Finally! A Four Week Adventure: Week 3

[Rac20]

Day 18: Aquatica and fireworks at Magic Kingdom

DS16 informed us that he still hates water parks and so decided to sit out on our trip to Aquatica today.

We set off in good time and arrived just as the park was opening. Parking at Aquatica is extortionate - $30! Most people will only stay half day as inclement weather often rolls in. I really think that’s just too much. Thankfully, we don’t have to pay as it’s included in our tickets. Long let it continue!

We decided not to get a locker for this visit as we hadn’t planned on staying all day so I took no photos at all. I have taken some from the internet to show you some of the rides we went on.

Plenty of availability of sun loungers on the main beach and we found some under a large umbrella. After depositing our things we set off in search of our first ride. The mat racing ride (don’t know it’s name). This seemed shorter than I remember. We then adopted a strategy of working round the park in a clockwise motion and just stopped at every ride. We got loads done! The only rides we didn’t ride were dolphin plunge, orange and green family ride and the drop rides.

We managed to ride both the rapids and the last river before inclement weather set in. At this point, we decided to head back to the villa and meet up with DS16. We were only at Aquatica for 2.5 hours and got loads done.

Quick queue - anyone know what the deal is with that? All queues just seemed to merge and lots of rides didn’t seem to have it in operation. I’m glad I didn’t bother with it.

Another thing I noted is that there are often two lanes to queue in for rides and people automatically stick to the right thinking the left is the quick queue - it isn’t! Get in that left hand lane - it will save you half an hour. It takes you to the other slide. The lifeguard told us twice to fill up both lanes so this is a legitimate queueing technique.

Stopped for pizza on the way back.

Took us forever to get back. The rain was awful. Nearly a pull over and wait it out type of storm. In fact, if I’d have been driving, it would have been a pull over and stop.

In the evening we set off for Magic Kingdom. Now I asked on here whether anyone knew if parking was free after a certain time like it is at Universal. I can confirm that Moorlandman who answered my post is correct. They do still charge. It was 7 o clock and we got charged full price. Never mind. Just something to be mindful off. DH was insistent that we wouldn’t have to. He was wrong. At least parking at Aquatica was free. 😂

Had a photo outside. I love photopass. It’s one of my favourite features of Disney.

We always visit at this time of year and never has there been Halloween decorations. They really do get earlier. These were not here last week. I’m really pleased for DH who has always wanted to see the Halloween decorations and this year he has.

By the time we got in the park it was 7:45. We had time to ride one ride (Space Mountain) but that took a lot longer than the 40 minutes posted and didn’t get out until 8:50. This left us no time to get a decent spot to watch the fireworks. We nearly lost DS13 as he was insistent on finding a better spot and left us. 😱 There are thousands upon thousands of people and he disappeared just before they started. Being 13 and not 3, he found his way back to us. 😬Big sigh of relief.

Loved the fireworks. 🥰

This was our view. The castle was partly blocked by the trees so our view of the projections was not great. But the fireworks were still great.

Tomorrow, we are having an easy day as we’ve had a couple of busy days in a row and I was feeling it tonight or should I say, my patience for listening to the boys bickering was feeling it tonight.😂