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Old 18 Mar 19, 04:04 PM  
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It's The Greatest Hits Tour August 2018 - Day 2: Volcano Bay and Hard Rock Cafe

Day 2 - Sunday 12th August 2018

The alarm was set for 5.30 am. I woke at 4.15 and then managed to doze until 5. Freya woke up at 5 and came over to tell me she was awake. I told her to relax in bed for a bit as the others were still asleep and I didn’t want us to wake them. At 5.25 I got up and got in the shower.

Mat slept until his alarm went off at 6 and we woke Seren at 6.15 as we needed to get moving. Freya got ready and then wrote her journal and did some 11+ work while the rest of us finished getting ready and I packed the bag for Volcano Bay. Everyone had some cereal except me.

We left the room at about 7.25 am which was pretty much the plan. We headed into the lobby which was lovely and quiet and it really did feel like we were seeing it for the first time. It was just so beautiful and stunning and I felt so grateful to be here.







If you recall from the pre-trip report, we were originally booked to stay at the brand new Aventura hotel which is basically in the front garden of Sapphire Falls. Here it is that morning from the bus drop-off area at Volcano Bay:



I had been really excited about staying there so soon after it was due to open on 1st August. We had stayed at Cabana Bay when it was in soft open in 2014 and had loved being at a brand spanking new hotel and were looking forward to repeating the experience at Aventura. However, Hurricane Irma meant that construction completion was pushed back, and with the hotel now not due to open until 16th August, Expedia cancelled our booking and I reluctantly booked Sapphire Falls as plan B. Right up until just before we went I had been hoping the opening would move forward again so we could stay at Aventura but it wasn’t to be.

I am so so glad we ended up staying at Sapphire Falls though, it definitely worked out for the best. We’ve stayed at all of Universal’s hotels with the exception of Royal Pacific and Aventura, and all of us would say Sapphire Falls is our favourite hands down. As with all of the other Universal hotels, the theming is brilliant, and it has a real ‘holiday’ feel to it that I don’t think Aventura has. It feels like a mix of Cabana Bay (but more luxurious) and the likes of RPR / Portofino Bay (but newer and brighter.) The lack of a food court / Starbucks / proper counter service restaurant might put people off but you can get those things at Aventura next door and at Cabana Bay which is about a five minute walk away. It does have a beautiful bar though, and I think the lack of food court / Starbucks at the hotel means it feels more peaceful than Cabana Bay.

We went to concierge and asked if it was possible to walk to Volcano Bay and the lady replied that it wasn’t and that we needed to take the bus. She lied! We walked back from the park later that day via Cabana Bay and we walked both ways on our second visit. Anyway for now we believed her, so we walked out of the front doors and a Bell Services guy greeted us and asked if we were going to Volcano Bay. When we said we were, he directed us to the shuttle bus which was kindly waiting for us. The bus was full and we were the only ones who had to stand but that was fine, better to be on a bus and standing than stood waiting for one. A nice American man and his son kindly offered the girls their seats which they gratefully accepted.

We arrived at Volcano Bay at 7.35 am and it all looked very good. Everyone had to go through security which took a few minutes because obviously getting off a bus, we had all arrived at the same time. I kind of wish now that I hadn’t watched the Tim Tracker videos of entering the park because it was all very beautiful but for me, seeing new parks / rides etc on a video dilutes the experience a little when I go. So that was a bit of a shame and I must resist in future.



Terrible photo, nobody wanted to stop while I got a good one as they were such eager beavers. I think I got a better one than this on our second visit a few days later:



We tapped in at the tapstiles and were given our Tapu Tapus. Then we entered the park properly and there seemed to be more staff around than guests which was a bit weird. It was early entry for resort guests between 8 and 9 am but the park was pretty much fully up and running at this point, and it was at least 15 minutes before 8.



