“Work Hard, Play Hard” is a commonly used motto around The Urban Spa, and we take both sides of that phrase seriously. We worked incredibly hard to earn this trip to Orlando, jamming our schedule packed with reservations, challenging one another to sales competitions and striving to make sure all of our guests left the Spa happier and more relaxed than they did walking in and with a promise to come visit us again.

With that in mind, we woke up on our 4th day in Orlando, Fl suffering the repercussions of having taken the latter half of that phrase to heart the night before…. 

As I sat in a fog with my Gatorade and buttered toast, I couldn’t help but begin to worry about this morning’s adventure: an Airboat Ride in the Everglades. 

Boggy Creek was about a 45-minute drive from our lovely home away from home in Davenport, Fl. As we made our way there, the scenes outside of our windows changed dramatically from residential to highway intersections to rural, swampy, back-woods-looking Florida.

I was thankful for Sarah Tye’s teacher-style fake-out manoeuvre, telling us we had to be at our destination almost an hour earlier than was necessary, because it gave us some time to breathe in that fresh Florida air and prepare ourselves to hopefully meet some Gators….

Which we did!!

Right off the hop, we got to see over a dozen of the cutest little baby Gators, all piled up and lounging in the sun. They were honestly adorable and with the temperature being what it was, these cold-blooded little guys were mostly staying completely still…

Then, it was time to board our Airboat, throw on a pair of very necessary ear muffs and begin our search. Sure, we’d seen some but we really wanted to see some real, Gator action!

 

 

 

 

Not too long after setting out, our expert Guide spotted something exciting: A Bald Eagle! Honestly, I don’t know how he did it because it was probably 15 minutes before each of us had caught a glimpse (with the help of some binoculars and strong camera lens zoom…)

 

 

Contrary to my expectations, it was actually quite nice to be out the boat. With a giant fan at the stern, our Airboat seemed to glide along the top of the water without much turbulence (which I think we were all thankful for). 

In the interest of not making this post all about myself, I have left out a somewhat

important detail: today was my birthday! It started promptly at midnight on the 10th of January with a rousing serenade from the group and stretched until the following midnight (and beyond, but I’ll tell you about that later).

To mark this occasion, the conductor of our Airboat ride let me take his seat for a photo op…

 

After our ride, we followed the sweet smell of burning wood over to Native Village,
where we met a man named Little Big Mountain who told us all about the
canoe he was carving using only primitive native technology.

 

 

He invited us to sit a while in his outdoor classroom and proceeded to give us a truly fascinating history lesson.

 

 

 

 

He brought us back in time to the early settlement of America, of Florida and of this swampy area in particular.

 

 

 

He also took us through the evolution of native weaponry, complete with some awe-inspiring demonstrations.

 

 

 

 

The group agreed that we could have listened to him speak all day, his story telling was so charismatic and engaging.

 

 

 

After about two hours of hanging on his every word, we bid him a fond farewell
and hit the road again towards home.

Upon arrival at the house, we were told that we had the afternoon to
ourselves to do as we pleased, but that we were all to meet at the
Universal Studios globe for 7:00 PM sharp

No hints were given, but we were told NOT to be late.

With that in mind, some of us spent the afternoon enjoying the pool and hot tub, watching TV, napping, running errands, etc. At some point, Jennifer and her partner John set to work making us a delicious barbeque dinner which I was so pleased to wake up to after a most wonderful and desperately needed nap.

 

At dinner, I was serenaded once again by the group and presented with a delicious cupcake Birthday cake!

 

Shortly after dinner, we loaded back into our convoy and set out towards Universal Studios. We met at the Globe, each with our own guesses as to what the surprise might be and waited. 

Kerri had me come with her and Tye to pick up the tickets for this surprise, so I got to find out a little bit sooner than the group:

LIVE TV TAPING OF WRESTLING!

Tye almost had me convinced, and so the three of us still did our best to make sure the group seriously thought we were going to a live taping of wrestling before revealing the true surprise. 

Since there is no photography of any sort permitted inside of the theatre, I will do my best to recount the experience.

If you’ve never seen the Blue Man Group in action, you are missing out an entertaining evening filled with belly laughs and a permanent smile.

 

We were seated in the Splash Zone, which meant that there was an ever-present anticipation of being doused in some brightly coloured paint from the Group who famously pour loads of watery paint onto giant barrel-like drums and play until they themselves are drenched (though you can barely tell since their outfits are black).

