This morning we woke up and had a bit of time before the 11:30a airboat ride, so DS6 asked to go to the BWV pool ... we went for an hour and a half at 8a and had a great time! That clown slide is really long and fun, and we had the pool almost to ourselves. Went back to room for a quick shower. [Forgot to mention that on our Universal day, we woke up to no hot water in the shower, only lukewarm, so we called maintenance and nobody fixed it during the day we called again in the evening and somebody came around 10p to fix it!] Headed out driving East for 45 minutes or so to meet our airboat captain. We were about 5 minutes late due to programming our phone Navigation with a slightly mixed up address. I should mention here that I forgot to take a picture of the airboat dock ... it was just a waterway adjacent to a park, I had been expecting a office building with a dock attached, but apparently Spirit of the Swamp operates elsewhere. No matter, the captain introduced himself, we got our headsets on, and were on our way. Saw lots of turtles on the way out, but really wanted gators.
First one we found was sliding into the water as we found him. Disappointing.
Next though we happened upon a bunch of baby gators! There were at least 4 that we could count as they scurried around in the brush. Cute!
Video of them
moving, but they're hard to see they blend in with the swamp.
We kept driving around looking in some of the gators favorite places for them or otters, which is cool because you're in their habitat and can just bird watch, the wildlife out there is lovely and scenic.
Finally we found a mama gator (pretty far from the babies, so probably not their mama).
Yep, she was that close, no fence between us.
Finally before the tour was over he offered to take a picture of us on the airboat:
We had paid for an hour, and he ended up spending over an hour and a half with us, there was a ton of great information about the area and the flora and the fauna from the guide. It was a nice warm sunny day, and when we got back to the launch at 1p there was a couple waiting. I would definitely recommend this if you want to experience something unique and Floridian. Don't know if I feel the need to do it again, though, not addictive like the IllumiNations cruise was.
So we headed back to Disney, DH stopped for a Subway sandwich on the way since he was famished, but I wanted to eat at Wolfgang Puck Express. At WPE we ordered the bacon wrapped meatloaf
lovestruc BACON!), and DS wanted a pizza so we got that which was really good, thin crust style pizza and we all chowed down. Then we headed over to DisneyQuest since we are all video game nerds. Started in the 3rd floor, where a static Wreck it Ralph is with a lot of Fix-It-Felix games.
I enjoy racing games and actually joined a group of 8 players ... btw I'm usually a terrible gamer with video games, don't practice enough (I'm much better at table-side board type games that are strategy or puzzle oriented), and won! We made our way around the 3rd and 4th level, boys played lots of things, there was a fun smashing fruit game and 4 person air hockey. Had a great time for a few hours, then it was time to go meet Kevin, my Universal friend for dinner in Celebration, the town Disney built about 15 minutes south of the World.
We met at Celebration Town Tavern, which is a bistro-like kid-friendly place, serves Bostonian-type food. Micheal got a burger, Kevin got frank and beans (he swears its exceptional, better than anything you could make at home), DH and I shared a something that was sliced bread, mashed potatoes, roasted turkey, onion rings, all stacked in a tower and covered with gravy. It was delicious. Oh, and I got spinach-artichoke dip, too, more caloric goodness though nothing special like the turkey thing-ey. Very reasonably priced for the 5 of us!
Meatloaf stacker picture
ours was the same except with Turkey.
Afterwards it was almost time for the snow in Celebration. Disney has a street where they project so many bubbles that it really feels like you're in the middle of a 65 degree blizzard, very fun. Sam had a blast running around with the other kids.
Then we headed back to the resort and dropped Michael and Sam off and changed since I had an ADR at California Grill that I hadn't cancelled and didn't want to pay the $40 penalty and wanted to see the Holiday Wishes fireworks. We were seated nowhere near the window (showed up right at 9 and everybody had been seated near the window already, oh well), but they scattered beautiful birthday decor on my table.
We ordered goat cheese ravioli, which was almost as good as the lobster ravioli at Palo, which we adore. The 5 cheese flatbread was just okay, a little too heavy for us. I really wish we had had the appetite for a dragon roll, it was so beautiful even though we didn't order one I had to take a picture:
Then we ordered dessert and were able to eat about half of it before going out to the fireworks.
DH's chocolate cake with peppermint ice cream ... it was a lot like a souffle
My Bananas and Caramel phyllo squares with burnt sugar on the bananas. Yum!
The server also boxed up for me a free extra birthday dessert of cake that we never ate, but the gesture was lovely.
The view of the fireworks from the top of the Contemporary with the music piped in was lovely, it made our quasi-date-night very special. We watched from the "back" landing, there are two of them, and got a spot right at the edge since we headed out about 5 minutes before they started.
Then we finished our desserts and went down to watch the Electrical Water Parade that I had missed every night we stayed at BLT (to be fair, one night I was waiting for them and I didn't realize we were facing the wrong side of the lake until after they had started ... I saw them setting up, then watched them float away as they turned on). Loved the 8-bit themed music, it was just so cute and nostalgic I felt like I was 11 again.
It was COLD! though, so I was glad somebody had left some resort towels on the dock that I wrapped myself up in over my jacket.
Drove back to BWV. Really loved having the car this week, it felt so convenient we decided for future trips we'll always get a car, even when staying close to a park or two.