We decided last minute to take our three teenagers and a couple of their friends to Orlando for spring break. We love Orlando and have taken our kids to do the typical Disney and Universal in years past. We initially thought we would buy some last minute tickets to Universal, but the extremely heavy traffic in Orlando told us otherwise. Local friends also warned us that the lines would be crazy long---AND as you can imagine the Universal ticket prices were jacked up the week of spring break. That was a "NO" for us.
But what to do with teenagers in Orlando besides the typical theme parks?? We were pleasantly surprised with several great options for family fun that filled up several days of activities during the week. We spent our mornings/midday at the resort pool, and then headed out in the afternoon to spend the rest of the evening doing activities and dinner. It made for a great spring break!
Outside Activity: Old Town Amusement Park
Take a trip back in time to the amusement parks and state fairs that you grew up with! Old Town Amusement Park truly was a gem to stumble upon and was the highlight of our entire trip. We rode the go carts and roller coasters, played games, and ate our little hearts out with favorite old time treats like funnel cakes. The thing we loved most about this amusement park is that THERE'S NO ENTRANCE FEE. You pay per ride and game. This is wonderful as you can stay as long as you want to and truly pick the things you really want to do. AND-- there were minimal wait times for the rides. We sepnt an entire evening at this park and we all had an amazing time. 10/10 recommend!
Indoors Activity: Main Event/Orlando
Main Event has activities the whole family will enjoy. We spent about 5 hours enjoying laser tag, bowling, arcade games, and then ate dinner there. The kids had a blast!
Things to Consider:
(1) Activities are a bit pricey, so prepare to spend some money here.
(2) If you have sensory overload issues, bring some earplugs and headache medicine. It is very loud inside and lots of flashing lights.
(3) The food is your average overpriced bar food. It got the job done, but nothing stellar. 6 wings were $20, which seemed a bit eexpensive to us.
Indoors Activity: Escape Room
This activity was perfect one afternoon after pool time and before dinner. It's about an hour long and fun with a group to figure out how to escape by finding and decifering some clues.
All in all-- each of these activities was totally worth it IMO for good old fashioned family fun with older kids. Younger kids would enjoy some of these activities as well. I'm chuckling at the fact that not one single photo in this post includes me, but you KNOW who was behind the camera the whole time!! LOL
XO, JuJu