The Crayola Experience Orlando and Siesta Key, Florida September 2024 🖍️ 🏝️

Recently our family of four returned from a two week long trip to Florida. We spent eight days at Walt Disney World and divided up the rest of our time between Orlando, The Gulf Coast and LEGOLAND in Winter Haven.

The Crayola Experience 🖍️

We started the second portion of our trip at The Crayola Experience in Orlando. Years ago our kids watched a YouTube video made by The Neverland Family about this place and have wanted to visit ever since. The Crayola Experience in located inside The Florida Mall. It’s easy to get to with ample parking.

Cost of Admission

Tickets cost 29.99 a person if purchased the day of, 26.99 if purchased online in advance. We lucked out and the month of September tickets were half off for homeschooling families!

Admission to The Crayola Experience includes: a bag for souvenirs, a coupon for a free scribble scrubbie, and four tokens that can be used to personalize a crayon and pick out a package of model magic.

Layout

We checked out of our hotel after enjoying our free hotel breakfast (yay!) and arrived at the Crayola Factory just before 10 AM. The layout of this place is one expansive open area, divided into stations with various hands on activities at each.

Crayola Experience Activities

Some of our kids favorite activities included: making personalized crayons, creating selfie coloring sheets, design their own outfit and car, making their own comic, crayon spin art and making a melted sea horse.

Be a Star 🤩

You Design 👗

Anika’s favorite activity was You Design.

First you draw and design an outfit or design a vehicle.

Next you scan it into the computer and then add personal touches. For their outfits you pick a hairstyle, shoes and accessories for your model. The vehicle you pick tires, etc.

Then you wait for it to appear on the big screen. The models walk the cat walk and the vehicles drive out and around. The kids loved this and wanted to do it again and again.

Wrap It Up

Here you get to pick out a crayon color, personalize it with writing an image, print the label and then put it on yourself!

Cartoon Creator

Here we took a picture of ourselves, then we watched as the CrayolaBot sketched it. Then we took the picture and created a cartoon out of it.

Crayon Spin Art!

World’s Largest Crayon

We saw the world’s largest crayon.

We were there a solid three hours, but we could have stayed here all day. There was so much to do and the kids loved all of it.

Before the trip we read The Crayon Man: The True Story of the Invention of Crayola Crayons, by Natascha Biebow and completed The Waldock Way free Edward Binney Unit Study. I planned to attend the live theater show to complement this unit study but we ran out of time. We were hungry and still had a bit of a drive to get to the coast that evening.

We loved The Crayola Experience and would definitely recommend it. Using the mall exit we grabbed lunch at the food court.

St. Petersburg

After lunch we made a quick stop at Walmart and then headed toward Florida’s Gulf Coast. There was quite a bit of traffic so it took us a solid three hours to get to St. Petersburg. We were hoping to stay at a place on the beach but prices were insane, even during the off season of September. Instead we ended up staying at Crystal Bay Hotel. This is a historic hotel that back in it’s prime had guest like Marilyn Monore, Babe Ruth and Robert Kennedy. It kind of feels like it’s prime has past. Our room smelled of mold or mildew. Not just the room, the bedding, the towels, etc.

The staff here was so friendly though. When checking out Jamie mentioned this to the front desk and she tried to refund us our money. We had paid using credit card points (here’s a link that gets us both bonus points if you are in need of a travel credit card) so she unfortunately couldn’t, but instead gave us a coupon for a free night. It really was no use to us since we wouldn’t be returning to the area, but it was thoughtful of her. She said she would have the room looked at too.

Driving the Gulf Coast

Our plan today was to start in Clearwater and drive the Florida Gulf Coast south to Siesta Key, stopping along the way when we wanted.

Clearwater

We started in Clearwater at Sand Key Park.

First time seeing and feeling the gulf water.

We got some pastries from Pipo n Betty’s Bakery

Anna Maria Island

We stopped at Anna Maria Island

Siesta Key

Siesta Market

Then we headed down to Siesta Key. We went into Siesta Market to grab sandwiches for lunch. The man working the deli was so kind to us. He offered to make our sandwiches fresh, exactly how we wanted and even gave the kids free chocolate chip cookies. This was definitely one of the highlights of the day. We also found our Florida magnet here. We went with a classic white sand dollar.

Anytime I see signs like these, I immediately think of that scene from Elf with “the worlds best cup of coffee” and can’t help but say out loud ” You did it, congratulations, #1 Beach in the USA!” 🤣

Dragonflies!

One of my favorite moments of this trip was at Siesta Key Beach when we saw hundreds of dragonflies swarming around together. It was amazing. We learned they migrate to Florida in the fall to breed. I couldn’t capture it with a photo but it’s captured in my mind.

The sand was powdery white.

I hate to be negative in anyway, because I realize we were so fortunate to be able to go on this trip and experience the things we did but…to be 100 percent honest we weren’t a fan of the gulf beaches, the section of them we saw anyway. The sand was incredible. So soft, white and powdery. It felt like cornstarch. The dragonflies were amazing. So cool that our timing worked out and we got to witness that during this time of year. The rest of it was not eh for us. The beach was just so hot and kind of smelled. The water was warm but not in a good way. We kept hoping to be able to see the coastline as we drove and that just never happened. It has been so built up by tall hotels and condos that completely block the view. It felt pretty greedy and sad that their coastline hadn’t been preserved. After our experiences with Maine, New Hampshire, The Carolina’s and California coasts we were a bit taken a back by what it’s like here. The only way to see the ocean is to find a spot in a crowded parking lot, make the trek through the fiery hot concrete, to a beach packed full of people. Happy we got to experience something different, but I don’t think we will be returning.

Headed Inland

After our day exploring the coast we drove to our hotel inland, because the prices of anything near the beach were insanely expensive, and that’s saying a lot since we just left Disney 🤣

We got burritos and a Mangonadas from Taqueria los Hermanos in Rankin. The food was delicious and the staff was so friendly and nice.

This was the Mangonada. It was a frozen mango desert topped with all kind of deliciousness.

We spent the evening relaxing in our hotel room and preparing for the final portion of this two week vacation, three days at LEGOLAND Resort!