This article is reprinted from the WeChat public account of a reader in a WeChat group, 懒人 33 的吃喝玩乐. Original link.

Christmas Trip

We kicked off our Christmas trip on the busiest holiday travel day at SEA, and there were especially a lot of people on the early flight. With Sky Priority, CLEAR + TSA PreCheck, it normally takes us about 10 minutes from entering the airport to getting through security. On this day, it took twice as long or even more. The CLEAR + TSA PreCheck line at checkpoint 1 was even longer than the TSA only line. No idea what everyone was so determined to line up for...

The little ornaments in one of the shops at Seattle airport were so cute!

Ever since our New Orleans trip, I’ve somehow felt that unless I’m fully lying flat in business class, time on a plane is especially hard to endure. One advantage of an early morning flight for people prone to motion sickness is that you can sleep, and our kid also fell asleep shortly after boarding, which made it much more bearable than a daytime flight. Even though it was peak Christmas travel, this Delta flight still had a few empty seats, and the whole family was upgraded to Comfort+ a day in advance.

Once we got to Orlando airport, it was the usual little tram ride plus a lot of hustling over to the rental car area. We passed the familiar little plaza, and our kid insisted on taking a photo with the Christmas tree. Third straight year checking in at Orlando, ding.

For the rental car, we again skipped the counter and went straight to the garage. This time, there weren’t many larger cars to choose from in the Hertz President’s Circle section, so we ended up picking between two Japanese SUVs in the Gold section.

By then it was about dinner time, so we went to eat first. Flying from the West Coast to the East Coast is like that: you leave before sunrise, and by the time you arrive it’s already dinner time. It feels like you’ve been traveling from dawn to dusk.

My spouse said they wanted something lighter, so we picked YH Seafood, a Cantonese restaurant. I joked that, as neighbors of Vancouver, we had somehow come all the way here to eat Cantonese food... We arrived a little after 5 and didn’t have to wait. The floor in this restaurant was incredibly slippery, maybe because of the cleaning product they used. My sneakers felt like they could ice skate in place.

We ordered typhoon shelter-style lobster, scallion oil chicken, okra with Chinese yam, and corn soup.

Since we were on the East Coast, getting some Boston lobster didn’t seem unreasonable. The preparation was still a bit far from true typhoon shelter style, but the flavor and texture were both quite good, and the three of us worked our way through the entire plate.

The scallion oil chicken mostly tasted like salt-baked chicken seasoning. It was on the salty side. Not bad exactly, but my spouse thought mine is better.

The okra with Chinese yam: the okra was old, and the dish itself didn’t have much flavor. At least the Chinese yam helped cut the richness.

The corn soup was actually more like corn egg drop soup, and it was pretty tasty.

After dinner, we didn’t rush straight to the hotel. First, we went to use an AMEX Marriott offer for 4x points（$500-$200）. There’s no Ritz-Carlton in Seattle, so buying a gift card isn’t easy. On a previous trip to Cabo, I called the local Ritz-Carlton and they said they didn’t know how to sell gift cards. When we went to Vancouver, I figured I’d skip it since the Canadian dollar made it harder to do the math. So it kept getting delayed until Orlando. We went to the Ritz-Carlton Grande Lakes, where we stayed last Christmas. It’s been rated the best Ritz-Carlton in the U.S., and it really is excellent. Buying a gift card there this time was another reminder of how good the service is.

I called first to ask whether they sold them, and the front desk said both the Signature Store and the spa had them. My spouse pulled over by the curb while I ran inside and headed straight for the spa. After a lot of fast walking, I got there only to find the spa brightly lit but completely empty. I retraced my steps back toward the main entrance and asked where the Signature Store was. Answer: right behind you... I almost spat blood—why had I run all the way to the spa for nothing? The guy at the store had the same name as my kid, so we chatted a bit while I bought the gift card, and he even wrapped it nicely for me. A casual glance also revealed several amazing vintage Birkins displayed in the case.

Finally, we got to the hotel we booked for this trip: Hyatt Regency Grand Cypress Resort. We had a lot of Hyatt free night certificates this year, so we planned to use two over Christmas. I went back and forth between this property and Hyatt Regency Orlando for quite a while before picking this one, and it felt like the right choice. It really is a good place to just relax. The lobby was grand. It also happened to be our wedding anniversary, and after I mentioned it to the front desk, they upgraded us to a high-floor corner room. Then I asked and found out it didn’t have a sofa bed... so later we switched to a lower-floor room with a sofa bed. Globalists could choose complimentary self-parking or valet parking, and since we were in full relaxation mode, valet was the obvious choice.

The hotel ambassador was named Merlot, a very lively parrot, though not one that worked 24 hours a day. So over these two days, every time we rode the elevator, my spouse kept whispering in my ear: “The parrot is off work,” “The parrot is on duty now”...

The gingerbread house competition display in the hotel lobby was so beautifully done.

Two days before check-in, the hotel specifically emailed us about an event in the sky lounge. Then the front desk mentioned it again during check-in. Our child overheard that cookies would be handed out and got so excited that we had to go. But when it was time, the door to the event space was wide open and it clearly wasn’t limited to Globalists. The promised champagne and cookies were nowhere to be seen. So we went back downstairs to ask, and the front desk said only Globalists knew where the event was... while also seeming to know nothing about the event itself. Then we went back upstairs again, and by that point people were lining up for champagne and cookies. We asked if there were any nonalcoholic drinks and were told to wait, so we grabbed the cookies and went back to our room. The event was really run quite poorly.

