There's No 'F' in Adele (Don't Stop Believing) Day 3

[wizzo]

Day Three 15th September 2012

The index is HERE


I’m sure you get sick of hearing about me being woken up early but to be frank, until it stops, you lot are hearing about it too! Today however had a twist!

I was rudely awoken bang on 5am, not by the usual million candle power reading light, oh no. Lynn was being considerate this morning. She’d decided to shuffle herself and two pillows to the bottom of the bed (doing a 180 in the process) and using the hall light (which was already on) as a reading light! Genius!

Errr… well….No. The two and a half minutes of frantic shuffling resulted in the same net effect……I was bloody wide awake again. Combine this with the hammering away on the Kindle’s supposed “near silent” keys and I woke in buoyant mood as you can gather!

Undeterred, I said nothing and counted to ten. Feeling calm and tranquil I decided to have a drink of warm lemonade from the Universal refillable mug next to me on my bedside table. A mug which I know for a fact Lynn used last. I know this because of what happened next.

Now as I’m sure you’re all aware, these mugs have a long straw that doubles over and fits into a hole at either end. Sensible people like me (and everyone else I would imagine) put a long end and a short end into these cups. This means you don’t have to know which end is which when you start pulling the loop out of the mug. The short end instantly reveals itself. That makes sense right? Not Lynn, oh no. She pushes equal lengths all the way inside the mug.

I ‘pull for a short end’ and the loop gets bigger and bigger and bigger for what seems like an eternity, all the time the ridges on the straw are going CLICK CLICK CLICK CLICK as they escape the mugs grasp. The noise is deafening, echoing around the hotel room but like the late Magnus Magnusson “I’d started so I’ll finish”. I look up and there are two children’s bleary faces smiling at me!

Bearing in mind that not a word had been uttered so far this morning Lynn pipes up “Now look what you’ve done! You’ve woken the kids up! ”

I reply “Hang on a minute! You started this chain reaction with your shuffling and bloody page turning!”

Mornings are such fun for me on holiday. I’m not (as you may have gathered) a ‘morning person’.

I get up, take great strides to the hot water tap in the vanity, turn it on and prey for cold water as I’m now in serious need of smacking a maintenance man, as smacking your wife just isn’t big and certainly isn’t clever.

It runs cold again for the second morning in a row. I drag my prize fighter’s body (more like fat fighters) into a pair of shorts and a shirt and I’m ready for a) A battle and b) Another $75 off the bill.

I go to turn the tap off that’s been running for a while and there’s steam coming from the sink! DRAT! It’s hot!

Oh well I suppose I’m up now!

Lauren and I had a wash (yes yes, in hot water) and went down to Emack & Bolio’s which does all sorts of food and is also a Starbucks. We’d been tasked with bring back a healthy, nutritious breakfast for us all.

We retuned with this.



Lynn is getting ready at this point so the kids and I tuck in, in her absence.



I feared this donut would be stale and bread-like but it was absolutely gorgeous! I had to prize the kids off it to make sure there was some left for Lynn! In truth, we should have got two but there’s always next year!

After our breakfast from ‘Land of the Giants’ we packed up the suitcase we’d opened as today was moving day. We were saying goodbye to HRH and heading to a villa on Sunset Lakes later in the day. As usual we had to be out of the hotel by 11am and couldn’t trash the villa before 4pm so we left the cases in the car in HRH’s car park. It’s secure and I wasn’t worried in the slightest, plus we wanted to walk to Universal this morning again.

I snapped some photos of the hotel before we departed.













It was hot and sticky already so when Lauren said she’d like to go on the boat I was more than happy to agree. Lynn and Maddy said they’d take the pushchair and walk and we’d reconvene at the gates of Universal.

Lauren and I headed to the boat dock which is in the opposite direction to the parks and as we approached we noticed there was a boat at the dock. We ran the rest of the way only to hear the captain say “Once the bar is down I don’t go back” to the smug looking passengers over her Tannoy system! ARRGGHHHHH Jobs worth!

So now we’re sweaty and have an extra 200 yards to walk over and above what we would have had to walk if we’d just legged it in the first place!

To cut a long story short, I moan for a bit and then I spot a rickshaw driver and we jump in. It took all of 30 seconds and we were right next to Universal. Now these fellas don’t charge a fare, they just ask for a tip. I was going to say “Never eat yellow snow” which is my stock answer to anyone who asks for a tip but I didn’t. This bloke had got us out of a hole and also said that he loved my “sneakers” so he got $10! Truth was, I only had a twenty and I thought I’d look like a cheap skate if I asked for $18.50 change.





We met the girls, recounted our story and Lynn split her sides whilst admiring the dew on my forehead! Zero sympathy as you might expect.

The girls measured themselves yet again and then I was delighted to find that this morning would reveal a “soft opening” so I (we) dived on in.





Minion Mayhem again first………………………..”oooooh ban an aaaaaa!” (Enough said)






Try and stay awake love, it's 9am!



Then the moment Lauren had been building herself up to for months. She’d been too scared to ride Rip Ride Rockit in April but was determined this time. I wouldn’t have done this ride at 8. No way.



Thankfully it was a virtual walk on so she didn’t have time to get too worked up and we were soon on it. The kids always make me hang on to them on rides they haven’t been on before and this isn’t really an option on a ride like this. All I could do was to put my hand on her chest for moral support really. As we went up that vertical lift hill her little heart was pounding. She’s a brave kid alright.

I bought the ride video and have since edited most of the waffle out of it and you can see it below. I was going to include track I always choose on the ride itself (Sabotage) but YouTube have blocked it on the video so you'll have to use your imagination (I've swapped it to the copyright free Travis courtesy of YouTube, just to get the video playing). Not exactly the same impact as my first choice.

