Universal CityWalk

After an early morning flight from O'Hare to Orlando, we picked up a rental car at MCO (with Illinois license plates, for a taste of home) and drove to Universal CityWalk for lunch. Rebecca had encouraged us to take another visit to Cowfish, a burger-sushi place we had tried previously, but since she was not with us, Janie opted for Toothsome Chocolate Emporium. Janie ordered the Quiche Lorraine and J. R. had a BBQ Chicken flatbread. The food was good, but not great. The atmosphere, very steampunk, was cool, although the visit from the hostess and robot was really unnecessary. Janie wanted a simple dessert, but J. R. talked her into the Brookies Cookies & Cream, which consisted of a Brookie, chocolate chip cookie, Oreo cookies and cream ice cream, whipped cream, chocolate sauce and chocolate shavings. We decided we should have had lunch at Cowfish and hit up Toothsome for the dessert.

After lunch, we visited the Universal store to see if we could find an Iron Man towel for Rebecca, but no luck. There wasn't much other shopping to do there so after a wistful look back at the parks, we headed to the car. (We had decided the parks were too expensive for the short time we had, especially given it was Spring break and the lines for rides would likely be long.

Miniature Golf

We drove next to Walt Disney World, where we decided to try our hands at mini-golf. We both managed a couple of holes-in-one but J. R. prevailed in the end over Janie to claim the family title.

Downtown Disney

After mini-golf, we drove to Downtown Disney (we refuse to call it Disney Springs) for some browsing. We explored all the shops, picked up some small items at the reduced-size World of Disney and found some chocolate for Janie and Starbucks for J. R.

Animal Kingdom Lodge

Finally it was time to visit the Animal Kingdom Lodge. We were greeted at the entrance by a friendly guard who just happened to be from Naperville and whose children had graduated from Neuqua Valley, the same school our kids attend. We went to Kidani Village, which we had never been to previously. We went out to the savannah where we gawked at the zebras and giraffes and then settled down at the bar at Sana'a. Chris from Orlando was our bartender and he was a perfect companion for the night. We admired one of the bottles and he brought it down and gave us a small taste, helped Janie find a unique wine and recommended an African whiskey for J. R. We had the bread service at the bar, which gave us time to digest the naan and dipping sauces before dinner. Dinner was very good. J. R. had the butter chicken, which is one of the specialties, and it was very tasty. After dinner, we drove back to the airport, where we had a hotel reservation for the evening, with plans to drive to the port the next morning.