Now, first of all, regular readers will know I don’t really like water parks and we had managed to fight off taking the girls to one until the year before when we’d finally caved and included Typhoon Lagoon in the plans. We had stayed at Cabana Bay for part of our 2017 trip and had been there right before Volcano Bay opened. We got quite a good, close up look at some of the rides from the Cabana Bay car park which is pretty much just feet from some of the slides. We thought the rides looked pretty good but as a park it didn’t really appeal to us, particularly because of how small it seemed to be. We didn’t think it could possibly be at all relaxing. Then it opened and there were lots of bad reviews saying how impossible it was to get everything done because of how busy it is. So we were very much still thinking ‘nope, this doesn’t sound worthwhile at all.’

Then when I was planning this trip, I settled on having these four ‘unwinding’ days at the start of the trip before we went to any parks. This was partly so we could just buy 14 day Disney tickets and three day Universal tickets (with a shorter Hard Rock stay - Express Passes - than if we dipped in and out of Universal more during the first week.) Anyway, I read on The Dibb that Volcano Bay with early entry was great. Dibbers were getting everything done before lunch and I started thinking maybe this could work for us. Then I priced up the park tickets and saw that Universal were offering Volcano Bay for free (three park tickets for the price of two) and it was a no-brainer.

I hadn’t really done any research into the rides or how best to plan a day at Volcano Bay so initially we just wandered around the very quiet park trying to find somewhere nice to sit. We walked through the beach, around to the right and kept going until we found a big sort-of-gazebo-type-thing on a beach area between the TeAwa Fearless River and the Tonga and Raki slides. I think it is Hammerhead Beach. We got set up on some beds right at the back of the gazebo.

The girls went off to do the wave pool..







...and Mat went with them to hire towels while I got properly set up, obviously taking a few photos as he went. You can see just how close Cabana Bay is to the park here:





Here is our view from where we were sitting:



You can see how quiet the park was in this picture, only one or two other families in this whole section at this point.



We were really pleased that it was so quiet, and our initial impressions of the park were very positive. It was beautiful. To be fair we only had one or two niggles about Volcano Bay across our two mornings there. It’s definitely my favourite of the two water parks we have been to.

The first niggle was about to occur. Mat came back from the towel rental kiosk with four towels that had cost $5 to hire per towel. Great, so we’re throwing money away again today are we? If I had been there, I would have only hired two towels at that price, especially since us adults weren’t planning to get wet at all this morning. $5 per towel is pretty steep, Disney only charge $2 I believe. We hadn’t brought any beach towels on holiday with us and hadn’t had the opportunity to bring any from Sapphire Falls’ pool as we hadn’t yet been at the hotel when the pool area had been open. (I know some people bring hotel pool towels from the resort hotels to the Disney / Universal waterparks).

We had to move beds a couple of times while we were sat there as the gazebo wasn’t great at keeping the beds in the shade for long. There were only a handful of other families spread around the large gazebo area and it was all very pleasant and relaxing. I caught up on my notes and perused the park map to investigate the slides the girls might like to go on.

Once the girls were all done with the wave pool, they came back and I suggested they do the Fearless River (basically a wild version of a lazy river) which was right in front of us. All guests have to wear life vests to enter the Fearless River, and there are loads of them hanging on a stand beside the ride entrance (to the right of the picture below) so the girls got kitted out and went in.



When they came back, they told us they had absolutely loved it. Seren said it was ‘the most fun she’s had in eight years.’ (Random.) While they were in there, Freya lost her Tapu Tapu so I said she could use mine. Mat and I didn’t even have swimsuits with us today so there was no chance that I would need to use the Tapu Tapu myself.

Next up the girls wanted to ride some slides. They did Tonga and Raki twice, there was no wait.



They loved them too. Those slides can be ridden solo or as a two and they chose to ride them together. Freya’s new Tapu Tapu came off while they were riding. It fell into the raft and she managed to catch it and hang onto it until they were off the ride. I wonder how many of these things fall off into the water every day. This was possibly before they changed the design a bit to make them more secure.

Tapu Tapu information:



Then they wanted to do Punga Racers which are mat slides. They tapped in and were given a return time of ten minutes which then dropped down to five. When they got in line they waited at least 25 minutes so not sure what happened there but they said the slide was good.

