Here’s a four day itinerary for visiting Florida! This itinerary is considering that a 6 day trip is mostly a 4 day visit to a location. Whenever you’re traveling long distance, it’s always safe to assume that your travel to and from days are all day. We flew out at 6 am from Kalispell, MT and landed in Tampa, FL at 5:30 pm. A similar airport day occurred for the trip back to Montana, and both trips had long layovers (3 hours on Saturday and almost 5 hours on Thursday!).
Here’s what we did! Be sure to check out the table summarizing our budget/list of expenses!
March 18
Basically only traveling! Mine and Kyler’s day started at 3 am with waking up and packing up the car, getting the baby ready and leaving the house by 3:45 am! Our flight left at 6 am, I have read from other bloggers that it’s best to really stick to the 2-hours early rule when traveling with children. We also had a 3 hour layover in Seattle, but when you buy cheap tickets, you tend to get longer days.
I found a really comprehensive blog post on Pinterest about traveling with children, I found it really useful and I hope you do too, if you’re a parent new to traveling with the littles. Trips with Tykes is in the traveling with kids niche.
March 19
Yankees Game! It was home spring training game for the Yankees, and Kyler got 2 really awesome seats for just $203.50 The game started at 1 pm, so before we left Parrish, FL, we relaxed with my grandparents and sister. We bought tickets to Kyler’s favorite team through Ticket Center. Remember this later: spring training games are much more affordable!
March 20
ZooTampa at Lowry Park & The Florida Aquarium. We decided to jam pack 3 of our 4 days in Florida all in a row with activities! That turned out to be a bit troublesome- one day or one activity too many. Ophelia loves fish, Finding Nemo and her Finding Nemo play mat, so we thought the aquarium would be an amazing experience for us. It’s a decent aquarium but way too crowded because there were 300 students/parents/teachers for field trips.
You gotta pair the zoo with your adventure to the aquarium! That’s just who we are! ZooTampa is the best zoo we have ever visited! I cannot recommend this zoo more. In fact, we should have skipped the aquarium entirely since we needed 2-3 more hours at the zoo by the time it was closing. It is a conservation zoo and there were sections dedicated to each continent, a manatee section, insects and some water or sea enclosures, a merry go round, roller coaster and more! If we lived in Tampa, we would totally buy a membership- it’s that amazing.
March 21
Universal Studios! Kyler and I had a baby-free day and spent it at Universal Studios Orlando. We’re HUGE Harry Potter fans but we were a little disappointed with our stay- several big groups were there, it was overcrowded and the rides we wanted were closed. In fact, we only rode 2 rides in total, one of which was not even worth the long line. It’s spendy, but perhaps buying a fast pass would be worth it. Mayne the next trip for Universal Studios will be planned with hotel and fast pass packages.
March 22
Last of our Four Days in Florida: Nothing! We lounged by the pool at my grandparents’ house in Parrish, Florida and prepared for our long day home. Ophelia spent some time in the pool and loved it. Thursday was going to start at 3 am for us to arrive at the airport and we didn’t want too many activities to drain us. Fee swam for the first time and she loved it!
March 23
Another long, airport day that also started at 3 am! I had to pump in 2 airports and one flight for the trip home. I would say that the manual pump was the more convenient option for most times during the trip. It saves space and I was able to pump right into a Dr. Brown’s Bottle if I needed to. I surprised myself that week with being so willing to do what needed to be done to feed our baby. But it was stressful!
Expenses for Our Florida Vacation
| Expense | Amount |
|---|---|
| Flight Tickets (2 adults with baby on lap) | $1045– Alaska Airlines flight + annual $99 companion fare + 2 travel insurance policies (in case something happened to the stroller and carseat) |
| Tickets for Universal Studios Florida | $503 Tickets: $423 2 tickets for “2-Park, 1 Day” Parking + Food = $80. All purchases needed to be put on the Universal Studios app and has to be connected to a valid credit card NOT a gift card. The Three Broomsticks cost us $35, another meal cost us $15 and parking cost $30. |
| Aquarium Tickets | $77 unfortunately we weren’t able to use our gift card so it put us “over budget.” |
| Zoo Tickets and Food | $47pp + food ($20?) (we used a gift card) |
| Yankees Spring Training Game | $203 + taxes and processing fees + $21 food, drink and a baseball hat for Kyler, we were able to use the gift card for the hat purchase. |
| Parking | $15 |
| Gas | $40 |
| Misc. Shopping | $25 |
Total Amount for Activities & Flight: $2,045 (That is not too terrible)
One of the ways we were able to afford so many activities in addition to the flights was that we booked the flights in November, and as the months went on, we added activities to our list and paid them per decision. Our zoo tickets were purchased with a gift card we got for Christmas and paid for when we were at the entrance for the zoo. Our food and lodging is also all taken care of because we’re with my grandparents for the week.
Additional Expenses for Florida
In addition to paying for tickets for the flights, aquarium, zoo, Yankees game and Universal Studios, we needed to pay for some food and drinks in the airport, at the locations we spent the day at, and gas for all the driving between Parrish and Orlando and Tampa.
Since this was our first year of traveling with a baby, I needed to buy extra items such as a case for my Spectra pump, a ‘fanny pack’ for my wearable pump, sterilizing bags and more. For a complete list of the Mom and Baby Items we bought before the trip, read my post. There were a lot of extra items that we needed to buy for baby! I hope you find this list useful. I also bought myself a Yankees hat and shirt prior to the game so that I was not the only one who was not in Yankees gear!
Final Thoughts on Four Days in Florida
So that is my in-depth overview of our four days in Florida. There were some things that were unexpected like paying for parking near the aquarium or not being able to use a gift card for everything we had planned to. But it was a wonderful week that was sometimes really stressful and exhausting, and I wouldn’t say we went too much over budget.
I hope this post gave you some great ideas about how you can spend 4 days in FL. Hopefully you go to the zoo!