Disney and the Doubletree - Aug 2014 - Day 14

Nimbus · 23 Nov 14, 03:17 PM

Previously: Day 13 - Islands of Adventure

Day Fourteen - Friday 29th August 2014 - Aquatica

Decision time today. Should we go to Universal again or try Aquatica instead? Well, we'd pretty much done everything at Universal yesterday so we chose to do something different today. We'd never visited Aquatica before so we thought we'd spend a few hours here.

I think we had a lazy-ish start to the morning and has a nice filling breakfast - perhaps at the Village Inn again. Then we got our things and took the hotel's shuttle bus to nearby Aquatica. The instructions were a bit vague with regards to the return shuttle bus (or maybe I was not fully listening) but there was always the I-Ride anyway.

And into Aquatica we went.

That photo was actually taken on our way out later in the day and as you can see it looked quite cloudy. In fact, today was probably one of the 'worst' days to have visited a waterpark. Most of the other days had been very hot and generally sunny. Today was just warm, cloudy, with storms passing by and, later on, it actually rained. It wasn't a bad day, as such, just not the best we'd had this holiday.

Anyway, after entering we walked in, stopping to look at the Commerson's dolphins for a while, and then Michelle went and queued for a key to a locker (just to the left of that photo above). The queue here was a little long so it took a while. And, of course, you have to pay extra for lockers - which is a bit cheeky really. Locker secured, we stuffed our backpack inside - it was a bit of a squeeze and not helped by other people getting in the way in the busy locker area - and went for a look around.

Now, I'm not a big waterpark fan because I don't swim. But Aquatica was still pretty good. There was lots to see and do here - two wave pools with sandy areas nearby (so you can pretend to be at the beach), a couple of lazy rivers, lots of slides (which I didn't do but Michelle and Hannah did), and a large "kids" area.

I enjoyed the two wave pools - although I didn't go too deep - and the Loggerhead Lane lazy river - once I'd worked out the best way to get on those ring floats.

There were also a few animals in the park, like the Commerson's dolphins (sometimes called Panda dolphins because they're black and white - like killer whales), a couple of macaws and a tortoise.

The park wasn't too busy but there were still plenty of people so it didn't seem empty. But, look, there were plenty of chairs on the beach if you just wanted to relax.

Whilst Hannah and Michelle were trekking up what seemed like miles of steps to come down Whanau Way's slides, it clouded over and started to rain. I was down at the bottom waiting to watch them slide down but as it started to rain - not a downpour but reasonably heavy - I did consider heading undercover. Then I realised that I was wet anyway from being in the pools and so the rain couldn't really make me any wetter.

The clouds were looking quite threatening by now. An announcement was made that the rides and pools were temporarily closed due to a storm being in the area and everyone had to get out of the water. To be honest, the storm never materialised and it just rained a little on and off.

We looked around the park a little more and eventually settled on some seats under a little cover. By now, it was lunch time. We were still somewhat full from our big breakfast, so we just got some Shamu shaped pretzels and sat eating those whilst waiting for the "storm" to move away.

Eventually, they announced that we could all go back into the water. So Hannah and I had a play in the kids (and big kids) play area, Walkabout Waters.

We'd actually only planned to stay at Aquatica for a couple of hours and then maybe go shopping or something later in the afternoon. But we actually stayed a good 5 hours, arriving at just before 11am and leaving just after 4pm. We could have actually stayed a little longer, but by late in the afternoon, the dark, thunderous clouds were beginning to gather in the distance and so we decided to head back before they closed the pools again.

Gathering our things from our locker (again, it was a bit busy as quite a few people were leaving around this time), we said goodbye to Aquatica... and the dolphins and tortoises. We'd had a great time here and were glad we'd visited. Plus it made a change from the usual theme parks.

Exiting the park, we were lucky to catch a nearly-full I-Ride trolley bus back to our hotel. Back in our room, we showered and changed. By the time we'd done that, the dark clouds had arrived and it was raining quite a lot outside. So, for a while, we relaxed in our room and watched a bit of mindless American TV.

It was still raining by dinner time, so we decided just to rush across the road and have our evening meal at the Village Inn. Well, it was a very good restaurant. And pretty much the only restaurant nearby, other than the one in the hotel.

I can't remember what we had for tea other than what I had for dessert: a small mountain of French Silk Pie!

Years ago, when Michelle and I had first visited Orlando, I'd been introduced to French Silk pie (it was everywhere) and thought it was probably the best dessert on the planet. Since then, I'd not seen it in the restaurants as much and so hadn't had any for ages. It was good to finish off the holiday eating what is one of my favourite desserts.

Of course, I let Hannah and Michelle try a bit too.

Once we'd paid the bill, we rushed back to our room at the Doubletree dodging the rain as we went. There we packed the majority of our things into our suitcases because tomorrow would be our last day in Florida.

Next: Day 15 - Flight Home and Conclusions

nasty · 23 Nov 14, 05:08 PM

Another great day. I love Aquatica it's my fav water park.
Good to see Shelby and Sheldon are still there! (The names my kids gave the two tortoise)

Yummmmm that French Silk pie looks guuuudddd! What's it taste like? Will be looking out for that on the menus

Nimbus · 24 Nov 14, 02:24 PM

Originally Posted by nasty

Another great day. I love Aquatica it's my fav water park.
Good to see Shelby and Sheldon are still there! (The names my kids gave the two tortoise)

Yummmmm that French Silk pie looks guuuudddd! What's it taste like? Will be looking out for that on the menus

It tastes like thick chocolate mousse in a sweet pie base topped with whipped cream. It's delightfully chocolately but not as rich as, say, chocolate fudge cake or other choccy cakes.

BTW, the pie had been mostly eaten by the time I took that photo. It usually looks better than that.

And I seem to only remember seeing one tortoise at Aquatica. I only have photos of one anyway. The other one might have been resting, I guess?

Pussycat Doll · 24 Nov 14, 08:19 PM

Lovely day, nice photos, great cake! Pussycat

Nimbus · 29 Nov 14, 03:28 PM

Originally Posted by Pussycat Doll

Lovely day, nice photos, great cake! Pussycat

Thanks. Yep, it was great cake.

juliab · 9 Dec 14, 04:42 PM

Lovely day, looked a lot quieter in Aquatica then when we went. The pie looks yummy

Nimbus · 10 Dec 14, 02:54 PM

Originally Posted by juliab

Lovely day, looked a lot quieter in Aquatica then when we went. The pie looks yummy

Aquatica was a little busier than it appeared in some of those photos but it wasn't busy. Having never been before I can't really compare it to anything.

Thanks for reading.