Mini Trippie 2 Kid Offsite Adventure - Day 6 - Shopping and Gator Golf

florida_2012 · 16 Sep 19, 04:42 PM

Trip Index

After a few longish park days we were ready for a quieter day. Today being a Saturday I had purposely planned for shopping as the parks / Waterparks are normally busier at the weekends. This gave us a chance to lie in until around 8.30 and have a leisurely breakfast. Homewood suites breakfast area was busier as we were there later than normal but we still managed to have a nice breakfast. I love the handiness of breakfast at homewood suites.
At 10am we left to go to the outlets at the top of international drive. The plan was to go to Florida Mall after. We spent around 4 hours at the outlets! Longer than expected given that we weren't meant to be making many purchases on the trip. DH went to asics with DS. I went first to Kate Spade with DD. I remember last year there being a queue to get into Kate Spade. This year no queue and it was quiet. There were lots of items 75% off and other items were at a set reduced price. I decided to buy a blue large handbag and a matching purse. I also purchased another smaller purse as a gift. The total was around $150. I had picked up a destination voucher booklet from the guest services. I got 10% (I think) off $150 spend in Kate spade.

I don't normally spend as much on a handbag but I got a cream one last year and I love it. So classic.

So the handbag this year was my one luxury purchase. We also bought a 2019 dated universal globe Christmas decoration at the city walk Christmas store which is a luxury item but it's for all of us 😀

We purchased a few pairs of new balance stability trainers for running.

They are a bit plainer than my normal style...

... but DH informed me these were a bargain so we had to get his & hers matching pairs. How romantic 🤪.
Me and DH do weekly 5k and 10k runs. (And a half marathon the week before Orlando). DH and DS10 also do triathlons so we'll always make good use of decent running trainers. DH was really pleased with his bargain trainers.

Next stop we went to the Disney outlet store. There was a queue outside to get in! Once a group left then a few of the queue were let it. We got in after a 10 min wait. Not much inside to be honest. Although maybe I was less interested by Disney merch since we weren't doing Disney this year. DD bought this 🌹 toy for a bargain $1.99.

DS spotted this Star Wars soft toy for $8. They both purchased them with their own funds.

We decided to get some lunch in panera bread. We split two panini style sandwiches. The coffee was good.
After lunch we had a mooch in Nike and a few other stores. It was now after 2.30pm. The plan had been to go on to florida mall but I realised that we had also loosely planned to go to gator golf ⛳ as we were close to it on I drive during our first week. The next day we were leaving I drive to stay at Windsor hills. So we decided to leave the mall until another day and go do gator golf. We were shopped out. Plus over 4 hours is a bit too much of a stretch for DH and DS. But there wasn't too many groans. They must have been in the right stores 😃.

We went straight to gator golf on International Drive. I had bought a groupon deal for $18 for 4 people. I forgot to bring the printout but it was on the groupon app on my phone and they had no problem scanning the barcode on my phone. The course wasn't too busy. I initially thought that the gators on the sides were wooden then I saw the eyes 👀 move 😀. Some fairly big gators. It was hard to tell which was real and which wasn't.

I thought the course was OK. DH and the kids enjoyed it. I wasn't keen on a few ponds / large basins on the course filled with stagnant greenish water. I immediately think mossies. There were a few small bugs near the end. I am allergic to bites and didn't have my roll on incognito mosquito repellent with me (which I carry every evening if I am out on holidays) so I felt increasingly anxious towards the end. We finished the course though and the others enjoyed themselves.

In the end I had no visible bites (although I do take antihistamines out there to try stop a reaction before it happens).
Overall I think that gator golf could do with an update but it was good value for money on the groupon deal. Whilst overall we enjoyed it we wouldn't go back. On our last day we were parked beside pirates adventure golf and we stopped past the desk. The course looked so much nicer. Although it would have cost us over $60. Mini golf is definitely a hit with the kids and they want to do it back home.

We left gator golf and went back to homewood suites. We went to the pool for an hour. After a quick shower and change it was 7pm and we walked 5 mins to olive garden on I drive.
Despite the large amount of people outside we got seated straightaway. DH ordered the 3 piece Italian dish. I chose a steak with crusted courgette and a side of creamy pasta. It was really tasty.

DS and DD ate from the kids menu. We didn't choose a starter as we knew that we could choose breadsticks or salad. We chose one of each. The children adored the breadsticks. Really soft and garlicy. We asked for a second helping 🥖. DS polished these off. I really enjoyed the caesar salad. It was a large bowl - plenty for 2. I'm glad we hadn't chosen any starters. From email sign up last year I had received an anniversary coupon for a free dessert so we chose the beignet donuts with chocolate dipping sauce to share. These were really nice but quite rich so we couldn't finish them. Maybe we'd eaten too much salad and breadsticks. We didn't use the takeaway offer special deal as we were moving house tomorrow and would be without a fridge for a good few hours. We did see a few tables getting the takeaway offer. We really enjoyed the meal in olive garden.

Back at homewood suites the kids went to bed and I set out our clothes for tomorrow and packed away the remainder of our stuff. This morning I had spent half hour packing up most to move to Windsor hills. I love packing cubes. From suitcase to drawers and back in again 😀