The travel gods were looking out for us again (plus it was early Sunday morning) so we encountered no traffic or issues on our way. By 10:30am we were checked in, through security, and at our gate. One two-hour, uneventful flight later and we were back in sunny (warm!) Florida.

By 2pm we were back home and ready to relax. My daughter and I had a great time on our trip but tomorrow it’s back to work and school.

For lunch we hung out at the tailgate party (although I did have to snag a veggie sub from a nearby Subway for my daughter the vegetarian) and then it was time for the band concert, uh, I mean, football game. It was a perfect day for football: low 60s and sunny, but way too windy, which made it feel colder. I used my Gorillapod to create trumpet-cam (video here) as we played with the student band in the stands and for the halftime show. It wasn’t much of a football game, though, as Flyers beat Davidson 28-0. It was nice to catch up with old friends during the game, though.

For dinner, we met up with my family and more friends at Young’s Jersey Dairy where we let the kids run through the corn maze:

Before grabbing some ice cream (the only real reason for going to Young’s ).

It was another long, but fun day, as we got back to our hotel by 10:30pm. Tomorrow we have to get up early to catch our flight back home.

We had an 8am flight out of Tampa so we were up early and at the gate by 7:15am. Before boarding the plane my daughter realized she didn’t have any “new” reading material so we whipped out her Kindle and made a quick purchase over the 3G wireless. Very convenient!

Our flight into CVG was smooth and uneventful. Since all of our luggage was carry-on we were off the plane, on the shuttle bus, and in our rental car within 30 minutes of landing. We made a few stops in the Cincinnati area to see our old stomping grounds and made it to the Dayton area around lunch time. We weren’t able to get early check-in to the hotel so we grabbed lunch at Marian’s and then headed to campus to do a little shopping at the bookstore and walk around to see all the changes.

The computer labs sure have changed since I was in school!

Later that afternoon we were finally able to check into our hotel and rest (by now we had been up since before 6am). Refreshed, we met my brother and sister-in-law at the Rusty Bucket for dinner before heading back to campus for the evening alumni reception. I was a little disappointed that there was not a large showing from my class years, but I guess that’s to be expected as the years go by.

We have another early morning tomorrow, starting with band rehearsal, so it’s time to get some sleep.

At 10:30am, we drove over to the Peabody Hotel near the convention center to see the march of the ducks. It’s quite a sight to see a family of mallard ducks waddling down the red carpet from the elevators into the fountain in the hotel lobby.

Then it was back into the car and onto I-4 heading towards home. With only a brief stop for lunch (mmmm … Mellow Mushroom), we were back home by 3:00pm and began unpacking and getting ready to go back to school/work tomorrow. Another great Labor Day weekend mini-vacation is in the books.

For the past few years we’ve been Disney passholders and have spent a lot of time at the Disney parks. Now that I’ve spent a weekend at Universal, I noticed a lot of (obvious) similarities and a few other things I wanted to muse about.

Disney FastPass vs Universal ExpressPass Plus

Both parks have a different approach to “skipping” the long lines for their attractions. FastPass is included in your admission price to the Disney parks but Express Pass Plus is an (expensive) add-on, unless you’re staying at a Universal resort (which we did). I liked how with ExpressPass Plus you can get in line when you want (i.e., now) as opposed to FastPass which gives you a time window to return (and there’s also a limit on how many FastPasses will be distributed in a given day). Since it’s a paid add-on (and there are only a few Universal hotels), I think ExpressPass Plus definitely gets you through the lines faster than FastPass and the overall process seemed smoother.

Rides/Attractions

I also noticed similarities in the rides. I guess this should be no surprise as every “regular” amusement park has the same basic set of rides (ferris wheel, bumper cars, etc.) so why not these resorts? Disney has the teacups, Universal has the Storm Force Accelatron. Men in Black at Universal is a grown-up version of Buzz Lightyear’s Space Ranger Spin. It seems obvious that the Hollywood Rip Ride Rockit roller coaster at Universal is targeted at fans of Aerosmith’s Rockin’ Roller Coaster at Hollywood Studios (I still prefer the latter). Like Disney, you can meet the different characters and get autographs at Universal, but you won’t find any princesses or fairies (well, except the Tinkerbell look-alike that gets slapped around in Shrek 4D).

