Florididdypop Volume 2 - Day 7: Clearwater and Bahama Breeze

[moosha]

Day 7 – Wednesday 23rd April 2014

Today was a 'rest day' of sorts, but since we were driving down to Clearwater for the day, we knew it was going to be a long, and probably, tiring one. I got up at 6 and the plan was we would all skip showers as we'd each had one before bed the previous night. So we should be out of the door quite quickly this morning, right? Hmm.

The girls were struggling to wake up so we left them until 7 while we packed up for the beach and had some cereal. Then, being caring and considerate parents, we dragged them out of bed and plonked them both in front of a bowl of Special K in the hope that it would wake them up a bit. We managed to leave the room at 7.30 am, and Mat had the idea that we should pick up coffees from the Starbucks at the hotel to enjoy on the way, and grab some pastries while we were there to have when we arrived at Clearwater. We were planning a late lunch / early dinner (linner?) so I thought this was a good plan (and the girls would never say no to a pastry.) Unfortunately, getting the coffees and pastries took a bit longer than I have the patience for. There were a fair few people in there, and I guess with the hotel being so new, perhaps there were some pretty new staff too.

Remember how on the previous day we had got coffees from the Starbucks in CityWalk and I said we probably should have got them at Cabana Bay and taken them on the bus? Well, this Starbucks seemed to take just as long, so I'm not sure whether I would recommend using the hotel one before heading to the Universal parks for the day. I guess if you're running a bit ahead of schedule, if you pick it up at Cabana Bay, you won't then have to stop at CityWalk and can be drinking it on the bus. Having said all that, I think Starbucks etc always take longer to process my transaction and get my drinks ready than I think it's going to take when I walk in, in this country too. Buying coffee just takes time, but for us (particularly Mat), it was often a necessary component of being able to function in the parks after not much sleep.

It was 8 am before we were in the car (we'd moved it to the check-in parking from the 'Castaway' section guest parking before stopping at Starbucks so we could be on the road quicker.) So I wasn't all that amused with this delay :angry:. The Cabana Bay Starbucks is very nicely decorated though. Teacups hanging from the ceiling:



Aah...mermaids:



Two other points to mention from Starbucks: Firstly, while Mat was faffing at the counter buying the coffees and pastries, an American lady and her teenage son came up to the girls and I and asked if we were staying in the resort. When I said we were, she handed me a plastic card containing all of their leftover credits from the Game-a-rama arcade upstairs. She said there were over one hundred credits on there and she didn't want them to go to waste. I thanked her and we went on our way thinking how kind and thoughtful that was of her. And secondly, pastry wise, the girls and I all wanted chocolate croissants and Mat wanted an almond croissant (he always has that if it's on offer which I just don't get. How dry and boring.) Remember our preferences for later.

1 x espresso (for the driver), 1 x americano, 4 x pastries = $15.55 including tax.

So, 8 am, we set off and the journey down to Clearwater was pleasant enough. It was slightly overcast if I remember rightly but still warm and we could see the sun was starting to break through. As I've said before, we loved being in 'The Dodge' and pretending it was our real car. And we had our Florididdypop CDs to sing along to, which was most enjoyable. By now we had already decided that 'Me & You' by Laura Marano (from the Disney Channel Austin & Ally soundtrack number two) and 'Loud' by R5 were our holiday songs, along with the previously mentioned 'Heart Attack' by Demi Lovato. All three are just awesome pop songs that we still can't stop listening to and they're all just perfect holiday tunes.

I should mention, although I'd rather forget it, that Freya was being a grotbags this morning. Almost a week of being down a couple of hours sleep (at least) per night was starting to take its toll on her usually sunny demeanour. I think Seren is now at an age where less sleep than usual doesn't affect her mood too much, but for our little six year old it was definitely having an impact. I had a feeling she would probably fall asleep on the long journey back from Clearwater later on which should do her some good, and being a rest day, surely we'd be in bed early tonight, right? Stay tuned to see how true that was. For now, we tried to just ignore Freya's grumpiness and tread on eggshells a bit to avoid major meltdowns that none of us fancied enduring on holiday.