I hadn’t had anything to eat so far today and by this point I was getting pretty hungry. In fact I’d been hungry pretty much since we arrived at the park, but there weren’t any kiosks or counter service places open first thing that sold anything vegan. About 10.40 am Mat went to get me a tropical fruit salad from Bambu and he got himself a Coke. Bambu opened at either 10 or 10.30.

The fruit salad was $9 (ouch) but it was very nice. The lychee and mandarin were really delicious.

[

The girls went off to tap in and get a return time for Krakatoa, the water coaster, and were really happy that it was only five minutes. They loved it. They said it was so much fun and that they got really wet.





After that they went back in the Fearless River for a bit. They then went back to Krakatoa but the return time had jumped to 115 minutes so that was a no-go. Instead they wanted to go in the lazy river. Mat and I were about ready to go now, and the lazy river was towards the park exit so we decided to pack up and go with them.





As we got to the entrance to the lazy river, Freya ran off to get in the water and Seren immediately ran after her. I was cross because they had gone before we had agreed where to meet. We didn’t know whether there was another entrance / exit to the lazy river somewhere else that they might come out at by mistake. Also, even if they did come out of this entrance / exit, we had to stand across the walkway from the river to get in the miniscule amount of shade in the area. It was really hot. And we hadn’t had a chance to tell them that before they floated off.

At first I thought, it’s fine, they’ll float round once and then get out here because either this will be the only exit or they’ll realise they have been all the way around. We stood in the shade trying not to melt, looking out for them. After a while we started to think they must have been all the way around by that point, and so we got closer to see if we could see them. More time passed and we were getting frustrated and hot. Knowing the girls (especially Freya), we were expecting they were just floating around and around the lazy river while we stood melting with all the stuff, desperate to get some food and drink.

Eventually (it was probably about 20 minutes after they first went in), we started worrying a bit and started to think there must have been another entrance / exit somewhere and that they were lost. We were just discussing where to go and what to do when they appeared in front of us with a member of security staff.

Freya says that they did come out at the wrong exit so couldn’t see us when they got out. They didn’t know what to do so they first went back to the gazebo where we had been sat, thinking we might have gone there but obviously we hadn’t. So they wandered around a little, and Seren started crying. In situations like this, it will be Freya who takes the lead despite being the younger one as she is more independent and (in some ways) more responsible. They decided to go to a nearby little shop and tell a staff member. The girl they told was really young and didn’t know what to do so she called a more senior staff member. This lady contacted security and it took a good few minutes for someone to come over. When he arrived he asked the girls where they had last seen us and they said they thought they had come out of a different lazy river entrance / exit to where we were waiting. He took them to each of the lazy river entrances and when they got to about the third one, they found us. We all thanked the security guy and the girls got a proper talking to for rushing off in the first place before we’d had a chance to discuss them getting out and meeting back up with us.

We went with them to the restrooms so they could get changed. We hovered by the lockers and it was very hot. The restrooms were also pretty busy by this point. Mat and I were very much ready to leave by this point, so we hurried the girls along and soon we were walking to the park exit. We dropped our towels at towel return, returned our Tapu Tapus using the correct receptacle and then went through the weird scanners at the exit that check for any stray Tapu Tapus that might be leaving the park. We passed a group of Team Members who wished us a great day. All of the staff we met at Volcano Bay were very friendly and enthusiastic. Overall we were really impressed with the park. It was just so beautiful and the girls thought the rides were great, plus having the opportunity to do everything early in the day before it got busy worked brilliantly. We really felt we had got a lot out of the half day, and that Mat and I were properly able to relax while the girls had loads of fun. Considering coming here was pretty much free, we were all happy (apart from the mis-hap at the end but having given the girls a talking to, we were all ready to move on.)

Continued below...
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Old 18 Mar 19, 04:11 PM  
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...continued

We exited the park and made the two-second walk (slight exaggeration but that’s what my notes say) to Cabana Bay.





We know the hotel pretty well having stayed there twice, so we first popped to the restrooms at the very back of the Bayliner Diner. Then we had a quick peruse of the menus above the food stations at Bayliner Diner (although I knew what Mat and I were having already after doing my research.)