 

Being so close to the stage also meant that there was an increased chance of interacting with the Group as they set out into the audience. At one point, one of the Men started walking through the crowd via our armrests and passed directly over Melanie Deighton.

Their show is truly something you need to see to fully understand, and I highly encourage you to take in a performance if you’re ever given the opportunity.

After the show, we made our way back to the house to rest up for our final full day in Orlando….

More on that later 🙂

Mélanie

On behalf of The Urban Spa

Woke up bright and early on day two of our Orlando trip, grabbed a little breakfast and each of our favourite forms of caffeine, then hit the road for our first Theme Park day! We arrived at Universal Studios just before rope drop on what (in photos) appears to be a gorgeous Florida day, but in reality was the coldest day of the year (by Florida’s standards).

It was about 3 degrees (Celsius) when this group shot was taken in front of the iconic Universal Studios globe. Note the jackets, long pants and occasional scarf. Oh, and the sandals (Kerri was obviously dressing for the weather she was hoping for). Only reached a high of about 12 degrees, but compared to the ice storms we were hearing about back at home… this was paradise!

Shortly after rope drop, our group of 16 broke off into smaller groups of folks with like-minded goals for this Theme Park day: the adrenaline junkies who upgraded to fast-passes, the semi-junkie, semi-meanders who had a flexible but driven plan to hit up the main attractions and then wander around, the meanderers who wanted to soak up the sights (and/or fully immerse themselves in the Wizarding World, then check out the rest of the park) and the lone wolf (Cole Leptick) who wandered off and took the most selfies with park characters out of all of us (combined).

Aside from those in the group who had already been to the Theme Park Capital of the World, many of us hadn’t really experienced a Theme Park before. We might have been familiar with Canada’s Wonderland, but we were in a whole new world (or worlds) now. Universal Studios is a fully immersive experience. As you travel through the different sections of the park, you leave the real world behind and find yourself in places you’ve only imagined or seen in movies/TV, such as a film studio backlot someplace in Hollywood, California or cartoonily-familiar Springfield, USA, home of The Simpsons.

There happens to be a Hello Kitty shop close to the entrance of Universal Studios and there also just so happens to be Hello Kitty’s biggest fan in the Urban Spa Staff. Samantha was so thrilled by getting to start the day meeting her idol, it definitely made her day!

Carry on down the road a bit and you find yourself in London, England, where right around the corner from Kings Cross Station you spot the secret entrance to Diagon Alley…. On the other side of the brick archway, everything — and I mean EVERYTHING — changes.

You forget you’re in a Theme Park, it’s all so real and all SO magical. It was a truly remarkable experience. One could spend a full day in this section of the park alone and each moment gaze upon yet another intricate detail that truly brought the place to life. Jen Cowey, an Esthetician at the Urban Spa, spent a lot of time photographing these details throughout her visit and says they were her favourite part of the day.

I would be hard-pressed to believe Sarah Tye, one the Spa’s Guest Reservation Specialists, were she to try and tell me that any part of the day was better than that first breath inside of the Wizarding World of Harry Potter. It took us a minute before we all caught her shedding tears of joy as she took it all in.

Sarah helped coordinate this trip with our fearless leader Kerri, and for every activity and surprise they planned for us, they must have got satisfaction ten-fold. You could literally see the immense sense of accomplishment wash over their faces as all of their hard work was finally coming to fruition. Tye also tends to jump up and down.

Realizing the level of intensity of the ride “Escape From Gringotts” while a bit too far into the immersive line-up while knowing that RMT Stuart was not a fan of thrill rides, might have been her second favourite. He rode with us anyway and was a bonafide ride junkie by the end of the day 😉

Some in the group chose to upgrade their park tickets to include access to Islands of Adventure next door to Universal Studios, while some had won the upgrade (Team C again!). This gave us a ticket on the Hogwarts Express, which departed from Kings Cross and delivered its passengers into Hogsmeade Village. Aside from being a clever mode of transportation between parks, the Train was also another incredibly detailed and immersive experience.

Once in Hogsmeade, you can’t help but notice the sincerely towering Hogwarts castle: absolutely breathtaking. Inside? no detail was spared. As you wait in line for the ride, you are treated to a detailed tour of the castle, through classrooms and common rooms, past winding staircases, through Dumbledor’s office and even past the Sorting Hat. And the ride at the end of the tour? My own personal favourite part of the day. I rode it twice!

