The Amazing Race Series 2 - Day 13 - Blue Mountain

[neilhd]

Up at about 08:15 today. We went to the onsite supermarket (well, mini-market) for some breakfast supplies. Joe and Ele got some cereal and a small carton of milk. I wanted a bagel, but by the time I'd bought a big pack of bagels, and then a tub of butter (and typically the only size available was "year's supply for family of 12") it was actually much cheaper to just go and buy a nice fresh one from Starbucks so I did that instead, getting a nice coffee at the same time.

First activity today was the aquatic center. We ended up taking a rather circuitous route to get there, and then discovered we could have pretty much just shortcutted from the back of our hotel. Never mind. To be honest, I didn't think much of it. There was a tiny slide, and a couple of pools and that's about it. There was a very deep pool with a rope swing that Joe, and the other kids there, all liked a lot. You had to do a swim test and get given a wristband before being allowed in that bit. I got in a pool and found it was freezing, so got out and spent 30 minutes shivering on a sun lounger.

Joe doing the flying lotus position:

We tired of this place after a couple of hours and left, even though we'd paid for 3 hours access. We went back to our room and showered and changed and then went out to get some lunch. We decided on the Firehall Pizza place which was in a restaurant done up to look like a Firehouse. Strangely, the kids menu did not have pizza on it, despite it being a pizza place. Joe had chicken tenders from the kids menu (rare he orders from that these days!). Ele had a Hawaiian pizza, and I had a bacon double cheeseburger pizza, and frankly - it was absolutely awesome! Probably a week's worth of calories as they were huge, but worth every one.

We went back out to do some more activities, and decided on the Ridge Runner, which is a "Mountain coaster". Hard to explain, but you sit in a little bobsled thing and get pulled up to the top of the hill, then you go down the track, controlling the brakes as you go (of course you can get away without braking at all). It was actually excellent fun, and quite a long ride, too. There was a bit of a queue to get on it - maybe 25 minutes. Joe had to ride with me as he was too young to do it himself - you had to be 13. Given he's enormously tall, this was quite uncomfortable. The lady selling the tickets didn't believe me about his age:

"1 adult and 1 child please".
"He's 12?"
"Actually he's 11".
"Seriously? Dude, stop eating vegetables. Just junk food from now on!"

Next up was Zip lines. I'm far too old to do that sort of thing, so we sent Joe off by himself. Also, every activity costs $16 (£10) for Adults and $13 (£8) for a child, so it does add up. I think they have some better deals if you're staying longer though. The ziplines were pretty cool, and he wasn't scared - or didn't show it. They were really high up as well, and went really fast.

It was quite hot, so we got some drinks from the mini market, and then went to do crazy golf. This was really good, although we were stuck behind a large family made up of several generations who were probably the worst people to ever play the game, and therefore took an age to do each hole, which I understand is an issue that affects some men as they get older.

By the time we finished that we were all thirsty again so we bought some large drinks, and headed back to our room to chill for a bit. It was about 5pm by now. At about 6:30 we went out for dinner. There was a large number of restaurants to choose from, but we chose the Firehall Pizza place again, mainly because Joe really wanted to get the pizza that I had for lunch! They were busy and had a waiting system that relied on sending text messages and needed a Canadian/US mobile number which of course I did not have. They put my name down, said it was a 35 minute wait, but to come back in 20 minutes to see. We did just that, and they found us a table.

Joe ordered the bacon double cheeseburger pizza. Ele ordered a chicken alfredo pasta, and I had a chicken club sandwich with fries and a beer. The food was really good, especially Ele's. As the pizza was huge, Joe couldn't finish it all so we asked for the remaining 3 slices to go. Our server came back to our table with the box and a sheepish expression and explained she'd dropped one of the slices (turns out it was the smallest slice), and she was very sorry. She gave us 25% off that pizza which was fair enough.

We fancied dessert, so investigated the line for the ice cream shop. It was very long. I wanted one but thought I'd wait for the queue to die down, so we went to the frozen yoghurt place instead. Joe got one but I didn't fancy it. He got peanut butter flavour and loads of toppings. We then went to the sweet shop for Ele to get pick n' mix. Then we went back to the ice cream place for me, only to discover it was now closed. So I didn't get dessert. I know. Poor me.

We went back to our room at about 9:30 and we went to bed an hour later.

[Melbatb]

Another lovely day!

We did a similar toboggan run in the French Alps - but we could send the kids down on their own! Much more comfortable

The pizza place sounds awesome!

[WileyCoyote]

Great day - love all the different activities on offer ( although a bit pricey if you did it all I am sure). The Firehouse place sounds great and fairplay to the waitress for fessing up and giving the discount. Poor you not getting your ice cream - you kind of think these places around the resort will be open all hours !

[jocat]

Where's your photos of the bacon double cheeseburger pizza? That would probably go down well in our house too - it sounds like it would probably be my son's favourite meal ever!

[neilhd]

Originally Posted by jocat

Where's your photos of the bacon double cheeseburger pizza? That would probably go down well in our house too - it sounds like it would probably be my son's favourite meal ever!

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I am very bad at taking food photos. Usually because I just want to get on with the business of eating it, and hate being "that guy" who takes pictures of his food before eating it!

Basically it was just a pizza with crumbled hamburger patty (does that just make it mince?), bits of bacon and lots of cheese. It was great!