Seren and Mat, who both have bladders the size of egg cups I'm sure, were both saying they needed the toilet around 9 am. So we stopped at a McDonalds at one of the rest areas and nipped in to use the toilets (apart from Freya who was refusing to get out of the car, so we had to take it in turns.) We didn't buy anything while we were there so that was a bit naughty of us. I felt bad using the 'facilities' without spending a penny, as it were, but not bad enough to buy anything we didn't need.

On the way through Tampa we saw the Bahama Breeze which sits on the edge of the water, which looked lovely. Our plan had already been to stop there on the way back since we hadn't made it to the Orlando one so far, and seeing how pretty the view was from there, we were even more convinced that we should stop there for linner (I'm going with it even if it's not a real word) on the way back.

We also passed the big Hard Rock Casino which I immediately recognised a couple of weeks ago when I was watching the Anna Nicole Smith Autopsy programme. It was the hotel in which she died. Nice .

We arrived in Clearwater at 10 am.



Driving through the city towards the beach, Mat was getting stressed out as he always does when he's driving and doesn't know where he's supposed to be going. As we had only plugged 'Clearwater Beach' into Jane (the sat nav) we didn't really have a proper destination in mind for parking. I had made some notes on different places to park but finding a spot wasn't going too well and we drove around for a couple of minutes, the temperature inside the car starting to rise despite the lovely cool air conditioning. I had it in the back of my mind that we could probably park at one of the hotels as I had read that somewhere, but that would be more expensive to do so than at the standard car parks.

We drove past the Hilton Clearwater Beach that I'm pretty sure I stayed at with my family back in the 90s. The other side of the hotel was the Marina car park which was pretty much empty so we headed there. A sign said 'parking for marina activities only' and we weren't sure whether that included boat trips, which is what we were here for. We pulled into a space and Mat went off to investigate, taking Freya with him as she was being a monster to her sister. Meanwhile, I opened the bag of pastries so we could enjoy our snack as we were all hungry again by now. Unfortunately, I didn't find three chocolate croissants and one almond croissant in the bag. In place of one of the chocolate croissants was a cro-nut. When Mat came back I asked him about it and he said he had got it for me as the lady at Starbucks had led him to believe it was a cinnamon roll which would have been my first choice had they had any. So his intentions were good, but I don't like cro-nuts so I was disappointed. Still, he had just started to chill out after the stress of finding a parking space, and with Freya on the edge I thought it best to just suck it up and eat the cro-nut. Except it was nasty (as expected), so I managed to convince Freya to swap with me as it's much more her sort of thing than mine. Phew.

The lady in one of the water-sports kiosks that Mat had spoken to about whether we could park in the marina car park had said that if we were going on a boat tour it should be fine and that if we went down to Little Toot and bought the tickets, they would probably give us a parking permit. So Mat had gone down to the kiosk outside and bought tickets for the 11 am Little Toot cruise ($72 total for two adults and two children), and yes they had indeed given him a parking permit. The only thing was the permit said 'half day' which I was worried was a bit ambiguous. An expiration time would have been better for a worrier like me. Anyhoo, we grabbed what we needed for the boat trip (which wasn't much, we'd come back for the beach kit after), popped into the public toilets on the way (less said about those the better) and arrived at the dock for Little Toot at 10.50 am:



This is the dock next door to Little Toot:



It was now pretty hot and sunny so we took this opportunity to smother ourselves in sun cream before we were allowed to board.



Besides us, there were three other parties on board, a total of 13 people including only one other child. We all had to have family photos taken as we boarded. The capacity of the Little Toot is 30, and we felt like the number of passengers today was the ideal amount. Once we were out of the harbour, the captain and his assistant, a friendly lady who I think was called Misty, said we could move about the boat. With 13 people on board, a couple of whom didn't really get up, there was plenty of space to stand at the sides and move around. We had picked Little Toot over the Seascreamer because of its size, We liked the idea of going out on a smaller boat with less other people.