The seating area was pretty quiet as this was by now a late lunch. Freya and I grabbed a table while Mat and Seren went to get the food.



Freya was having a kid’s cheese pizza with carrots and apple, Seren wanted the kid’s salmon fillet, also with carrots and apple, and Mat and I each had a vegan version of the vegetarian stir-fry. Basically the noodles in the vegetarian version were egg noodles so they had to be switched out to make the dish vegan. I had also read that they had vegan pizza here, and I knew that it was pretty much a frozen supermarket vegan pizza (Amy’s Kitchen) but that was fine. We were really hungry so decided to get one of those to share between us as a side dish. Freya had a Fanta, Seren and Mat both got a Mott’s apple juice (Mott’s is Seren’s favourite apple juice so if she sees it anywhere she has to have it) and I treated myself to a Fiji water. The total was $54.09.





Freya's pizza:



Vegan pizza:



The food was all good. The girls kids’ meals seemed really small and I thought at the time that the portions were smaller than when we had eaten here in 2014 but it was probably also the fact that the girls are a lot bigger now. The stir fry was tasty but the noodles were basically spaghetti so it was a bit weird eating what felt like a combination of Chinese stir fried vegetables with spaghetti bolognese. Usually the noodles with that kind of dish would be soft, but this being wholewheat spaghetti was quite hard. The vegan pizza was so good, I loved it and should probably check out whether it’s available in this country.

When we had all finished eating we grabbed Americanos from Starbucks ($7.44 for two) and took the Garden Walk back to Sapphire Falls.













We chilled out it the room for a bit, the girls wrote some of their holiday journals (which as per usual lasted about a week on this trip), Freya did some 11+ work and we all had showers. Seren had left a note to the housekeeper with our tip and got a really sweet reply. During our stay Seren and Janneth sort of became penpals, she was a very sweet lady and worked really hard to make sure the rooms were immaculate. We spoke to her a bit in the corridor a couple of times during our stay which was lovely.



View of the pool all closed up due to the threat of lightening:

[url=https://www.thedibb.co.uk/p/2emNnQp][/url

We went down to the Strong Water Tavern bar about 4.45 pm and it was fairly busy with a good atmosphere.









I ordered a Cuba Libra which is my absolute favourite drink. Strong Water Tavern really suits me as most of the drinks are rum based and rum is my favourite spirit. Mat is more of a gin / whiskey/ vodka kind of guy but he settled on a Mai Tai. Our lovely server brought us a bowl of bar snacks which were delicious and spicy, and we were very happy just chilling out with our drinks while the girls amused themselves playing Harry Potter Top Trumps.





Freya had definitely caught the sun today:



The bar was now busier (partly because of the weather I think) and we decided to order a second drink as we had time before dinner. I went for a Last Typhoon and Mat had an Island Thymes Crush which isn't on the menu anymore and I don't have a photo of either the drink or the menu to elaborate further. The girls were a bit peckish so I gave them some money to go next door to the little quick service in the hotel, New Dutch Trading Company, to pick up a snack. Freya had a Nutella Go choc dip thing and Seren got a pack of a couple of cookies. They brought them back and ate them in the bar.

Last Typhoon:



I had been exchanging emails with Tim from Fairytale Personal Shopper since the night before to arrange delivery of the goodies I had ordered. Bit of backstory; I’d booked Fairytale Personal Shopper having seen so many great reviews on The Dibb and I can add to those. Beth and Tim were brilliant, setting it all up was easy and it obviously saves so much money on delivery. There had been a slight breakdown in communication though as I had basically originally asked them to deliver to Sapphire Falls on the Saturday expecting that the parcels would be left with reception for us to pick up when we arrived. On the Saturday, they had emailed to ask if they could deliver on Sunday (today) instead as they had other deliveries in the area and I said that was fine, again expecting the parcels to be dropped off with reception as that was what I had seen happen in other trip reports. Then when we had been out at Volcano Bay this morning, they had emailed to ask if we could meet at the hotel then as they were in the area. I explained that I had thought the stuff would just be dropped off for us to pick up when we got back to the hotel and that we were out at a park. The email I got back from Tim and Beth explained that Universal were charging $10 per parcel for deliveries to guests (which I think might even be higher than Disney) and so they were trying to avoid me having to pay that. After a few more emails back and forth we settled on a 5 pm ish drop off at the hotel which worked well for us because we were going to be in the bar at that point. At 5.50 I got another email from Tim advising that he was in the lobby so the girls and I popped out of the bar to meet him. We had a little chat and he gave us some Toy Story Land and FastPass+ tips which I didn’t write down and can’t remember but they were definitely helpful (I think among other things he said that Toy Story Land has no shade and the best time to ride Slinky Dog Dash with a low wait was right before park close.) He also said that he had made a big delivery to a customer at one of the Universal hotels who had ended up having to pay the hotel over $100 in delivery charges so we were very grateful that he had gone out of his way to make sure he could hand over the delivery in person so we could avoid the charges.

