Summer Adventures Part 2
June 30th, 2010 by Jen Hen under Places to Go, Travel Bug, Travels. No Comments.
Where did I leave off yesterday? I knew I should have checked before I started writing… Oh! I left off at shopping… and I almost forgot to include that we decided to go to that near mandatory tourist stop, Joe’s Crab Shack. This was a first time experience for all of us, and I dare say that if you ask my husband you’ll find that he fell in love. DH is a seafood fan. When he opened the menu I was pretty sure I started seeing drool run down his chin. He ordered some huge basket of food that had everything from corn on the cob to crab legs in it, and he got to wear one of those bibs. (X and I might have giggled a little when the waiter tied a bib on Cam.) Yes, I got the souvenir tie-dye shirt before we left (with $5 off because X and I solved the word puzzle on the wall).
Time to pick up on Tuesday of our trip to Florida. Tuesday was a full day at Sea World’s new water park, Aquatica (I think it opened in 2008… but check out their website by clicking HERE and it will give you the details). This was a huge splurging day for us as the waterpark was the main thing that X-man kept talking about wanting to do while we were coming up with our list of things to do in the months leading up to the vacation. We rented a Cabana for the day and I assure you I was glad that we did. The Cabana had curtains you could close on all sides, 2 loungers, 4 beach chairs, a table, private locker, private fridge stocked with 16 drinks in a combination of water, soda, and tropical punch (any of which you could trade out for other options), a ceiling fan to bring in some air circulation, and shade (courtesy of those curtains). We also got arm bands that gave us the “VIP” treatment which boiled down to 20% discounts on food and merchandise at the park. We dined at Banana Beach Cookout with the all-you-care-to-eat ALL day plan which meant unlimited trips back to the buffet during the day… fantastic deal when you have a husband that eats like mine does. The buffet had hamburgers, hot dogs, fruit, dessert, bar-b-que, chicken, veggies, and salad. You couldn’t leave the dining area with your food but you could go back as many times as you wanted for refills on your drink and take the drink with you around the park. I’m fairly certain DH Cam got our money’s worth out of the buffet. haha. We ate lunch mid-afternoon at the cookout, then went back and got our dinner a little while before dining closing time so that we got a full two meals out of our purchase.
X-man and DH had a BLAST together as they ventured around to all the big slides that I decided to opt out of with Baby 3 in tow. I enjoyed floating on their version of the lazy river, Loggerhead Lane. My only complaint on this river was that there was nowhere for the unused floats to be placed so they stayed on a constant course which brought some congestion at times. However, it was so neat overall. In two different sections you floated under aquariums and got to see tropical fish and dolphins! The three of us hung out at the wave pool for quite a while and on occasion Cam and I, or just I, would go back to the Cabana and let X-man have his fun while we took a break from the sun. I even managed to steal a 30 minute cat nap at the Cabana while DH and X went to go on some of the water slides.
When we left the park we were exhausted from the walking, the sun, and the play so we went straight back to our condo at Silver Lake Resortto relax the rest of the evening. X-man is a fish out of water so we ended up at the pool again that night, but most of the evening consisted of resting, reading, and watching television. Wednesday was promising to be another big adventure and I had to recoop.
X-man at 8:30am: “What are we doing today mom?”
Me: “Oh… nothing really. I think we’ll just stay here at the condo all day.”
X-man: “Oh.”
Me: “Just kidding! How about…. hmmm… Disney World? Epcot?”
X-man: “YESsssssssss! When do we leave?!?”
I made him wait a full 4 hours before leaving (hey, the park doesn’t even open until 11am and I wasn’t about to wait in line for an hour just to get in!).
I believe he thinks I'm crazy
And so we arrived… at Epcot. DH Cam and I went to Epcot when we traveled to Florida by ourselves in June of 2009 and absolutely loved the park but there was a lot we didn’t get to while we were there (mostly for lack of interest without any kids with us because they were kiddie rides). X-man being with us meant a better excuse to go through those areas and X-man loved it. We did everything from going into our “future” to taking a boat ride through Disney’s greenhouse (they have some seriously neat techniques for optimizing space and produce growth… think… tomato “trees”). Then we ventured into the countries in the World Center.
DH Cam and me (and Baby 3 bumping out my belly)
X-man playing the drums in "Mawahli" at Disney's Epcot
X-man decided he wanted American food for dinner, so we ate in “America” at Epcot (DH Cam and I don’t really recommend their roast beef sandwiches) then ventured around to the rest of the countries. X and I decided we wanted to get some chocolate from “France” and can I just say… de-li-cious! We both LOVED it. Seriously, far superior to any I’ve ever eaten.
Venturing through “Morocco”, “China”, “Japan”, “Mexico”, “Germany”, “Switzerland”, and the “Netherlands” gave us the opportunity to see authentic foods, toys, and various items from each country. I, of course, had to keep some educational factor into the experience so X and I talked about the different things we were seeing, the different foods available in each of the countries, and the different Disney stories that came from each of the countries (ie. Snow White from Germany, Aladdin from Morocco, The Three Caballeros from Mexico, etc.). X was surprised to learn that The Smurfs also came from German stories.
As nightfall approached we decided to “set-up camp” in “Japan” to wait for “Disney Illuminations”, the firework, music, and light show. AMAZING! It was by far the most breathtaking firework display I have seen in my life. I was crying by half way through and X-man never took his eyes off. I could go into great detail describing what we saw, but it’s really just not the same as seeing it for yourself. Just know that I HIGHLY recommend the experience if the opportunity ever presents itself.
We apparently went on a really good day because the crowd wasn’t overpowering, we hardly had to wait in lines, and when the fireworks were over it took us a mere 10 minutes to walk from “Japan” on the opposite side of the park to the entrance, and make it back to our car. Within 20 minutes of “Illuminations” ending we were back at our condo and recouping from the day’s adventure.
Of course I have about a hundred more photos I could share, but I’ll spare the bogging of your browser. Nice, right? Stay tuned for Part 3 of the Summer Adventure series.
