The Adults Only Tour 2015 – Day Sixteen

Day Sixteen – 11^th September

I’m afraid the theme park thing didn’t last long and today I must warn you of two things.

1. As today was our visit to Typhoon Lagoon, on this dull, cold January day this report will include photos of glorious Florida sunshine, blue skies and temperatures you can only dream of.
2. There may well be images, possibly only mental ones, that may drive you lady types crazy as I spent the day in just my shorts. I shall pause just a moment to allow you time to process that.

You can take for granted that everyone was awake and up later than we needed to be. I had been quite chilled about our departure time, knowing that Typhoon Lagoon only opened at 10. My chill had vanished by 10.05 when we finally left the villa.

Obtaining shade at a Florida water park, in the summer can literally be the difference between life and death. Ok, I may exaggerate a little but it can certainly be the difference between third degree burns and skin you can live with.

I always wonder why there is so little shade provided at these places. Are US folks equipped with sun repellent skin? Is it some form of collusion with the medical centres of Florida to provide them with endless business with guest after guest trotting off to Centra Care with sunstroke?

It seems so un-Disney, who are normally so concerned about their guests welfare that the tram from the car park has more safety announcements than the steel tube that takes you over the Atlantic.

Anyway, I digress. We arrived at 10.40 to a car park empty enough to suggest that we may be able to find some shelter.

There are many signs that we may have been to WDW more often than we should. One of them is that we have “our spot” at Typhoon Lagoon. Once through the gates we headed there hopeful of finding it empty. We did, and we did the usual dragging around of sunbeds and chairs until everyone was happy with the exact position of their chosen implement of leisure.

Our spot is such as it is covered by a good number of palm trees and once we are in it, it is small enough for our flabby milky bodies to deter anyone else from joining us there.

This is the view from our spot. You are only allowed to use our spot on the occasions we are not in Typhoon Lagoon.

For the next few minutes we all stood and sat around rubbing cream into our bodies. At no other time is this socially acceptable…just in case you were wondering. Tradition dictates that as soon as I have sun cream rubbed into my skin I should immediately go into the wave pool so that it can be washed off. So that’s what we did. That we was me, the girls and Grandad.

Great fun was had by us all being battered by the waves. At times like these I curse my rubbish eye sight as without my glasses on my view of the lovely environment is hindered. Sensibly, I do not wear my glasses in the very rough wave pool and thankfully it also means I can’t properly see those pesky lifeguards with their bright red swim suits.

Alas, Grandad is a little less sensible and entered the wave pool with his sunglasses. We can now add those to the list of stuff he lost on this holiday. Somewhere in Orlando some chap is walking around with a lovely watch and a pair of sunglasses.

When our bodies could take no more from the waves we retired to our places of rest and did some of that. I read for a bit. Having been in the blazing sun for over an hour Louise then took Sarah off to do some slides and rides. The rest of us stayed….in our spot.

Soon enough lunch time rolled around. Technically it was about 11.30, but we are on holiday so what are you going to do? I have to say that our lunch experiences here have been average in the past and today was to be no different. We chose from the usual selection of burgers, chicken sandwiches and salads and sat on one of the benches in the bird shit zone.

Once we’d had enough food, or rather didn’t want to eat any more of it, we fed the birds around and about us. We then had a lengthy debate about whether feeding one of the birds some chicken was breaking some law of nature.

After food Louise, Sarah and I did the lazy river. I’m sure there’s very clever scientific explanation for this, but they seemed to be travelling much faster than I was. I had a double ring, which is quite a rare medical condition I’m told, but I’m not sure why that explains why they soon vanished into the distance. I lay back, closed my eyes and didn’t worry about it, until some little shite sprayed me with cold water from the side of the river. I gave him the speech from Taken as I floated past and I’ve never seen a six year old run so fast.

I’m not sure how many times I went around as I didn’t take any notice of the little sign at the place I got in. At some point that afternoon Grandad appeared beside me but I have no idea how he found me. We floated for a little longer until we had to go back to our spot for more resting. A few of our party moved down to the shallows of the water to sit there for a bit as they were pretty well done at that point. Inevitably during the afternoon I had to restroom so I wandered off to find one. It was close by, but I’m not sure if the water feature at the entrance was intentional. The door was underneath one of the slides and there was a constant waterfall of freezing cold water flowing from above the door.

My need to get rid of some water overrode my reluctance to walk through some, so in I went. I was drenched and again on the way out.

For a change we did not have to leave mid-afternoon due to a huge thunderstorm and we left voluntarily at 4.45. Every one of us were feeling the sun’s effects and once back at the villa the showers were a little more painful than they should have been.

We left for dinner at 7.30 heading for Romanos. We had a fairly typical twenty-minute wait browsing the menu before being seated and greeted with the usual fresh bread and oil dip. This simple affair is one of my favourite things on the planet.

We had –

Me and Grandad – Shrimp Portofino

Nana – Penne Rustica

Rebecca – Italian Bake

Sarah – Flatbread (my apologies for this photo)

Louise – Mama’s Trio

We all went big on desserts tonight with five cheesecakes and one chocolate cake finding their way to our table. With a few wines the bill came to $195 including tip.

You may be amazed to discover we felt very full, again and went home immediately to go to sleep.

Till the next time….