[kittylady1972]

This was our original designated water park day, and of course it was the perfect day for it...as it had been all week. Have I mentioned the ninety-plus degree hot sunny days all week yet?

So we got up and had breakfast in the room and Nicolas worked on homework for a bit, and then we were off, arriving just before 11am at Typhoon Lagoon!

Now the great thing about this particular trip was the cost. For the five of us to enter the water, it cost me about $65. You may think that sounds pretty good, until I tell you that I only paid for TWO CHILDREN! You see, way back on one of our previous Disney trips (I think it was 2003 or 2004) we had purchased what were called Park Hopper Plus tickets at the time for two adults and one child (Nicolas) and that gave us park hopping at all four parks for our length of stay as well as TWO options per ticket to be used on either a water park or DisneyQuest or Pleasure Island. You should know that I save EVERYTHING and in this case I saved these because I knew we never had the chance to use any of those options...we only did the parks. Back then you did not have to purchase a non-expiration option so the tickets were good forever for the unused options. I had them scan our tickets the previous day at EPCOT just to check and sure enough there were two options on each ticket. So this means that I didn't pay for DH or myself to enter the park, and I didn't pay for Nicolas...just the little two kids. So yeah that $65 doesn't sound quite so good now for two kids? Oh yeah, we did save $3 each I think thanks to our Annual Passholder discount, but that cost was after the discount.

As you can imagine, after getting over the shock at the park entrance, I was even MORE thankful that I packed food for the day for us. We didn't buy anything at all in the park, which was great.

So we spent about four hours at the waterpark. The only slide I ended up doing was the one big family waterslide that was there, and that was an experience. The limit was four to a tube, so we split up with Dh taking the older two and I took Noah. The problem was the rafts...they were HEAVY...and you had to roll them up the steps to the launch area. Thankfully some poor souls behind me took pity and helped me roll the thing up the steps when I struggled, which was most of the time.



Frank had a good time with the kids. Noah and I really could take it or leave it.



We spent most of our time at the huge wave pool of course, and there were some smaller slides off the side that the kids really enjoyed, especially Noah.



The older two seemed to enjoy them:




We did wander over to the lazy river and floated around that for a while. It wasn't long before the older two were ready for some more excitement, so DH took off with them and headed to the other slides while I took DS4 Noah over to the smaller kids area where he enjoyed doing the little water slide they had there for the kids. He got to get in his own innertube and float down this little slide that was actually pretty nice. He loved it.

DH also did the snorkel with the sharks once, and tried to take DD6 Noelle over there to also try it, but unfortunately the mask was not tight enough for her face and they did not have any smaller ones so she wasn't able to participate.

After about four hours, and despite the sunscreen lathering, our delicate skin was starting to suffer so we headed back to the room to meet back up with DH's parents who had spent the day elsewhere. Both younger kids fell asleep on the short ride back, so we actually put them in the double-stroller we had rented and rolled them back to the room and they slept in that, in the room, for a short time.



We had ADRs for the Captain's Grill this night, but since we ate there earlier in our trip, we had no need to go back. I had this coupon printed out for the Boston Lobster Feast and all-u-can-eat seafood sounded great to us! DH and I ate at Boston Lobster Feast on a previous kid-free trip many years ago and remember enjoying it. This coupon I had was good only at the Florida Mall location, and since we didn't really know how far that was, we set off on our adventure.

Nearly one-hour later and lots of slow traffic and lights we were still not there. The kids were complaining loudly and getting impatient and just when we had decided to just turn around we realized we were coming up on the place...FINALLY! So we arrived at well past our 5:30pm reservation (we had called to make one) despite leaving around 4:45pm. This was definitely not the same place where DH and I had been years before, but it was still pretty good. They brought out lots of mac n'cheese for the kids, the lobster was good and most of the seafood was pretty good. The dessert buffet was laughable, but who comes to an all-you-can-eat seafood place for dessert anyway? Not seafood lovers like us!

Thankfully we took a much shorter route home that evening.

On the way back, we decided to hit Winter Summerland for some minigolf. We LOVE minigolf in this family and that's something we have not tried Disney-style. Well DH and I did on our last trip, but not this one. We played one round here and did enjoy the course, but I think we liked the Fantasia Gardens one much better. We'll do that one next time.