Once Tim had handed over our packages and gone on his way, the girls and I went back to the bar. It had been a bit thundery while we were in the room but it wasn’t raining. The sky had looked pretty ominous when we arrived at the bar, and there had been lots of people sat outside at the tables on the beautiful deck. Our table was facing the full length windows so we were able to watch everyone out there. When it did start to rain, fairly lightly at first, people started to come inside. It got pretty heavy, proper Florida rain, quite quickly and everyone fled with the exception of two older guys who were sat closest to the windows. We thought perhaps they were sheltered being so close to the building. They moved their chairs as far back against the wall as they could and just carried on drinking and chatting. The rain, thunder and lightning was pretty relentless and we could see they were getting wetter and wetter. They had a bowl of bar snacks on the table and the rain was so heavy it was bouncing the nuts out of the bowl onto the floor. It was great fun to watch and everyone inside including the staff were pretty impressed with these legends.





When we were ready to leave, the girls and I took the packages back to the room while Mat paid the check. The boats to CityWalk weren’t running because of lightning so there were buses outside the lobby. We were among the last ones on a very busy bus.



We quickly went through bag check. Oh how I prefer Universal’s screening machines to Disney’s bag rummaging which can equate to anything between a perfunctory glance inside your bag and a full-on pretty-much-pull-everything-out situation. We took some photos including (obviously) the globe shot and the Studios archway shot...





...and then headed for the Hard Rock Cafe (or Rok according to the sign, which was fixed a few days later), where we also took some photos outside.





We checked in at our reservation time of 6.45 and were sent straight through, first stopping for the family photo op with guitar. I wasn’t particularly amused that they make you have a photo taken and I was even less amused 15 minutes later when the printed photo was brought over to us and Mat dropped $25 on it. It was a nice photo of all of us though. I'll add it if I can find it.

Our hostess seated us in the CBGBs room at the back and this was a real winner for us as the smaller room felt a lot more quiet and cosy than the main dining room, plus we’re fans of New York punk and post-punk (basically the bands that CBGBs is associated with. Anyone who knows us from my reports will know we love New York, and Mat and I visited the site of CBGBs in its dying days on our first New York trip in 2005. Anyway, if we ever return to the Hard Rock Cafe I will request a table in this area as it was lovely. We loved the circular room and the brick detail, and Mat took some photos of the memorabilia during the evening.

















Our server was Anthony and he was a nice, friendly, efficient guy. We settled in for a great meal. Drinks were ordered; Mat had a Stella, I had a glass of Merlot, Seren an apple juice (Freya always sticks to tap water as that’s pretty much all she drinks.)



I had booked the Hard Rock Cafe a few weeks before having not been there since I think 2014. The girls had always been keen to go back and Mat loves the theming and stuff but we both expected there to be nothing we could eat there. As well as the Vegan Disney World Instagram page that was so helpful in planning food for the trip, there is also a Universal Orlando Vegans account run by different people. It’s much less prolific than the Disney site but they also have a Wiki which is very helpful (google Universal Orlando Vegans Wiki). It details everything vegan at all the quick services and table services across all three Universal parks and CityWalk. I saw on there that there were off-menu adaptations that could be made to dishes to make them vegan at Hard Rock Cafe, and it seemed the restaurant was pretty accommodating to vegans which wasn’t really my expectation with it being such a busy restaurant already.