To begin with, there was very little dolphin activity. We came across a few dolphins jumping a little way away from the boat, but because everyone was expected to call out when they saw any dolphins, by the time everyone caught on, the dolphins had usually disappeared back into the water. Misty did give us a narrative of the millionaires' houses we were passing on our way.





The only owners I can remember are Nigel Mansell, a guy who founded Outback Steakhouse, a state lottery winner and John Travolta, who we were told ran big Scientology get-togethers at the house.



Dolphin wise, the cruise was a bit thin on the ground at this point. The captain was in touch with other boats to see if they had any tips for us. A couple of times, other boat cruises came along and pretty much jumped in to our spray where dolphins were lurking, enticing the dolphins with their bigger spray. The captain said we were going to go out to the Gulf of Mexico where there had been earlier reports of dolphin sightings. I assume the trip always includes going out to the Gulf though.





To be fair, we didn't really see any more dolphins out there than we had in Clearwater Bay but we enjoyed being out in the more open waters, where the ocean was more choppy as we liked all the bobbing up and down in the boat. It was really windy out there though so we got a bit fed up with the Gulf and were pleased when we eventually returned to the bay.





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[moosha]

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Windswept:



We saw the little old house still standing alongside new condo buildings that cannot be knocked down and replaced by anything other than a single family dwelling for 99 years after the lady who owned it died a few years ago leaving the property to a trust with that stipulation put in place legally as her last wish for the house. I saw this covered in Bel's trippie and found it fascinating, so I was glad Misty pointed out the property to us.





Just as we were heading back, we had a 'proper' dolphin encounter. Two dolphins jumped alongside the boat for about a minute. Everyone is asked to cheer as the dolphins jump as this encourages them to continue. Mat filmed most of it on his phone but I struggled to take a decent photo as it's tricky not to be pressing the button half a second behind their jump, ending up with a lot of shots like this :



This was the best photo I got:



We really enjoyed the Little Toot cruise, but it was longer than I had thought it was going to be. An hour and fifty minutes after we set off, we arrived back at the dock. I believe our cruise ran over by five minutes as the crew were keen for us to get a 'proper' dolphin sighting, which really only came in the last ten minutes or so.

As we disembarked, the guy from the Little Toot kiosk, who had taken our photos as we boarded, appeared and announced that he had our photos ready for us to purchase. He had everyone's photo printed and also a souvenir keyring ready for us to look at. They were offering both the print and the keyring for $10. Everyone else left the dock before us and not one of them even looked at the photos which made me a bit sad. We had already said we would buy them whether the photo was good or not as we wanted to give our support to a really good little local business. In the event the photo was quite nice, so we gave the guy the $10 and thanked the staff for such a great trip. We had also given the captain and Misty a $10 tip before we got off the boat when they made one of those 'we appreciate your tips' speeches.

To be honest, the amount of time during the cruise that we could see dolphins was a little bit disappointing. Having watched a couple of youtube clips of people having really good views of dolphins over a longer period of time, I was hoping we would see more. It was amazing to see them playing in the wild though it has to be said, and I'm so glad we (especially the children) got to see them in their own environment. Without getting into a rant, Mat and I are very much anti SeaWorld after Blackfish, and we're starting to question animals in captivity. So to see such beautiful creatures in their natural environment was very special.

Obviously with the dolphins being wild, the amount of time you can actually see them during the trip can really vary and I totally appreciate that. I'm pretty sure the Little Toot crew say they will give you a refund if you don't see any dolphins whatsoever. I would absolutely recommend Little Toot to anyone, as long as you have a couple of hours to spare.

As I said, we finished up there quite a bit later than I had expected. I hadn't checked how long the trip would be, but I guess I thought it would probably be an hour tops. So now, I'm embarrassed to admit, I felt a bit like we were 'behind schedule'. You know me and my 'holiday drill sergeant' tendencies by now. We wanted the girls to have some beach time, but we also wanted to chill out at the Cabana Bay pool later on and we still had a meal to fit in on the long drive back.

