The Best Laid Plans of Keriann: 4th of July at PBH

[Holly Goheavy]

Here we go-cast of characters first:

Days 1-5
Me: 40, total hedonist and spender of money
DH: 34, total tightwad and constant worrier
DD: 16, white and orange hair by accident (Shelby)
DS: 4, referred to as The E ( as in the emperor)

Days 2-3
Matt: 19, college sophomore
Kenny: 19, college sophomore and Matt's lifelong best friend
Nick: 19, college sophomore, football teammate of the boys, now roommate

Day 3
Grandma: 66, loves to ride anything
Grandpa: 65, hates to ride everything


Sunday, the 1st we spend all day packing and keeping The E from bouncing off the walls. Since we're leaving at 4:30 am on Monday, we all go to bed early, as in 8 pm. The E doesn't handle this well at all and is jumping up and down chanting "Men in black, ALIEN attack!!" until he passes out. We're all sleeping and the phone rings at 11 pm-it's my friend Marty.

Marty: hey, you in bed?
Me: yes, I"m leaving in 5 hours for vacation, did you need something?
Marty: no, no. Just in a chatty mood.
Me: have you been drinking?
Marty: heh. Yeah.

I hang up and turn the phone off.

We are up and showered and out the door by 4:30 AM by some miracle that I've yet to figure out. Even The E is quiet and sits watching the Fantasia dvd that he's almost worn grooves in. Shelby goes back to sleep and I wrestle the car keys from DH and drive. He's a safe and cautious driver and I'd like to miss I-4 rush hour. We stop at a Denny's for breakfast in Sanford and pull into PBH at 7:30 AM. I go check in while DH unloads the car and am shocked to be told that our room is ready!! That's only happened once in all our trips so we're very excited to see where we're at, it's almost like Christmas for me with the surprise factor. We're in room 1434 in the east wing, a short walk from the front desk. We booked a standard garden view and this is what we look at:

I've never stayed in a standard room at PBH, we've always stayed deluxe and I'm very happy with it. I was worried about having enough space but it's really very large:

and The E in the bathroom:

and obligatory self portrait in the bathroom mirror:

Pizza is here so I'll finish up in a while. Stay tuned for wild rides, a Wal Mart rant and a wipeout!

 

[hayanyujah847]

I look forward to the rest of your TR! PBH looks just beautiful!! One day...one day!!

 

[dsmom]

Looking forward to more!! We had the same view two weeks ago except we were one floor above you. I think I like the standard room better- I like that storage rack in the bathroom better than the shower. Love the pictures!
By the way - I also have a husband younger - by five years!

 

[SpideyHulk24]

Love the report so far. We love PBH! Hope you have a great time and can't wait to read more!

 

[macraven]

what a great start for the trippiie..
eagerly waiting for more.


btw, all my husbands have been younger than me also......

 

[Holly Goheavy]

After putting our things away we decide to walk to Universal, since The E has decided our first ride will be MIB. The boats don't run until 8:30 so we think we'll walk the garden path and be there bright and early. 15 minutes later we stroll up to the big blue globe, all 4 of us dripping with sweat. The heat is already oppressive and we haven't even hit the park yet. There's already a line at the turnstiles, but the nice TM workng sees our hotel keys and says "You have the magic ticket! C'mon right here!" and lets us in immediately. I remind DH we need lots of pics so we get one of Shelby and The E on a nearly empty street.

Jimmy Neutron and Shrek are the only 2 rides open which is fine with us, since The E is the focus of most of this trip. I have to say that going to a theme park with a 4 year old is probably the most fun type of event, he's old enough to ride almost everything and still young enough that it's all real to him. I've always enjoyed taking the kids at this age to Disney and USO just for the kick out of seeing their eyes when they meet their "friends" and the excitement they feel when they're here. (end of mommy awww moment). The E shrieks "watch out Angelica" and tries to grab the candy flying at him in Shrek.

As soon as we're done walking on those rides, we head to MIB-which we had to ride twice since The E is so impressed with his alien fighting skills. We walk over to Woody Woodpecker which Shelby remembers as The Best Rollercoaster Evah! from our trip when she was 8. We rode that twice and then hit ET-the names were really very clear this time which got The E all excited when ET said thank you to him.