Sabotage was especially poignant this trip and in memory of Adam Yauch (MCA from the Beastie Boys) who died this year. I’ve always loved the Beasties.



To my surprise, Lauren loved RRR and we rode it again straight away.

I took Maddy on Twister next. Lauren and Lynn gave it a miss as apparently it’s “rubbish”. Not when you’re five it isn’t …………………….and what else are Dads for?




Go back to my April report for better photos on Twister! Poor effort.

We both thoroughly enjoyed it, Maddy because it’s a thrill ride to her and me because I got Maddy to myself for 20 minutes following on the back of having Lauren to myself on RRR.

Continued...

[wizzo]

We got refills of lemonade, Starbucks for the adults and made our way around to the Simpsons.

The following two photos (a shutter press apart) show how hard it is to get a decent photo of Maddy. It’s all I have from the Simpsons I’m afraid.





We use our front of line passes and are more or less straight on. The kids and I rode while Lynn sat in the sun. She hasn’t done a ride today, have you noticed? She’s brown as a berry, while I’m stumbling out of dark queues like some sort of short-sighted albino mole!

We’re trying to fill in some gaps from yesterday in the ride department so make our way down to E.T. and it too is a walk on.

Upon exiting E.T. and it’s raining.



It’s pouring down and we have no accommodation. We make a beeline for the exit. We get poncho’d up as it’s now hammering it down and make our way back to Hard Rock.

We get back to the car (in HRH’s car park remember?) and I program the Sat Nav for Bass Pro Shops. We also need to find some lunch. As luck would have it, we arrive at Bass Pro Shops on iDrive and Fuddruckers is more or less next door so we enter.

We’re entertained by a bloke making balloon animals badly (hence why he got a small tip) and we eat gorgeous burgers except for Maddy who has nuggets. It all looked like this.




I promise there's a burger under there somewhere and it was large!




Me and my clone there!

The food was lovely and I can see us returning to Bass Pro Shops (it’s not just my typing, there is an ‘s’ on the end of shops even though it’s singular!) and Fuddruckers in the future.

Speaking of all things Bass fishing, as some of you will have seen form the Pre-Trippy, fellow Dibber Mickeysgirls had challenged me to catch a Bass in the lake at Sunset Lakes as her family had tried and “there weren’t any”. Now I like a challenge and had spent weeks researching Bass fishing techniques and I’d made more than the odd purchase on eBay too. This trip to Bass Pro Shops was just for a kiddie rod for Maddy and some live worms as a finishing touch to my preparations.

It’s an impressive shop alright, even if you don’t want to catch a fish or shoot something.



I’d soon got the bits and pieces I wanted but we decided to wait and see them feed the fish in the tank. Lynn was unaware that they’d be feeding the big fish with well………………………..little fish………………….which were also alive (not for long).



The kids thought it was a hoot, me and the hordes of Americans didn’t have a problem with it but Lynn was horrified. It’s the way of the world I’m afraid; the big fish eat the little fish.

It was almost time to head to the villa so we made our way down to the 192 and onto HW27 for a Wal-Mart big shop as we still had time to kill before 4pm. I won’t bore you with the details but we spent $255 on junk food, liquids and tat!



We arrived at the villa more or less bang on time and were soon in and making it look untidy.





Now this isn’t a Dibb villa but I suspect someone had tipped the owner off and pointed him in the direction of my previous trip reports!



We unpacked and had an hour’s swim before I got some fishing gear ready and made the short walk (about 7 steps) to the lake. True to form (are you still reading this Tracey?) I caught this little chap on my first cast! What a Pro!


Don't worry this is actually the kindest way to pick up a Bass.

This dear readers, is a Large Mouth Bass. They are widespread across the whole of North America (except when Tracey and her lovely family are anywhere near).

Sorry Tracey, you knew it was coming and I do love a challenge!

The kids were now out of the pool and I setup rods for them. Lauren promptly caught a huge Bluegill? Sunfish? I’m not 100% sure on this species. Maddy missed a couple of bites and caught nothing.

Fresh from our hunter gathering I returned to the villa and cracked open a couple of these….



Before ordering this….



I’m sure I don’t need to go into chapter and verse on the Dominos order.

We had a quick game of pool in the games room (garage) and then put the kids to bed.

Looking back I have no idea how we managed to fit all of that into one day! Apologies for the ramblings today, they were extensive.

Tomorrow – Epcot, Logans Roadhouse and Downtown Disney

[JoJo88]

Great read!

As for the fish, in Tracey's defence, how are we to know that you did actually catch that fish, hmm? Who's to say that they don't sell them at that there Bass Pro Shop(s)? . But then I get all my fishing knowledge from Animal Crossing, so what do I know?!

Loved the Simpsons pictures, so funny that Maddy has completely different expressions in them both yet Lauren looks exactly the same, a bit like a Puzzler Collection's Spot The Difference

[mouselover22]

How did you fit all that in? Maddy pulls such funny faces...wonder where she gets that from
Great reading by the way!

[P&S]

What a packed day . The video link isn't working for me

[littletink]

My husband picks that track on rip, ride and rocket for exactly the same reason! What a crammed full day!

[ely3857]

The straw story had me rotfl!

[Disney_Diva]

What a fab day...I would love that donut for breakfast xx

[WendyWilson]

Well done on the catch! My DH caught a wide mouth bass too at the waters edge but had more luck fishing from the pier at the end of the lake, there were some big ######s in there! . Oh btw we saw you and the kids one Morning walking along the waters edge (I'd only just got up so wasn't in a fit state to leave the confines of the villa to shout a howdy!)

Looking forward to reading more.

[Guest]

Great day, great pics, great laugh.