We walked back to the car to collect our beach towels, buckets and spades and then headed back towards the beach. As we walked along we passed a little shop and decided to buy ice-creams to tide us over until we left Clearwater. The girls and I each ordered a vanilla soft serve cup, and Mat was fighting a cold so wanted an orange juice. Total for three ice creams and one juice = $10. $10! When the guy behind the counter told me the total, I must have hesitated and looked a bit shocked, as he then said 'Yeah, it's not Disney. That would have cost you $25!' We all laughed and went on our way.

We found a spot on the sand near Pier 60, and the beach was pretty busy. It was a beautiful beach, and I was already going on about how we should incorporate Clearwater or a beach resort in the vicinity into our next trip (spoiler?)









The girls went off towards the water to play with their buckets and spades, Freya building a perfect sandcastle all by herself despite not having done it alone before, and not even setting foot on a beach for almost a year when we were in Cornwall last summer.





Once they were fed up with building sandcastles and wanted to go in the sea, Mat went to paddle his feet with them while I caught up on some notes.

It's water and it's clear...see what they did there?



It was very hot and with the sea breeze I was a bit concerned that we might be getting burnt and / or dehydrated (we'd had very little water by this point), plus we knew we needed to make a move despite how lovely Clearwater was and how much fun the girls were having. We left the beach at 2 pm and got back on the road. Mat wanted me to take a photo of the bridge road as he was really impressed with having the ocean right next to us on either side. As I had done this before with my family in the 90s, and we had also driven all the way down to the Florida keys on similar roads, I was less impressed this time, but indulged him anyway. I couldn't help but take loads of photos as we left Clearwater:











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[moosha]

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We drove up to the Bahama Breeze at Tampa as planned, which took 40 minutes.



At around 3.45 pm midweek when it wasn't a US holiday, I was expecting the place to be lovely and quiet, but the outdoor seating was very busy with only a few free tables. We saw signs advising that the porch was 'open seating' so we checked with a waiter and he said yep, we should just sit anywhere. We unfortunately couldn't get anywhere close to the water's edge but there was a great atmosphere there on the porch, it did feel pretty 'Caribbean' with the reggae music, the ocean in the background and all the delicious looking cocktails that I kept seeing being delivered to other tables.

Freya was both hungry and tired when we arrived:



Our waiter, Caesar, was a bit rubbish, and it took ages for him to come over to take our order. Unfortunately, Mat then tried to order a black bean soup and asked 'is there any meat in that?' to which the guy replied 'it's pork based.' So Mat then needed a few minutes to choose something else. When the waiter came back, Mat asked for some kind of mushroom and goat's cheese burger, thinking it was a vegetarian burger. Caesar replied 'how would you like that cooked?', making us realise that it was a beef burger. So then Mat needed a few more minutes to choose for a third time :angry:. Eventually he settled on the only vegetarian entree on the menu: a veggie burger.

The Bahamarita I ordered (mango, kiwi and strawberry ice with a shot of tequila) was very good:



...and Mat ordered a virgin one so as not to feel left out:



I chose the coconut shrimp appetiser which came with a yummy citrus dipping sauce and a very thin slice of pineapple. This was such a delicious dish, right up my street, and one of my favourite appetisers of the holiday (although it would definitely come to be the case as the trip went on that I had a lot of good appetisers and not many good entrees.) Sadly, my two daughters stole a shrimp each. Honestly, I love those girls more than anything else but taking my food doesn't go down well with me. I can be a bit like Joey from Friends: 'Joey doesn't share food.'



Mat had a house salad as an appetiser (no photos, it was just a house salad.) For entree, I had fish tacos and opted for three rather than two (why did I do this?) The fish was marinated grilled tilapia fillet but it was a bit dry. I preferred the fried fish tacos from Margaritaville a few days before it has to be said. However, the accompaniments at Bahama Breeze made the fish a bit more appealing: a nice salsa and guacamole, and I had yellow rice and black beans as my side which were also tasty. (Yes I did start attacking it before I remembered to take a photo)



Mat said the veggie burger was 'just a veggie burger:'



The girls both had bowtie pasta with tomato sauce and a side of grapes and pineapple which all went down very well.