Anyway, we told Anthony we were vegan and he said ‘no problem, let me go and talk to the chef and see what we can do.’ When he came back, he offered us a vegan salad (er no thanks), vegan version of fajitas or the vegetarian quinoa burger without the bun. Mat opted for the burger with fries and the server said he would make sure his fries were cooked in a separate fryer. (We’re not too fussy on the shared fryer situation, most places in Disney I think use a shared fryer so we just tend to not think about it, but if we’re offered a separate fryer that’s great.) I chose vegan fajitas and said since they were going to the trouble of a separate fryer for Mat, I may as well have a side of fries too. Seren went for vegetarian fajitas with no cheese but with sour cream (she’s kind of a half vegan) and Freya decided on a kids’ cheese pizza.

When the food was delivered, Anthony appeared as the runners were putting it down, pointed to my paper-bag-wrapped wrapped tortillas and said ‘I just want to go check those tortillas are vegan.’ I appreciated his vigilance but could he not have done it before my meal was sat in front of me? (The following photo looks a bit sad and not particularly appetising) :





My allergy fries:



Mat's burger:



He quickly returned and confirmed they were safe for me to eat. All of the food was really good and we were having a great time eating, drinking, chatting and enjoying the music. Seren was particularly excited when a song by one of her favourite bands, Paramore, came on and she ‘had to’ post a photo of the music video to her WhatsApp status.



Freya didn’t really like her pizza so she didn’t eat that much of it, but it was served on a cool guitar shaped plate and was a pretty good sized portion.





The girls wanted dessert afterwards. Freya chose an Oreo cheesecake which I think she enjoyed, and Seren wanted the apple cobbler. That kind of thing (apple crumble, apple pie, fruit cobbler) is so up her street there was no way she wouldn’t choose it, but when she ordered she asked Anthony if there were nuts in it. Without even missing a beat he replied ‘walnuts’ and we confirmed that the nuts she is allergic to weren’t in the dessert. He seemed very confident that she would be fine (can you guess where this is going?) so we were all happy for her to have it.





She absolutely loved the cobbler for the first few bites but then said she was having a reaction. She said her throat was closing up and she felt sick. Backstory: she has a hayfever-like allergy to hazelnuts so she gets a scratchy throat and redness around her mouth, but with the cashews and pistachios, it’s anaphylaxis with her throat closing up and sickness. Anaphylaxis can lead to anaphylactic shock but thankfully that’s not something Seren has ever experienced. Pretty much ever since she was diagnosed at 7 she has managed to avoid cashews and pistachios so it had been a long time since this had happened. Whenever she has accidentally encountered nuts in chocolates / cakes etc it has been hazelnuts so she gets the scratchy throat, stops eating the food, drinks some water and it goes away within ten minutes or so. I think we had all pretty much forgotten the other reaction and I feel like a terrible parent for admitting this, but until I read up on anaphylaxis when we got back from the trip, I hadn’t realised it was what happened to her that night although I did obviously know that her allergy to cashews and pistachios is more severe. So the cobbler definitely contained one or the other, I would assume pistachios. Having avoided an episode of anaphylaxis for five years, I also didn’t realised that it is suggested that every episode receives medical attention, so really we should have left the restaurant and taken her to an ER.

As it was, she drank some water and we called the server over to explain. He said he would take the dessert off the bill ( great, thanks.) Seren was really uncomfortable and just wanted to get out of there so I suggested she and I go into the shop to try and take her mind off it while Mat settled the bill. After a few minutes of wandering it was clear this wasn’t helping; she was still feeling sick and struggling with her throat feeling like it was closing up, so I suggested we go outside for some air and wait for the others.

Meanwhile, Mat had another chat with the server and another lady who he assumes was a manager. She confirmed with him that he was happy for them to take the dish off the bill (when reminding me just now of what happened while I was outside, he used the words ‘a*se protection’.) Maybe she was gently just checking whether we were going to do anything else about it, which we weren’t. It’s just annoying that the server had been so confident that none of her allergens were in the dessert. Especially after he and the kitchen had been so careful about accommodating our vegan requirements. Had he said ‘well I can’t be sure’ which is what a lot of places say, she probably would have skipped it. The episode has certainly made her more wary of choosing anything that may have those evil nuts in.

