. There was a sports game on the TV’s, but none of us are really sports people. We mostly just sat at the bar, buying each other drinks and talking. When we got an Uber back, for some reason the driver couldn’t get all the way to our hotel, so we ended up walking the rest of the way. It was a great night and we were all feeling pretty good from the drinks. We left Nate’s sister and her friend at their hotel, and we walked back to ours. When we got there, something had happened to the key scanner on our room and we were not able to get in. After having management look at it and trying multiple things to get it open for us, we ended up having to sleep in a different room. We had to wait until morning when the maintenance guy would be there to get the door open. The room right next to ours was open, so we slept there. They were able to get us into our room really early, and we showered and got ready for the day.
Our next stop during this trip was an hour drive to Cocoa Beach. We were going to Kennedy Space Center, but stopped in town for lunch. It had rained most of the way there, and it had stopped raining, but was still cloudy. We went to this tiny little sandwich shop in Cocoa Beach for a Cubano, which I had never had before. This shop literally had 3 tables for 2 people each, and 2 spots at a bar by the register. We got the sandwich and drove to the nearest beach. I had never seen the ocean before, so that was a must for this trip. I had to dip my toes in the ocean even though it was kind of cold. Afterwards, we sat at a picnic table and ate our sandwich before heading to the space center. When we got there, we walked through the 2 buildings and through the spaceships fairly quick, but we didn’t know they had a bus to drive us to another building they had, that also showed us the launch pad and the building where they build the space shuttles. We stayed until they closed. We had so much fun learning all about NASA and spaceships. When we were done there, we went to check into our hotel in Cocoa Beach. We changed and went for a walk on the beach since the weather had gotten a little better since the morning, and we were waiting for his mom, sister, and her friend for dinner. After dinner, we stopped at Publix to get some drinks before heading back to our hotel for the night, We took our drinks to the hot tub to relax for a little bit. We had to be up early the next day, so we didn’t stay in the hot tub too long.
We woke up at 7am the next day, to make the drive back to Orlando. We had tickets to go to Discovery Cove before we had to be at the airport that afternoon. If you are ever looking for something unique to do in Orlando, I highly recommend Discovery Cove! It would be a great place for kids, even if you don’t swim with the dolphins, which is the reason we went! 🐬 There are several other things you can do while your there, and we did a special animal encounter, where we held a parrot and petted a sloth, among other things. There is a shallow pool where you can snorkel with fish and stingrays. They also have a lazy river with waterfalls, and the island in the middle is home to the cutest monkeys we had ever seen. I know Discovery cove is all inclusive, and I remember eating breakfast there, but I think that is all the food we had. We had to leave in the early afternoon so we could return the rental car and make it to the airport in time for our flight home.
This trip is the most packed vacation we have had to date, and it was a very memorable one! When I tell you it took me a week to recover, there’s not much exaggeration there 😂 There were lots of firsts for me: first time leaving my dogs longer than 1 night, first plane ride, first time in Florida, first time seeing a real palm tree, first time meeting Nate’s mom, first “real” roller coaster (and tbh, probably the only one), first time at Fogo de Chao, first Cubano, first time seeing the ocean, first time swimming with dolphins, first time snorkeling. But honestly, I just realized it was also my first vacation with Nate, and that makes it the most special of all ❤️