Freya scoffed hers really quickly and perked up once she had been refuelled, as she always does.

Caesar finally showed some personality when he delivered our mains, as he had been pretty useless until then and had barely said a word. Seren's a fairly slow eater, so Caesar had removed Mat's plate and mine, and we'd had a dessert conversation in which both of us adults had said we were unable to squeeze in a dessert, but I asked if I could have a piece of key lime pie to go. I had heard good things about said pie. Caesar said 'you won't regret it.'

Now, as Seren was still eating and Freya still had her plate in front of her and was still picking at the last few bites, Caesar hadn't taken away their meals when he took ours and we hadn't had any sort of discussion with him about whether the girls would be wanting any dessert, even when I was ordering the pie to go. A few minutes after I had ordered the pie, Caesar brought it out to the table boxed up along with our bill. We hadn't asked for the bill as we knew the girls would probably want ice-cream, and we also hadn't yet handed over our discount coupon ($10 off for signing up to the email newsletter) to be deducted, although we had mentioned at the beginning of the meal that we had one. We were pretty annoyed that Caesar had gone ahead and brought out the bill while the girls were still eating their mains, and I'm pretty sure we reduced his tip because of it. We told him that the girls would like dessert too, and he apologised, took their dessert orders and then brought out a new bill. He had still forgotten to deduct the voucher so he told us to just pay $10 less and he would adjust it when he put it through.

It took quite a while for the girls' ice-creams to be brought out. Seren had mango sorbet with tropical fruit (the passion fruit was delicious) and Freya had vanilla ice-cream with chocolate sauce. After all that palaver, they hardly ate any of their desserts when they did finally arrive .

We had very much enjoyed our food at Bahama Breeze, and I'm glad we tried the Tampa restaurant with its lovely waterside location and porch when we had the opportunity. The beautiful setting, and see how as always Freya has perked up once she's been fed:



We will definitely try out one of the Orlando Bahama Breezes next year...I cannot resist those coconut shrimp.

1 x Bahamarita @ $6.99 (I guess there was some sort of Happy Hour on which could explain why it was so busy)
1 x virgin Bahamarita @ $3.79
1 x kids' pineapple juice @ $1.99
2 x kids' bowtie pasta @ $4.49
1 x house salad @ $4.99
1 x coconut shrimp @ $10.29
1 x three fish tacos @ $10.79
1 x black bean barbecue burger @ $10.49
1 x key lime pie @ $6.29
1 x kids' mango sorbet @ $1.79
1 x kids' ice-cream @ $1.79

= $72.96 including tax
minus $10 voucher = $62.96 (we left $75 which includes just under an 18% tip, not sure why as the service wasn't good, maybe because we didn't have any other change.)

We left the restaurant at 4 and drove back to Orlando. Freya and I both fell asleep in the car, and there was traffic on the I4 as we passed SeaWorld, meaning we didn't get back to Cabana Bay until 6. Since Freya and I were re-charged, we were very much up for hitting the pool at the Cabana Courtyard. Mat was feeling pretty rough with a cold, so he wouldn't be coming in the pool, but I definitely wanted to try it out, Freya was very excited about getting back on that waterslide, and Seren would never say no to pool time.



We got settled on some sunbeds. The pool area was pretty busy as it was late in the day so I guess a lot of people were back from the parks, and the sun was still very much shining. Yay. But the pool is pretty big and there was still plenty of room for us to splash around in. The girls ran off for a swim and a few goes on the slide before I joined them. I must admit, I'm not really into swimming (don't like getting my hair or face wet, worry about my contact lenses), but it was really good fun to just play in the water with Seren and Freya. When my sister and I were little, my mum would barely ever come in the pool on holiday because she didn't want to get her hair wet so it would usually be my dad who came in with us. Thinking about that while we were at Cabana Bay, I decided that I would make more of an effort to swim with the girls on holiday. I'm embarrassed to admit that this was the one and only time I made it into the pool with them during the whole trip, but I'm still ahead of Mat as he didn't go in AT ALL. Oh well, there's always next year .