[

So once the check was settled, Mat and Freya came out and we all headed for the water taxi dock. It was raining and wasn’t a particularly pleasant night so the boat queues were quite long with people leaving the parks and CityWalk. There were quite a few people waiting for the next Sapphire Falls boat but it arrived within a few minutes and we got on it thankfully. We just needed to get Seren home as quickly as possible as it seemed she was feeling worse as time went on rather than it getting better. By the time we got to the room she was really feeling poorly and she was sick in the bathroom. After she was sick she started to feel better and was well enough to want to see the contents of the parcels we’d had delivered by Tim earlier in the evening.

Continued below...
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Old 18 Mar 19, 04:12 PM  
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..continued



So we opened the packages and oohed and aahed. I had got the girls a few tops from Hot Topic and the Disney Store (they had chosen them) and I had got loads of Hot Topic tops for myself in the sale which may feature in future day's reports if there are actually any photos of me. I had hardly brought any Disney tees with me because I knew I had about ten waiting for me in Florida. We had also bought a selection of cool badges from Parkbound Buttons. The girls had chosen about five each and Mat and I had one each too.

Seren's buttons:



Mat's on the left (obviously ) and mine on the right:



Freya's (sadly she lost both the Luna and Joy ones on our trip a few weeks ago) :



Ooooh:



We had also bought a couple of portable chargers (Anker PowerCore 10000) and wires from amazon.com to use on the trip and these were brilliant. They really charge our phones quickly and hold their own charge really well, I would definitely recommend them.

Once all the packages were opened (it’s like Christmas morning when you get a Fairytale Personal Shopper delivery isn’t it?) the girls went to sleep. It was about 10 pm by that point. We faffed a bit and got things ready for the next day and went to bed about 10.30.
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Old 18 Mar 19, 08:52 PM  
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What a horrible end to your meal 😟. Love the badges👍
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Old 18 Mar 19, 08:59 PM  
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So glad you enjoyed your visit to volcano bay! That’s some will power not even taking your swimming cossie! The fast lazy river thing sounds fab.

At least the girls had the good sense to go and get help! Sure I’ll have this to content with many times in my near future

Ooh I love receiving orders you have been waiting ages for - it makes everything feel like you’re seeing it for the first time again.

Such a shame that your night ended how it did. Really glad Seren was ok! It sounds like she handled it like a pro though, bless her xx
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Old 18 Mar 19, 09:29 PM  
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Glad you enjoyed Volcano bay. Scary end to the day with the allergic reaction.
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Old 18 Mar 19, 11:08 PM  
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Floridafour
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Volcano bay looks lovely. A great day but a shame about the ending, must be frightening to feel like that bless her. Thanks for posting 🙂
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Old 19 Mar 19, 09:40 PM  
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Goldia
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It sounds like a full on day. I would not be paying $5 a towel either...we take them from the hotel pool, I'm sure I see somewhere that this was perfectly acceptable and not frowned upon, I hope so!

I'm also a big fan of a cuba libre, I'll happily try out many of the cocktails though.

Poor Seren, it sounds like she was very lucky her reaction wasn't more severe, probably due to her realising quickly what was happening and stopping eating. It must have been incredibly scary for her. As you say it could so easily have been avoided if they had just and they couldn't be certain there were no pistachios or hazelnuts. I hope she was soon feeling better and it didn't affect her confidence in trying other things.
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Old 19 Mar 19, 10:10 PM  
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sparks1
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Love your trip reports! Can’t believe how much your girls have grown up since you started writing them. Glad you enjoyed Volcano Bay 😊
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Old 19 Mar 19, 11:16 PM  
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Zomax25
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Volcano bay looks so good. I hate water parks but the other three love them. I can do any rollercoaster but water rides terrify me.
How scary and annoying about the allergic reaction. In this day and age they need to do better.
Thanks for sharing!
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