Overall, I think there is less to do at Universal (discounting the fact there are only two parks instead of four). Before we left on Friday, I had noticed that the park hours were only 9am – 7pm, which seemed short to me (compared to Disney where some parks are open past 10pm, sometimes as late as 1am!). It turned out not to be an issue, though, since both days we had done everything we wanted to do by the late afternoon. Part of that was our use of ExpressPass Plus, part was that the parks didn’t seem to be that crowded for a holiday weekend, but a big part was definitely that there just wasn’t as much to do or see as there is over at Disney.

I’m not complaining (I’ll do that elsewhere): we actually had a nice relaxing weekend without feeling stressed, or rushed, or pressured … and that’s what a vacation should be. Universal was definitely fun, but I’m looking forward to getting back to Disney next spring so I can ride the new Star Tours.

After my daughter got out of school we packed the car and hit the road. It was mid-afternoon so traffic was relatively light (no major problems like last time). We got to our hotel (the Royal Pacific) shortly before 6:00pm, unpacked, and settled in.

It was dinner time, and we were hungry, so we walked over to CityWalk and ate at Pastamore’ (mmm … gnocchi). After dinner we walked around CityWalk a bit before grabbing some drinks at Starbucks and heading back to our hotel. We did a little exploring, checked out the pool area and various restaurants at the Royal Pacific and then retired to our room for the evening. One small annoyance with the hotel: the wireless internet access costs $9.95/day in your room, but is free out in the lobby/public areas. Grrr.

Tomorrow, we hit the parks (hopefully well-rested).

We grabbed a quick breakfast, checked out of our last hotel, and were on the road by 8:30am. At 10:15 we crossed the border back into Florida. After going around Jacksonville to I-10, we took the back routes, cutting south and west to meet up with I-75 around Ocala just after 12:30pm. Two hours later (after a quick stop to pick up grocerie), we were pulling into the driveway. Whew, we made it!

After unpacking and putting everything away, I cooked dinner out on the grill (what’s the Fourth of July without a barbecue?) and we ate outside on the lanai. We ended up being too tired to drag ourselves out again to deal with the crowds and traffic for fireworks, so we just watched some “personal” displays in the neighborhood. Happy Independence Day!

What a trip … over the past 10 days we drove just under 3,700 miles (about 660 miles less than last year) through 17 states, spending about 68 hours in the car (almost 3 full days!). The weather was fantastic, and we had no major problems. It was another successful family vacation roadtrip.

The Gas Cubby statistics from my iPhone are in the photo gallery below. My best tank was Tuesday (Grantville to Boston, 27mpg) but an overall average of 25mpg (with the AC on the entire time) for my 2003 Highlander with (now) over 140k miles on it is pretty good! Gas was expensive, but not as bad as back in 2008 when my cheapest tank was $3.88/gal (this year I didn’t pay above $3.80).

Stuffed with Virginia ham, grits, biscuits, and Miss Melinda’s pancakes, we drove over to Colonial Williamsburg and spent a little time walking around and doing a little shopping on DoG Street. Before leaving, we popped into the Cheese Shop and picked up some cheeses, bread ends, and the original house dressing for lunch in the car.

Like the last time last we came through these parts, we took the Jamestown Ferry over the James River to Surry and then continued on back roads until we hooked back up with I-95 south of Richmond.

By 2pm we were in North Carolina and at 4:30pm we crossed the border into South Carolina, still on I-95 (which we’ll be on tomorrow all the way to Jacksonville). We stopped for gas at South of the Border, which was packed with people buying enormous fireworks for tomorrow’s celebrations.

We pulled  into our hotel just north of Savannah around 7:4pm and checked in. We hadn’t had dinner yet so we found a Ruby Tuesday’s a few miles away and went there for the salad bar.

Tomorrow, vacation ends, but we’ll be back home!