The water in the pool was just the right temperature (no shock to the system as I got in) and where we got in was zero-entry which I much prefer. It's much nicer to be able to tip-toe in and gradually adjust to being in the water, rather than having to climb steps down or (heaven forbid) jump in.

I wasn't in the water for all that long, but there was no way Seren and Freya were anywhere near done with the pool when I got out. So Mat and I got cocktails from Atomic Tonic, the pool bar. I had an Atomic Tonic (vodka, melon liqueur, limoncello, Simple syrup (?), pineapple and lemonade) in a plastic souvenir glass.



The glass is sat on my kitchen trolley gathering dust as I don't really know what to do with it now, unlike the proper glass glasses we also accumulated on the holiday which we've been using for cocktails. The idea with the souvenir glass is that refills are discounted (pay $13 for one in the glass, refills are $11 rather than the standard price of $12,) but I only had one. Mat had an Americana (sweet tea vodka, lemon, sugar, mint, iced tea and lemonade.) My cocktail was nice but by this point I was really getting fed up with every cocktail I ordered being so full of ice that I either had to drink it really quickly or drink a very watered-down version at normal speed. I sent Mat on a cocktail mixing course for his birthday a good few years ago, and so he claims to now be somewhat of an expert on cocktails. He defended the amount of ice every time I moaned about it on holiday, saying that sort of quantity is necessary to balance the drink. Personally I think it's a way of making the drink look twice the size of its ingredients and ensuring you drink it quickly and buy another :angry:.

So the girls were having fun in the pool and on the slide, the adults were drinking our cocktails (me quicker than I wanted to) and catching up on notes, using t'internet (Cabana Bay has free wifi in the rooms and public areas which is an improvement on the original plans which showed it would be at a cost.) Luckily the music being played was decent and not too loud (no DJ) and there was a mix of 50s and 60s tunes to fit with the resort's theme, and recent pop hits. This is the life:



As the sun went down, the number of guests around the pool didn't really drop off. It was just such a lovely, warm evening and everyone seemed to be having lots of fun. As it started to get dark, the fairy lights around the courtyard came on and it looked really very pretty. I didn't manage to get a decent photo of the pool area with the fairy lights on as the sun went down, so here's one of the area with the lights in the day. Just imagine it's darker and the lights are on:



The pool closes at 10 pm and I think we could have happily stayed there until then, but we had plans to do something else before bed that we probably wouldn't have been able to fit in on another night before we left (plus Seren's face was starting to look alarmingly puffy from taking in too much pool water .)

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[moosha]

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We left the Cabana Courtyard around 8.15 pm and went back up to the suite for showers. By 9.20 we were all clean and presentable, so went over to the Galaxy Bowl for a game of bowling. The girls had never bowled before, and we thought it was an ideal opportunity for them to try it out. We thought the bowling alley was very nicely done. They have a bar and table-service diner, and it all looks very good (although I could have done with less of the TV screens that are above each lane and at the end of the lanes. We're here to bowl, not watch TV .)

The only minor issue is that there are only ten lanes and the hotel is going to have 1800 rooms once it's finished (which it is now, but wasn't when we went.) You can't pre-book a lane (we had already checked earlier) so we had to wait for a lane to become available, which they said would be about ten or fifteen minutes. The cost of bowling is $15 per person plus $4 shoe hire and with four people I think you get 90 minutes bowling time.

While we were waiting for our lane to become available, I went over to the bar to order us some crinkle-cut fries to share as our linner at Bahama Breeze now seemed like a distant memory after all that swimming. (3 x crinkle-cut fries @ $2.99 each and 2 x bottles of Dasani water @ $2.50 each = $14.55 including tax.) I was also very pleased to find they had a Coke Freestyle machine next to the bar so I could fill my rapid-fill mug with another raspberry vanilla Diet Coke (or two.) Meanwhile while we were waiting for our lane to become free, Mat was chatting away to a staff member about England as the guy was visiting our country later in the year, and he was really into English football (which Mat is not in the slightest, so not sure how they managed a conversation about it).