We turn to walk back towards Amity and run smack into a tidal wave of people. We're really thirsty by this point, but none of the kiosks were open that we ran across-it was almost 10:15 and we couldn't find a bottle of water to save ourselves. This was to become a theme for the next couple days. We have been very surprised at the lack of open drink kiosks and walk up counter service eateries in both parks. We decide to walk towards the Mummy and eat at Finnegan's and then take turns doing the Mummy since The E is about 10 inches too short. From Amity to the Mummy there wasn't one kiosk open to buy a drink, which was making me insanely cranky (hot, fat and thirsty make me really *****y).

Our first plan that was scrapped was that we would skip breakfast (we're not big breakfast eaters usually) and then have an early lunch at a sit down restaurant in either park and then dinner somewhere cheap off site. My plan was to eat at Finnegan's Monday late morning and then head back to the hotel to hit the pool in the afternoon. We had 30 minutes before Finnegan's opened and the closest place to it that had drinks was the kiosk in front of Monster Cafe. We grabbed 2 frozen pink lemonades and decided to go to Citywalk to find something to eat. The E got sidetracked by the water fountains:

finally we send Shelby in to get him and drag him to find some lunch. Since we all wanted different things, we thought we'd get things from the walk up windows and eat together, however nothing was open. Big Kahuna pizza, the window at the Latin Quarter, everything was sit down-which wouldn't work for us, so we decided on Margaritaville. Now, before everyone gets excited about food pics, I should warn you: DH has the palate of a spoiled 3 year old. You will see more pics of hamburgers than you've ever wanted to see in your life. DH had the hamburger, plain with just ketchup:

I had a cheeseburger:

Shelby had the California Chicken Sandwich:

and The E had chicken fingers (get ready for a lot of these too)

After eating we grabbed a boat back to the hotel to hit the pool. The walk is less than 10 minutes from our room in the east wing to the beach pool where The E makes a stir in his Spiderman bathing suit. It's one piece, like a wetsuit but has floaties built in on the chest to look like muscles. He's da man. We spend a nice few hours on the slide and floating around in the current while watching the games that the staff has organized poolside for the kids. They have something for them to do on the hour and while The E is generally a little young to participate we have a fantastic time watching them. Around 4 the thunder started so they cleared the pool area and we went back to our room to shower and change to go to dinner and Walmart.

We drove down I-drive, just for the sheer excitement of seeing World of Denim (it's a thing with DH and I, we just have to see a WoD every trip here) and look for something we all want to eat. Across from Pointe Orlando we see a Sizzler and I seem to remember something about it being not terribly expensive-however when DH saw the steak dinner was $17.99, he ordered us back in the car saying he'd just pay that much for steak at Outback, but tonight was eating cheap, as per the plan. After driving around for nearly 45 minutes, we decided to just go to Walmart, grab our snacks and be done with it.

I'll save the Walmart rant for the next time (here's a hint: don't try to buy a bottle of wine there).

 

[lindalinda]

Great report! Please tell us theres a pic of that spiderman swimsuit! Sounds so cute!

 

[dsmom]

Loving this report and love the pictures!
We noticed the same thing about not many drink stands being open. This was two weeks ago and it was VERY hot!
We ate at Margaritaville too- love the hamburgers but those chicken fingers are HUGE! Were they as good as they look?

 

[AlexandNessa]

I am looking forward to the Walmart rant!

 

[macraven]

me too

 

[loribell]

Love the report! Can't wait to hear more. The E sounds adorable.

 

[NurseW2Kiddies]

Oh my goodness!! I hate it when I'm left wanting more. And yes...we definatly want to see your little cutie in his swimming attire. Really enjoying you trip report.

 

[Holly Goheavy]

Loving this report and love the pictures!
We noticed the same thing about not many drink stands being open. This was two weeks ago and it was VERY hot!
We ate at Margaritaville too- love the hamburgers but those chicken fingers are HUGE! Were they as good as they look?

