Return of the Rescuer – Wide Awake in America - Day 1 - 3.7.19

[Rescuer]

Return of the Rescuer – Wide Awake in America - Day 1 - 3.7.19

Index is here

I was expecting to be awake early but wasn’t best Impressed when I woke up at 2.25am! Thankfully I managed to get back to sleep again at 3.30 and slept again till 6am.

I begged Dh to go downstairs and get me a cup of coffee from Starbucks but he was having none of it so I mustered the enthusiasm to go myself. We also started the day with the breakfast of champions, Krispy Kreme.

I settled down with my coffee in time to watch the sunrise and checked the weather.

Once we were organised, we got an uber to ihop. We used uber a lot on this holiday and again had no issues whatsoever with them.

We had a voucher for a free stack of pancakes so I order the rooty tooty pancake stack. I love this, the peaches and pancakes are a perfect combo for me.

Dh has the split decision and enjoyed it. Along with a strawberry milkshake - full days worth of calories in one sitting!

Ds had the breakfast sampler, this also came with 2 buttermilk pancakes.

It was all good and a good price.

Breakfast over, I ordered another uber to Vineland Outlets. We got there just as Disney had opened and it was a bit manic again with personal shoppers. It wasn’t great this time though and I didn’t pick up much but did manage to pick up a new Alex and Ani for a bargain price and the teacher in me can never resist a notebook.

I was interested to see what offers places had on for the 4th of July but I think I’d been spoiled by some of the great offers we’d seen at Christmas.

Kipling had good offers with 40% off the Alice in wonderland styles they had left. Unfortunately, there was no money off the Mickey range at all.

Ds was after shoes for high school and vans had buy 1 get 50% off a second pair. He found a pair he liked pretty quickly which is unusual for him and shoes so I decided I’d pick a pair for myself as the second ones.

Converse was not exciting at all.

Tommy Hilfiger was busy and took the prize for the most hideous outfit spotted today with this little number. (apologises if anyone has this )

I bought a jumper for school for $20 and one for mil which was similar to one she’d bought at Christmas.

They had a really lovely dress but at $120 with 50% off I didn’t bother as I didn’t really have somewhere to wear it to.

Adidas - had some decent offers but there was not much kids and not much ladies stuff. Ds got himself a top for sports at High School.

Fossil had ok bags but none that took my fancy and I was looking for sunglasses for ds but they were all rubbish.

Nike had good kids’ stuff and ds got some tops, a new gym bag for high school and a pair of trainers that were $80 but when we got them to the till they were $55. Spot the theme here, the one that hates shopping the most gets the most. To be fair most of the things he got were dirt cheap.

Journeys had good HP vans and Disney vans but no real bargains.

At Easter I discovered Aeropostale and I loved their tops, they are so soft. The offer was the same as Easter, buy 1, get 2 free so 3 tops for the price of one, although I’m not sure I’d have paid full price for one.

I was looking for sunglasses for ds so I tried Sunglasses hut, nothing in their in the budget I had in mind although they did have the lovely Disney ray bans.

Ds then surprised us by going into Timberland. He was looking for a new school bag and I think he was after something a bit more grown up than his Harry Potter and marvel ones. He chose one in here. He totally loved it and it was on offer at $30 so he used his own money to buy it, a sure sign he loved it.

We stopped for a snack at the food court. We had Chinese. Orange chicken, spicy chicken and pork egg rolls to share along with a Diet Coke $18

Followed by a mango and dragonfruit refresher from Starbucks. The Starbucks here was chaos, one person serving and 2 making drinks and it was heaving. I was glad I waited until after our food to go and pick up this.

It was absolutely roasting and we were very happy to return to our lovely chilled room. Ds was chomping at the bit to go to the pool so off we went. The pool at the Rosen Plaza is nice, it’s basic but has everything you would possibly need.

After about an hour an half of playing catch and splashing about we headed upstairs to get ready.

We let Ds choose dinner tonight and he went with Joe’s Crab Shack. This is part of the Landrys group and we had a $25 birthday reward to use. We walked up the road as it had cooled down a fair bit, it’s about a 10-15 minute walk from the Rosen Plaza, just up past the Orlando Wheel.

