Typhoon Lagoon (Day 6)

I turned the alarms off last night so we woke up a little later today. Nothing on the agenda apart from going to Typhoon Lagoon water park for a few hours and then the Golden Corral buffet restaurant for dinner as its Roberts favourite. Hit Denny’s for breakfast and waiting forever to get food but we were in a rush to get anywhere today so we were cool. Decided to pay the shopping malls a little visit before going swimming - it’s was awesome a huge Nike shop, Converse, Under Armor & Timberland to name a few. For the kids however not so much (no toy shops you see). Picked up a few things (mostly Nike shaped things) and after a wee walk around some of the shops headed off to Typhoon Lagoon. Got some loungers and hit the big pool then onto the lazy river before the thunder hit. Bad. Pretty much time to head home at that point then though everyone seemed to have the same idea so traffic was crazy and took us forever to get home. Buffet dinner, which was good as we were all real hungry. Home. Blog. Bed.

Coffee while you wait.

Got a good nights sleep and we all got up a little later which we needed. Breakfast at Denny’s today and we shoved the swimming stuff in the car so we didn’t need to go back to the hotel. They didn’t do my favourite breakfast option from last time - the bacon avocado burrito - so settled for a veggie omelette. And coffee. A guy who made balloon animals was doing the rounds so Robert got a sword (that looked like a flamberge), Gracie got a butterfly and Patrick wanted a hat. However, balloons and hungry, restless children don’t mix too well so the kids were balloon-less five minutes later. Food was taking a while, a long while, a problem in the kitchen by the looks of it, but it’s like unlimited coffee (no bad thing really) so I had like four before my veggie omelette came. Gracie got chic chip pancakes for her breakfast, not a pancake lover but these things looked good, even better than Ann’s cinnamon ones! We decided to make a wee impromptu trip to Orlando Premium Outlets before swimming as my Dad had been in Florida for 3 days now and hadn’t been shopping yet. Wouldn’t be a long trip just scoping out what’s available and it was only a few miles away so didn’t take long to get there at all.

Just do it!

So after seeing there was a Nike store at the Outlets, made a beeline to the shop to see what they had in store. Picked up some running shorts and training top to start, but trying to pace myself as I knew we’d be back another day and some of the American football gear had my name all over it. My dad bought the boys trainers with Patrick getting a size 5.5 - that’s bigger than Ann’s shoe size!!! Popped in next door to converse, and wee Gracie got the coolest pair of pink boots ever, courtesy of my dad again. Next up Under Armor - GAAAAH!!! Gimme ALL THE STUFF. Ended up buying a hat, seen a really cool black one but since I have two black ones already got a nice red one (Colours, BLEUGH!). The boys and Ann picked one up too but Grace wasn’t interested - not girly enough for her it seems. Dad also bought me a cool military green tee :) Will probably, definitely come back in to see the running gear next visit - it looked cool! Kids were getting a wee bit fed up with all the shopping (that’s what kids do right, I was the same when I was here as a boy), so a few more shops and we headed for the car.

Water, water everywhere..

Reached Typhoon Lagoon mid-afternoon and quickly found base camp. The set up of the park is as if a typhoon has been through it and there’s a huge tidal wave in the main pool so and we were itching to get in to try it. Gracie needed me to lift her and get in a little deeper water which I did but by the first wave I ended up away back in the shallow end again. Wash Rinse Repeat for Gracie. Patrick really loved it too, and kept edging closer and closer out to the wave each time. After a few waves (and videos :) we moved on to Castaway Creek, a huge lazy river pretty much like the one we were on earlier in the week. Nearly made it once round before the rain began and the park lived up to its name. It was an absolute downpour. Got back to my mum who wanted to stay with our stuff and chill out for a bit, and everything including our bag (and its contents) were saturated and that was after just 5 minutes! Good job I decided to pop my phone in a zip-lock bag beforehand otherwise it wouldn’t have survived - phew! Got some video of the rain and thunder on the GoPro while we made our way out of the park, still in our swimming gear.

So there we sat soaking wet with our swimming trunks/suits on in a car in Florida with the heating up full blast! To top it all off there was what appeared to be a major RTC on the road up ahead so we were absolutely stationary on the road for over a hour. Here’s hoping everyone was OK. It seemed to be the theme for the day - waiting on stuff, but we just took it all in our stride. Finally got turned round and headed to the hotel to get changed into dryer clothes for dinner.

High Steaks!

To make up for the lack of pics since I didn’t have my camera with me today, here’s a walking dead meme that I thought of when we went to the Golden Corral tonight. Anyway, yeah buffet restaurant that serves practically EVERYTHING. After getting settled me and my sidekick Grace grabbed some plates (though she’s really been my mums sidekick since she got here, not giving her a minute). I went for a nice salad to kick off, whereas Grace asked for cucumber, sweet corn, coleslaw and nearly half a fried chicken - and she gave it a really good go (hope that’s her finally got her appetite back). I then tucked into some steak (which was over an inch thick!) while Grace went for her dessert - Candy Floss, Chocolate fountain covered marshmallows and a chocolate cupcake on top of a chocolate brownie. Yeah she definitely has her appetite back - Welcome to Hyper kid city! Everyone else was well fed too - don’t think we’ll need a breakfast tomorrow but we’ll probably have one anyway! A wee trip to Circle K because strange things were afoot (recycled that joke from last time, but no one else got it save for PG), then home. Our first non Disney park tomorrow… Universal Studios - I can’t wait!!! :)