From the hotel, you could see the fireworks from Epcot and Magic Kingdom, though both were far away. We watched casually from the room balcony for a bit, then got ready to call it a night.

Everything in sight belongs to this hotel, so the property is really quite large. Looking out first thing in the morning instantly put us in a vacation mood.

The Globalist breakfast benefit came in the form of vouchers handed out at check-in for two adults and two children. Breakfast could be either the buffet or made-to-order items, and for convenience we chose the buffet both days. On the first day, we got up late and still had to wait about 20 minutes for a table. Breakfast included made-to-order omelets, smoked salmon, and more. Overall, the selection was below average, but still much better than the continental breakfast some hotels offer.

The hotel also had quite a few activities. There were four or five family activities throughout the day, and the regular options included boating, water bikes, bicycles of all sizes, ping-pong, basketball, hiking, and more. My child really likes water activities where there’s no risk of falling into the water, so the first thing they wanted to do was ride the water bikes. The staff at the dock were all very enthusiastic and helpful, running around to assist us.

The last time we did this was in Tahiti. It reminded me of the time we got stuck and had to be rescued by a lifeguard...

After riding for a bit, our kid said he was tired—even though he hadn’t really been pedaling—and wanted to switch to a pedal boat. The pedal boat was definitely easier. The weather in Orlando that day was absolutely perfect: not too sunny, not too cold, just right. Drifting across the lake in that little boat felt incredibly relaxing. I pulled out my phone and started playing “Song of Heroes,” and soon the bold lyrics—“The mighty river flows eastward!”—were echoing across the water. My teammate and I somehow pedaled even harder after that.

We got up late that morning and weren’t hungry at noon, so after boating, we decided to go enjoy the pool.

The hotel pool is huge and has a really distinctive design. Here are a few promo photos. This was the one that originally sold me on it:

Before the trip, I read online that the big pool was on the colder side and the small pool was warmer. Even the bell staff member who helped with our luggage said the same thing. But in our actual experience, both pools were heated and felt pretty comfortable—neither felt cold when getting in. The small pool was a bit warmer, though.

After debating for a while before leaving home, we ended up bringing three large suitcases, which meant we could pack all of our water-play gear. We carried our alpaca downstairs with us.

The small pool has a big waterslide, and the entrance is tucked behind some rocks. I walked around the pool forever trying to find it. In the end, I asked a housekeeper, and she personally led me there. That was the only way we found it. Our whole family happily explored the pool area for two or three hours, then got out to soak up some sun. Beach towels are handed out manually at the towel station, but you don’t have to return them to the same place.

We went back to the room to shower and change, then headed to the gingerbread decorating activity our kid had been looking forward to. It was well organized, and they provided all kinds of toppings. Anyone with a sweet tooth was very happy.

By then, my teammate and I were starving, so we went out to find food. We had already picked out U&Me Conveyor Belt Hot Pot near the hotel entrance. Even though it was right by the hotel, the property is so large that it still took us about 10 minutes to walk there.

I’m not sure why, but the hot pot places in Orlando and Tampa all seem to be all-you-can-eat. This one had a robot host that led us to our table, and our kid thought it was even cooler than the robot servers at Haidilao.

Similar to the place we ate at in Tampa, this restaurant had a separate area where you pick up the meat yourself, while the seafood selection was especially extensive. The vegetables traveled on the conveyor belt. We ordered the soup bases recommended by our server, and they were all pretty good. Their milk tea was tasty too, though it cost extra. The only disappointment was the shellfish, which had a lot of sand in it.

On the walk back, we noticed a few tiny paw prints in the concrete. No idea what little animal had left them behind.

As we walked back to the hotel, our kid said he wanted to go biking, but when we asked, we found out it closed at 5 pm. Then he said he wanted to walk a trail instead. Thankfully, the hotel is big enough that there really are trails on the property.

There’s a shorter Course A, about 1 mile, but it has no lighting. The longer Course B is 3.4 miles, which was clearly too much for our family’s stamina, so we passed.

On the way back, we came across a poolside movie by the pool—they were showing Toy Story 4. My kid and I lay there and watched for more than half an hour, but it started to feel chilly, so we went back to the room.

The next morning, after breakfast, we still had a little time to go biking. This was the first hotel I’ve stayed at that had bikes for little kids as well as helmets. Adults could wear helmets too, but they were optional. At first I thought the bikes didn’t have brakes, but later I realized they were the type that brake when you pedal backward. We rode Course B, but the final stretch was harder to ride, and our kid refused to keep going. Since we also had to hurry off to catch our cruise, Dad ended up carrying the little bike on top of the big bike for part of the way.

The drive to Tampa took only a little over an hour. We returned the car at Marriott Hertz Waterside and got ready to board the ship. In the next post, I’ll talk about how to handle a rental car when taking a cruise from Tampa.

Overall, we were quite happy with this hotel. There were plenty of activities, and the pool was excellent. The elevators were fast and never crowded. Our whole family liked it a lot. If you want to mix in some theme park time, the hotel also has a shuttle.

The downside is that, since it’s an older hotel, soundproofing is still an issue. Our room was far from the elevators, but it seemed to be next to a staff elevator or something similar, so we could hear elevator noise at night. Also, breakfast wasn’t especially varied.

About the Author

This article is reposted from the WeChat public account of a reader from our WeChat group, Lazy 33’s Food and Fun. The account features original, high-quality articles, so if you’re interested, feel free to follow it.