School’s Out! Texas Vacation

It’s official!!! School is out and summer vacation has begun! We booked 5 nights at our favorite family Texas resort JW Marriott San Antonio Hill Country Resort & Spa. If you want adjoining rooms, it’s easiest to call and book your trip. We’ve been to this resort 5 times since Avery was born and it’s been such a blast every year! The kids love all of the slides (there are 5 big ones!), the lazy river, large sand area, and the big hot tub. It’s a fantastic resort with yummy restaurants! In the past, we’ve never left the resort during our stay but this time we booked a few activities since this will be our only long trip during the summer (unless I can convince Aaron to close his office during his peak season 😉 Doubtful and I don’t blame him!). We spent the first few days playing all morning and night in the water park! Then on day 3, we jumped in the car and went to the Natural Bridge Caverns. YOU GUYS… it was unreal!

We booked tickets for the Discovery Tour and I think just doing 1 tour with the kids was the perfect amount of time and walking. It’s pretty humid inside and lots of walking so you’ll want to have short sleeves and sneakers. The views were incredible and the kids were mesmerized and entertained. Definitely a must-see if you’ve never experienced walking in natural caverns. Afterwards, we swung by one of our favorite Mexican restaurants in San Antonio, the Alamo Cafe. They have the yummiest homemade tortillas! We ended the night in the hot tub back at the resort since the waterslides closed at 6pm. The resort felt EMPTY for the majority of our stay since it was right before official summer season! We love the Velocity restaurant (huge portions and yummy food) and Cibolo Moon (lobster mac & cheese and Brisket Burnt Ends are our favs)! For breakfast, we brought lots of protein bars and applesauce for the kids to munch on in the morning after they woke up. They were all wide awake by 7am every morning but they let us sleep in, which was amazing. We feel like we’ve “arrived” when we can sleep in on a family trip and we’ll never take that for granted haha.

On the 4th day, we bought tickets to SeaWorld in San Antonio. Aaron hasn’t been since he was a kid and since they’ve made a lot of changes, we felt comfortable taking the kids! The park was super empty, so we never had to wait in line for the rollercoaster rides! We put sunscreen on before we left the car, so we walked in with nothing but phones and car keys. Since it was so empty, we didn’t pay for the upgraded parking or the fast pass ticket option. Perks of going off-season! If you go during the busy season, paying for the fast pass (they call it quick queue) and reserved seating at shows is probably a good call if you want to spring for the extra $25 per ticket. The shows were incredible and I appreciated they were less about tricks and more about educating the kids on the amazing animals! Also a nice break from the rollercoasters and sun since the arenas are covered. We saw the Orca Encounter, Sea Lion High, and Ocean Discovery shows. Totally recommend all 3! If it’s lunch time, you better rush to the restaurant after a show because a ton of people are getting out at the same time and lines get long very quickly. We bought the $16 unlimited refills cup and shared that all day. The kids splash pad and play area is massive and tons of fun, so definitely have your kiddos in swimsuits.

It’s been so much fun exploring new places in our state! What’s been your favorite family vacation?!

Scroll down to see a bunch of snapshots from my iphone!