Sure enough, ten minutes after we'd arrived, a lane was available for us, so we faffed about trying to sort out bowling shoes (the guy said the childrens' bowling shoes were coming up either too big or too small, I can't remember, so it took a few attempts before the girls were set with some semi-comfortable bowling shoes.

As we got settled into our lane and set ourselves up on the scoreboard, our fries and drinks arrived. The fries were very tasty and disappeared pretty quickly. Seren really enjoyed bowling.



Arty shot: (by accident)



They had some fancy system where lane bumpers would magically appear when it was the girls' turns, and disappear when it was Mat's or my turn to bowl. That's probably standard at bowling alleys, but since we've never bowled with children before, we were impressed. They also had these metal ramps that children can roll the ball down rather than having to swing and throw.





We thought these were a good idea, but half way through, Seren wanted to learn to bowl the ball properly, so we helped her with that. With her being the only left-handed member of the family, it was hard to show her 'backwards' but she really got the hang of it over the course of the evening.

Too many TV screens:



Freya was very tired and after about six turns of bowling the ball, she lost interest and wanted to snuggle up on the seats.



So Seren started taking Freya's turns as well as her own. Freya dozed a bit on the bench and we carried on playing happily for a while (snoozing in the bowling shoes)



Of course it is necessary to mention that I won the first game. The computers are supposed to issue a print-out of the scores, but they unfortunately weren't working and although I asked Mat to take a photo of the scores instead, that seems to have mysteriously disappeared. Sore loser much?

As we were entering our second game, a big South-American family of three generations arrived at the lane next to us. It was just before 11 pm when they were getting started and the bowling alley closes at 11, so I thought it was a bit odd that the staff let them get started so late. They were very noisy, and the children (who were younger than Seren and Freya) kept wandering across into our lane and the parents did nothing to stop them, which was pretty annoying and dangerous. They kept trying to steal Seren's ramp, and we kept trying to tell them that they could get their own from the staff, but they either didn't understand or couldn't be bothered. :angry: The children must have been between three and five years old and they were really quite good at bowling, it was impressive.

With all this added extra noise, Freya was starting to get pretty fed up and was saying she wanted to go to bed. So proper scoring for the second game went out of the window as I agreed to take her back up to the suite while Mat and Seren finished off, taking Freya's and my turns as well as their own.

Freya and I left the Galaxy Bowl just after 11 pm, and there were still about half of the bowling lanes in use. I guess the staff need to let each lane finish their entire 90 minutes of bowling, which may actually be longer for a higher number of players if I remember rightly. So goodness knows what time our noisy friends in the next lane would have been finished.

Freya was asleep in bed about five minutes after we walked into the suite, and Mat and Seren arrived back not long after. Seren was fast asleep by 11.30. Mat and I ate the key lime pie from Bahama Breeze before bed. It was tasty, and a nice end to the day, but it was a bit sweet for us. We felt it should have been a bit more tart.



I faffed about on my ipad until just after midnight. Just as Mat was dropping off to sleep, I saw that I'd either had an email or seen a tweet / facebook post from R5 (Seren's favourite band comprising of Ross Lynch – Austin from Austin & Ally – and his siblings) announcing an unexpected live show in London in June. All four of us had been to see the band in London in February and it had been awesome so the idea of a bonus concert was very exciting (even if Seren didn't know about it yet as she was asleep.) The point of mentioning this is that the announcement said that there would be a fanclub pre-sale for tickets the following day, beginning at 10 am UK time. So I would need to wake up at 5 am to buy the tickets. I set my alarm for 5 and settled down to sleep, a bit concerned about the prospect of a full day at Islands of Adventure on less than five hours sleep .

[EllieP]

Really enjoyed reading this day - we to are thinking of a day at Clearwater and have never visited Bahama breeze either, both are on our list for this visit!