When we arrived they said it would be a 15 minute wait for a table so I asked if having a Landry’s card would make it faster. It did and we were pretty much seated after a few minutes.

For drinks I had a watermelon margarita which was lovely. Dh has a beer and ds had a watermelon lemonade in a light up glass.

We ordered a starter of great balls of fire, I love these, just the right amount of spiceness. This was probably just greed as we all then struggled to finish our mains.

Dh had the coconut shrimp, he loved this and I gave to say the bit I had was very nice.

Ds had the kids steam pot. This is great value for an adventurous child $12.99. He loved it and now wants to go to cape May as a result for more Crab!

I had the blackened salmon with dirty rice. This was ok. I wouldn’t have it again though. I really wanted the bacon wrapped shrimp but they only seem to do this as part of a shrimp sampler now which I didn’t fancy but in hindsight should have ordered.

We had a $25 birthday reward on our Landry’s card so that made a nice dent in the bill.

Overall, we enjoyed this, I made a wrong choice and lesson learned that when you really want something ordering a different thing will just disappoint.

Afterwards we went for a wander across the road at the Orlando Eye. This seems quite a nice area, the sky was looking gorgeous.

However, it didn’t stay nice for long and there were a few loud crashes of thunder, followed by a bit of lightening so we headed back to Joe’s and requested an Uber.

Back in the room living the Rock n Roll life we played Tipping Point on the Ipad and were asleep by 9.30pm

Day 2

[GezzasGem]

I have that exact same Tommy Hilfiger outfit... 😉😆 some great photos there, looks like a fab kids platter too at Joe's 👍 just sitting here thinking I need to get on with a ruck load of sit ups so I don't feel as bad trying out all these places 🤔😂😂

[Goldia]

6am is pretty good for the first day and you managed to keep going all day until a reasonable time.

The shopping trip sounds really successful. DS did well with his school bag, much more grown up for high school.

The sky does look beautiful in your photos.

[MaryMendes]

That was a good shopping trip. I’ve never found the Aeropostale at Vineland. I’ll have to look out for it if we go this time.

[margyloveswdw]

Great sky sat the end of the day!

Sounds like a great first day.

[Rescuer]

Thanks for reading and commenting, I'm still finding my trip report legs so it's really nice.

Originally Posted by GezzasGem

I have that exact same Tommy Hilfiger outfit... 😉😆 some great photos there, looks like a fab kids platter too at Joe's 👍 just sitting here thinking I need to get on with a ruck load of sit ups so I don't feel as bad trying out all these places 🤔😂😂

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Can't wait to see some photos of you wearing that little number at the Hard Rock...

I'm sure you will walk enough when you are there to burn off most of those calories you will consume.

Originally Posted by Goldia

6am is pretty good for the first day and you managed to keep going all day until a reasonable time.

The shopping trip sounds really successful. DS did well with his school bag, much more grown up for high school.

The sky does look beautiful in your photos.

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We did alright, Ds is not a lover of the shopping but is always glad if we do it early on. I doubt it will be long till he will be the one dragging us to fancy shops that I will refuse to buy him anything in

Originally Posted by MaryMendes

That was a good shopping trip. I’ve never found the Aeropostale at Vineland. I’ll have to look out for it if we go this time.

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Thanks, I like Aeropostale, it will be staying on my shopping list.

Originally Posted by margyloveswdw

Great sky sat the end of the day!

Sounds like a great first day.

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Thanks, the view from the other direction was just black clouds so it did look pretty amazing.

[ziggyzag]

Loving your trip report, fab writing!

[Rescuer]

Originally Posted by ziggyzag

Loving your trip report, fab writing!

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Thanks for reading and the lovely compliment

[collybird]

Such a lovely first day, I really admire your self-control that you don't dash off to the parks at the first opportunity.

Lots of good purchases today and practical ones too with ticking off some things on the school list. Were the Disney Ray Bans reduced at the Sunglasses Hut? I fancy getting some for DH but not sure if he can be trusted with them, in the past he has lost a pair to Test Track and another to Space Mountain.

[JanetteP]

Great day - some lovely shopping bargains too. Wish my grandchildren were more adventurous with their food - Joe's Crab Shack looks great.👍