Family Forward Fun at Universal Studios Orlando

There were so many awesome moments that my family and I enjoyed at the Family Forward Conference held at Universal Orlando Florida, and I am so excited to share them with you!

What is Family Forward?

Family Forward is an amazing conference put together by the amazing folks at Mom It Forward to promote family building and bonding through various hands on activities. They were able to offer bloggers and their families an amazingly discounted trip thanks to sponsors including Barilla, Doh Vinci, Animal Jam, Southwest Airlines and of course our host sponsor Universal Orlando. The experience was a million times better than I ever imagined and I was impressed with how smoothly everything ran.

We all stayed at the Loews Portofino Bay resort at Universal Studios. We got an incredibly discounted package rage that included the room, tickets, most meals and lots of fun activities. The hotel was stunning, I actually believe it deserves it’s own post, so I will save more info for later.

Family Fun

The night we arrived we participated in several ice breaking activities. Since it was 50+ bloggers and their families it was super fun to meet and see old friends like Aliah! My boys loved her so much they asked for her every time she wasn’t in our immediate view. Anyone who knows Lia won’t be surprised because she is easy to love!

We had a lot of amazing conference sponsors that made this trip possible. Here are some of family activities we participated in:

Doh Vinci:

We had the awesome opportunity to flex our creativity muscles with a new fun toy called Doh Vinci. Doh Vinci takes playing with play Doh to a new level. This is an actual tool that you can put play Doh in and squeeze out different shapes and you can draw whatever you want on pretty much anything including frames, vases and more. So crafty!

Southwest Airlines:

I really loved the presentation from SouthWest, we had a seasoned pilot come and explain how airplanes fly. I was actually really excited about this because I had no idea how planes got up in the air. The pilot broke it down for all of us in a simple way including using a blowdryer to propel a beach ball in the air to simulate what happens when a plane is flying. Pretty cool stuff! I was totally The kids were really into it.

Barilla

The wonderful folks from Barilla came and gave us a cooking lesson right there on the spot! They brought out super easy ingredients such as roasted red peppers, cooked pasta, lemon juice, basil and more to make the perfect easy summer pasta. I really loved it because we followed all of the directions live and made a delicious dish for lunch!

Animal Jam

We were lucky enough to get a celebrity appearance from Dr. Brady Bard who brought live animals for the kids to see. He actually brought a taped up crocodile and the kids were so excited that 90% of the room ran to the front to get a closer look…not if you know me, I stayed put right in my seat in the back. Doctor Bard laid the crocodile on its back on a table  on the stage and proceeded to tell us that when a crocodile is placed on his back he doesn’t move…because he doesn’t know which way is up. Pretty cool right?

Except that crocodile decided that he was going prove him wrong.

After about 30 seconds of having no hands on him the croc JUMPED and FLIPPED right off the table. Which of course sent the entire room (remember the 90% of people who were in the front for a closer view) running and screaming for their lives. It was so hysterical I was crying TEARS. Obviously no one was in danger because the croc’s mouth was securely taped shut and they got control of him once he got on the floor. But the looks on those kids (and some adults) faces was priceless.

CityWalk

Later on that night there was free tickets to the Blue Man Group but we didn’t take advantage because the kids were a bit wiped and I wasn’t sure they could handle that sort of noise at 8pm (which is normally their bedtime) so we went to CityWalk on our own and had dinner at one of my favorite places in the world…Jimmy Buffett’s Margaritaville!

Stay Tuned for more, I may be recapping this trip forever and ever because it was just that awesome!

Have you been to Universal Orlando? Did you stay on property? Have you ever been to a family focused conference before? Would you have run for your life when that croc jumped?