We bid farewell to my relatives at 12:30pm and hit the road once more. Based on their advice, we steered clear of New York City and took I-287 back over the Tappan Zee bridge and around and down into New Jersey like we had done on the way up. This time we hit a little more traffic around the toll plazas, but it wasn’t too bad (hopefully it was a better route than taking I-95 straight through).

At 4:15pm we were crossing into Delaware and about an hour later, in Maryland, we made a special side trip in Baltimore to drive past Charm City Cakes (much to the delight of my daughter who loves “Ace of Cakes“). The rest of the evening’s drive was uneventful (and unremarkable). About 30 minutes from our hotel in Glen Allen, VA, we called the local Red Robin and placed a takeout order for dinner. By 8:30pm we were checked into our hotel (the nicest room yet!) for the evening and enjoying dinner while watching “Minute to Win It” on television.

It’s hard to believe we’ll be back home in two more days.

The original plan did call for us to quickly drive up to Maine, however, so we could say we hit all of the New England states on our vacation. We re-packed the Highlander, checked out of our Boston hotel, and headed north for the last time on this trip. We crossed the border into Maine just before 11:30am and stopped in the Kittery area to do a little shopping. Down the road we found the When Pigs Fly bakery and after tasting some of their delicious breads at the sample bar walked out with a few loaves to snack on in the car.

Continuing with the original plan (just a day early) we headed back south towards Boston to go over to Plymouth before continuing on to Connecticut. We were back in the Boston area around 2pm and that’s when we encountered our first major traffic jam of the trip: heading south of Boston towards Cape Cod on the Friday before the Fourth of July weekend. Yeah, there was just a little traffic! We used the GPS to try and get around on some back roads and finally made it back onto route 3 to Plymouth. The traffic added about 30 minutes to the trip, but by 3:30pm we were walking along the shores of Plymouth Bay and looking at Plymouth Rock in the Pilgrim Memorial State Park.

Having had a little time to stretch our legs, we got back in the car and drove west back to I-495, marveling at the traffic on the other side of the road. How do all of those people fit in Cape Cod? Shortly after connecting onto I-295 we stopped in Attleboro to pick up a few groceries. We made sandwiches in the car using our bread from Kittery and continued southwest, through Rhode Island and into Connecticut. We arrived at our hotel in Norwich around 7pm. My daughter swam in the hotel pool while we did our last laundry load of the trip.

It was probably a good idea to start heading a home a day early. Our drive tomorrow to Richmond will be a lot easier to handle (and shorter), although we may need to deal with the New York City traffic.

Around 10:30am we stopped at another rest area in Vermont for a quick break and to take in the beautiful sight of the green mountains. This particular rest stop was also home to the Vermont Vietnam Veterans Memorial. Back on the road we pulled into the Ben & Jerry’s factory shortly after 11:30am.

It was a little crowded, but not overly packed so we were able to get on the 11:50 factory tour. Unfortunately, by the time our tour made it to the viewing room above the factory floor, it was lunch time so there were no workers present and no machinery running. Oh well. After the tour we got a free sample of Stephen Colbert’s Americone Dream ice cream, which we’d had before and is pretty good (not that there are any bad Ben & Jerry’s flavors … except in the Flavor Graveyard, like Sugar Plum – the shortest-lived flavor). It was now lunch time, but rather than eat our packed picnic lunch like we had planned, we had “lunch” at the scoop shop instead. On the way back to the parking lot we stopped in the Flavor Graveyard to check out the “deceased” flavors. We still hope our favorite flavor, American Apple Pie, will make a comeback someday.

The drive back to Boston was uneventful and we were back at our hotel by 4:30pm. This gave us a few hours to relax before dinner. While our clothes were being washed in the hotel guest laundry, I went out to gas up the Highlander and also happened to find a large technology park in the area behind our hotel: SAP, Nuance, IBM, even a big Oracle campus. Refreshed, we headed over to Joe’s American Bar & Grill for dinner with some local family we hadn’t seen in a while.

Tomorrow, we actually go to see Boston.