It was another rough wake up.
I think the go, go, go of the previous four days of park crawling was catching up to them.
This does NOT look like a picture of two swim-crazed kids on their way to a Disney water park.
We arrived at the park to find that the Slush Gusher and Summit Plummet slides were closed that day for repair.
Those two slides were kinda the reason we chose this water park, as Huzbend has wanted to ride them for, like, ever.
He was bummed.
We had splurged and reserved an umbrella spot with four chairs and a small table. It ended up being right next to the wave pool in a roped off area (right behind Mikey in the picture below).
We would totally do that again.
All grumpies disappeared when eyes were laid on the wave pool.
I would have to say, my grumpy slightly increased with the knowledge of swimming all day.
Not a big water park fan.
Anywho, they jumped right in.
There's no pictures of Katie because she ran into the pool and immediately swam to the farthest spot out where the waves originate and hence are pretty big.
Huzbend followed her out there.
He came back in with a tube and grabbed Mikey to go brave the waves.
It was hard to coax the kids out of the wave pool.
We finally pulled them out and rode the chair lift to the top of the mountain to access the slides.
Sorry, there aren't very many pictures. It's hard to take pictures on water slides.
We rode a really fun family rapids ride, did some single-rider tube slides, participated in some toboggan races and then headed over to the kiddie area where the kids climbed across water on ice bergs, rode smaller slides and enjoyed a zip line.
By this time, we were starving and headed to the Lottawatta Lodge for lunch.
Huzbend and the kids enjoyed what they had, but my lunch was horrible.
Ugh.
I got a chicken wrap that had too little chicken, waaaaay too much lettuce and NO SAUCE in it.
I was thinking it would have, like, Caesar dressing in there or something.
Nothin.
It was Ew, with a capital E.
After lunch, we dove right back in.
We rode all the slides we had done before and did the family river rapids ride TWO more times.
It was THAT much fun.
The kids decided that it was time to chill out a bit and we headed to the lazy river.
Katie did not want to leave the lazy river.
I think she would've stayed in it for about six more hours given the choice.
But, it was getting close to leaving time.
We had reservations at Chef Mickey's that evening for dinner with Granma and Grampa.
We headed to the wave pool one more time and then packed it up at about 4pm.
The bus took FOREVER to pick us up at Blizzard Beach and bring us back to the Poly.
We were getting panicked, as time was tick-ticking away.
Because of the delay, we wouldn't have time to stop at our room to get changed for dinner, and I did not pack Katie any pants to change into. Ooops.
We arrived back at the Poly with about 10 minutes to spare before our reservation check-in time.
We grabbed the grandparents, hopped on the monorail and made our way to the Contemporary Resort, lickety-split.
And so, we had to attend dinner still wearing our damp swimsuits under our clothes.
Yuck.
Well, everyone except Mikey.
I had to quickly find some shorts for Katie to wear to dinner, so as the rest of our party checked-in we grabbed the first pair of shorts in the nearby stores that looked like they would fit her and purchased them.
PHEW! We made it just in time!
The kids were super silly by this point, feeding off the craziness of our travels to the restaurant, so a "silly picture" was in order.
Their whackiness pretty much matched the atmosphere of Chef Mickey's.
That place is loud and downright crazy.
So, it was alllll good.
As luck would have it, the first guy we met as we sat down was Chef Mickey himself.
Mikey was happy. Meeting Mickey was one of his top priorities for the trip.
"Hey, look Mom, it's Minnie."
Awwww.
Minnie always seems to have her hand up to her mouth politely covering her giggles.
Which is extra convenient for her as she always seems to be blowing kisses at everyone.
Minnie is in high demand and as such, skedaddled from table to table pretty quickly.
Donald was all about the hugs on his first visit through.
Hug here.....
Hug there....and he was off to the next table.
Oh! You know what? They had eggplant parmesan in the dinner buffet!!!
Really!
I was a happy camper.
Know who else was a happy camper?
Granma.
Dessert buffet, anyone?
Mickey! Again!
This dude really moves fast.
He was very efficient.
Mickey was followed by the Goof.
He only got around to us once.
He seemed to really take his time at each table playing and interacting with the kids.
As you can see. He liked Mikey's hair.
Taaa-daaaa!
There's just somethin' about the Goof.
He's just so photogenic.
And funny.
We only saw Pluto once as well.
Kids love Pluto.
I mean who wouldn't want a hug from a giant fluffy dog??
Speaking of goofy, Katie decided she was going to suck on a lemon.
Why?
I have NO idea.
Classic.
Meanwhile, Mikey and Grampa were having some fun on the other side of the table.
Donald stopped by for one more visit.
Being the romantic he is, he greeted Granma with a kiss to the hand.
"Enchante!"
And then gave us a cute picture pose.
We asked Donald where Daisy was.
He answered that she was off dancing the night away somewhere and that he didn't need her anyways.
Yep. We got all that from just his pantomime answers.
One last Chef Mickey pose picture!
Cheeeeeeeeeeeeeeese!
After dinner, we wandered around the Grand Canyon Concourse at the Contemporary for a while.
When we hopped on the monorail to head back to the Poly to enjoy some of the resort entertainment offerings, it began to pour rain.
And if you've been to Florida when it pours it's actually like a river is falling from the sky.
The rain fell so hard and fast that we couldn't even leave the lobby to get to our room!
And so, we hung in the Poly lobby for a bit watching old Disney cartoons.
It wasn't very exciting, but it allowed us some time to get some good group photos.
The rain just wasn't letting up and all the entertainment for the evening had been cancelled.
It was getting late and Granma and Grampa still had to drive back home.
So, we called it a night.
It was a bummer we couldn't have had a bit more fun together.
Thanks for coming to visit us!!!
Katie's Favorite Parts of the Day:
- everything
I told her she had to give me specifics, so she hesitantly acquiesced:
- the iceberg obstacle course at Blizzard Beach
- dinner at Chef Mickey's with Granma and Grampa
Mikey's Favorite Part of the Day:
- the wave pool at the water park