Meanwhile, elsewhere in the park, memories and inside jokes are being made as our adrenaline junkies, namely, Kerri, JG, Mike and Madison, are fast-tracking from thrill-ride to thrill-ride. One stand out moment came with this beast of a roller coaster in Marvel Superhero Island… THE INCREDIBLE HULK. The ride starts out by accelerating to 40 mph (64 km/h) in approximately two seconds and launching its passengers into a series of twists, turns and loops that made Spa handyman and all-around laugh-riot Mike ROARRRR in the HULK’s signature fashion.

Something truly remarkable and seriously weird happened to our RMT Cole Leptick while wandering around Universal Studios; he met Doc Johnson of Back To The Future fame, who gave him a message from the future! After posing for a photo together, the Doc had to run, but before he did, he told Cole to ‘have fun sky-diving!” Cole didn’t think much of it until later that night when Kerri and Tye were announcing the next morning’s surprise excursion: a trip to iFly Orlando for a bit of INDOOR SKYDIVING!

More on that to come…

Mélanie

On behalf of The Urban Spa

In order to best accommodate our wonderful guests, the Urban Spa team waited for the New Year for our annual Christmas get away. Because of this, the spa was closed from January 6th-8th and we would like to sincerely thank our guests for being so understanding of this 🙂 We worked hard to earn our get away and your support and understanding is greatly appreciated.

As part of a thank you, we brought you back some of our favourite memories! Kerri and Jean-Guy (the co-owners of The UrbanSpa) organized this trip as a surprise for the team and having the events unwind was quite an adventure. We were all divided into three teams for some friendly competition. Each one of our challenges earned points for our team. The grand prize was some extra perks through out the awesome getaway!

The first stop of any adventure is to get into costume… and our theme… zombie apocalypse. The three teams were challenged to get into the best zombie attire they could and go get as many pictures in the public as possible. The public embarrassment was worth the fun 😉

Once we finished our zombie photo shoot, we packed up our stuff and walked outside to find a SUV limo, waiting to take us to our next destination! We were all under the impression that we would be car pooling, but the limo idea was much better 😉

 

As soon as we were piled into the limo the anticipation to see where we were headed really kicked in! We all paid close  attention to the direction we were headed and the next stop… BATL Pickering! We all got some one on one training time to figure out the axe throwing strategy, but after that it was game time! Some of us found this came quickly as a talent… others not so much LOL but regardless, we all had a great time! After a long day of competition, Shea Bailey walked away the champion!

For everyone who has never been to BATL before, we strongly recommend it! The staff are amazing and you’ll have the time of your life! Check them out here.

Axe throwing pretty much exhausted the team so the ride to our next destination was a little more relaxing. We cruised up to the Marriott and got assigned to our rooms with a bit of downtime before our dinner. We went to ONoir which was a first experience for most of us. ONoir was Canada’s first Dine in the Dark restaurant in 2006 and provides an experience like no other. Dining without your sight heightens your ability to smell and taste. It takes foods that you eat regularly, like potatoes and vegetables and adds an intense culinary flare.
ONoir also gives the experience of what it would be like to eat as if you were visually impaired, just like the wait staff at the restaurant.

All of this just in the first day! Day two began at 11:30 a.m. when we met as a team to find out what events awaited us that day.

We were all so excited to hear we were headed to the Ripley’s Aquarium for a tour! Another first  experience for most of us 🙂 The aquarium is breath taking. Their mission is to provide a world class experience that fosters education, conservation and research and they nailed it. One of the most amazing parts is the overhead tunnel. It is North America’s longest underwater viewing tunnelwith more than 5.7 million liters of water. You walk through the tunnel while different fish, sharks and stingrays are swimming overhead. It is absolutely breath taking.

The final outing of our get away was a big one… numerous members of the Urban Spa team actually had this on their bucket list so you could say it was a dream come true… CIRQUE Du SOLEIL! Our team have a passion for entertainment and theater, this experience was phenomenal.  The show was “Toruk- The First Flight” inspired by James Camerons “Avatar.” It truly was a jaw dropping experience. The cast was amazingly talent and the performance captivated our undivided attention. It is an experience that nobody will ever forget.Thank you again to all of our wonderful guests who were happy to celebrate the New Year with us and for your understanding during our getaway time. I hope that you enjoy the moments that we brought back for you 🙂