[collybird]

How did the girls enjoy this day? I think if I was their age it would probably be one of my favourites. Nice for them to have sometime to unwind at the beach and the pool.

Coconut Shrimp is one of my absolute faves, the dipping sauce looks yummy too. Cannot believe they only had one veggie entree on the entire menu and a veggie burger is possibly the most uninspired thing I've ever seen, I'd have never expected that from Bahama Breeze. They really should have been more accommodating - they could easily have tweaked the mushroom and goats cheese burger for Mat. I'm the manager of a KFC, we don't have any veggie options but if anyone ever asks I always offer to improvise for them.

Bowling looks really fun but pricey - bit mean charging adults and kids the same price and shoe hire should really be included, who takes bowling shoes on holiday!?

[moosha]

Originally Posted by EllieP

Really enjoyed reading this day - we to are thinking of a day at Clearwater and have never visited Bahama breeze either, both are on our list for this visit!

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Thanks as always for reading and commenting Elaine . Ooh, I'd definitely recommend a visit to both Clearwater and Bahama Breeze, I'm sure your girls would enjoy both too.

OMG your countdown

Originally Posted by collybird

How did the girls enjoy this day? I think if I was their age it would probably be one of my favourites. Nice for them to have sometime to unwind at the beach and the pool.

Coconut Shrimp is one of my absolute faves, the dipping sauce looks yummy too. Cannot believe they only had one veggie entree on the entire menu and a veggie burger is possibly the most uninspired thing I've ever seen, I'd have never expected that from Bahama Breeze. They really should have been more accommodating - they could easily have tweaked the mushroom and goats cheese burger for Mat. I'm the manager of a KFC, we don't have any veggie options but if anyone ever asks I always offer to improvise for them.

Bowling looks really fun but pricey - bit mean charging adults and kids the same price and shoe hire should really be included, who takes bowling shoes on holiday!?

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Thanks as always for reading and commenting Colette . The girls loved today as you predicted. I felt bad that their beach time was shorter than anticipated (we always seem to be rushing from one thing to the next, even on holiday) but the pool time definitely made up for it. It's funny, children definitely don't seem to see non-park days as inferior to park days, especially if there's swimming involved . Freya's mood was definitely affected by tiredness but she still loved the boat ride, the beach, a tasty meal and swimming...even if bowling was pushing it a bit too far for her on not enough sleep.

Mmmm...the coconut shrimp . I must admit, we didn't remember there only being one veggie option on the Bahama Breeze menu while we were there (surely it shouldn't have taken Mat so long to choose if there was ) but I put that in the report after we had a look at the menu online while I was doing the trippie. So it's possible there may have been another option if they've changed the menu recently or if it varies by location. Either way, it's not great. I think it's very good that you always accommodate your vegetarian customers so well. I'm thinking it was our dodgy server that caused Mat's dietary requirements to be such a problem...probably a better server would have been more helpful. Fingers crossed we do better there next year. At least it hasn't put us off returning (the coconut shrimp are definitely enough to pull me back.)

I can't find to receipt for bowling so I had to google the prices and couldn't find a difference in price for children. So it's possible there is a different price and it's just a hole in my notes. I did think it was pretty expensive but you know what it's like when you're on holiday and you can get pretty 'relaxed' about the cost of things . I know what you mean though, everyone is going to have to pay to hire those hideous shoes aren't they? Still, it was a good night .

[EllieP]

[QUOTE=moosha;9883144]Thanks as always for reading and commenting Elaine . Ooh, I'd definitely recommend a visit to both Clearwater and Bahama Breeze, I'm sure your girls would enjoy both too.

OMG your countdown :

I know it's getting very, very close! Suitcases are being pulled out from under the bed tomorrow and the packing begins! Got a full week planned so it will be here before we know it!

[MissVincent]

Key lime pie looks tasty!

[Hannikins]

fun day! I feel bad, I spent the last half of the report thinking "well? where the PIE?!?!?!" and there it was at the end, I thought you'd forgotten the food porn :P