Those were some BIG honkin' chicken fingers! The E ate all 3 of them, so I guess they were pretty good-he's as picky as DH is, so I was pretty happy with his appetite.

 

[Holly Goheavy]

After driving for an hour and still not having decided on where to eat, we found a Wal Mart a couple miles from USO. When we drive in, all of us sort of look at each other, because it seems like it's the same one we found last year-which was apparently running for the title of Dirtiest Wal Mart In The World. It has not yet seen a broom since we saw it last year. We march in and race up and down the aisles picking up snacks and drinks for the room and plan to get in and get out. As we're checking out, the cashier rings up my bottle of Arbor Mist and then glances at Shelby, then at DH and I and snaps "Got ID?" I, of course, begin to preen since I'll be 41 next month and anyone who cards me for alcohol is my new best friend. So, DH begins to get his license out and the girl says "no, you ALL have to be over 21" including Shelby.

What.the.heck?? I tell the girl, "um, she's 16 and we are her PARENTS. We're paying, she's not." The girl says it doesn't matter, that "corporate policy" states that whenever alcohol is sold, everyone in the party has to be over 21. I told her that it wasn't even really wine, it was more "wine-esque", like wine juice and she said too bad, either everyone over 21 or we weren't buying it. So DH said "Shelby, take your brother and go to the car" and the cashier said "nope, I still can't sell it to you, I've seen you have an underage person in your party". I went to grab the bottle and go to another lane and the cashier said she would call her manager-so there was NO WAY I could buy a bottle of cheap wine spritzer at walmart because I had my daughter with me.

We finish up buying our stuff-bandaids, doritos, tampons and wine: woot! what a party we were gonna have! and then stop on our way out to ask the manager if this was seriously a Wal Mart policy, since I've bought cases of beer at home with my kids with me. She said yes it was and when we asked if we would be stopped buying beer if only the 4 year old was with us, she said yes, we would. She did volunteer that they've had a "lot of complaints" since this policy was instituted.

So, we go back on our way hungry and without wine, to the hotel. We changed into our bathing suits, board shorts and sandals and head to CityWalk hoping more window services were open and then we were going to ride water rides until we dropped. No window service was open except Pastamore, but we skipped it and sat down inside. THEY actually offered me wine suggestions even with my children sitting at the same table-quelle horreur!! I had a glass of pinot grigio and was in a much better mood. No pics since we left the camera in the room but trust me - the pasta primivera with chicken is to die for!!

Next up: I wipe out on Bluto and scare the poor TM's half to death.

 

[loribell]

You have got to be kidding me. Walmart has gotten ridiculous.

Now here is what I would have done, you know cut off nose to spite my face sorta thing. I would have walked out without anything! Yep I would have found a different store to buy my stuff from and left that cashier with a counter full of stuff to have put up and a purchase to get cleared from her register.

 

[macraven]

next time just say..........i never met those kids before in my life.....


buy the wine and then turn around and give the raspberry to the clerk.


you will feel so much better then.


it was worth the wait for the walmart story

 

[Metro West]

Great report and thanks for sharing the pix!

 

[bubba's mom]

Note to self: Don't buy wine/beer w/ DS around....

How ***** stupid!

 

[buckeye12]

Ok as a Wal-Mart employee that totally ticks me off on how you were treated. We are going to Florida next month and I'm going to make it a point to go there to buy some alcohol with my 16 year old brother. I hope they try to stop me from getting it because they will get an ear full plus a letter to the president. Because I know for a fact that it is NOT a Wal-Mart policy. You really should call 1-800 Walmart and let them know how you were treated!

 

[macraven]

Ok as a Wal-Mart employee that totally ticks me off on how you were treated. We are going to Florida next month and I'm going to make it a point to go there to buy some alcohol with my 16 year old brother. I hope they try to stop me from getting it because they will get an ear full plus a letter to the president. Because I know for a fact that it is NOT a Wal-Mart policy. You really should call 1-800 Walmart and let them know how you were treated!

please come back to this thread and tell us how the shopping trip went after you do that.

i'm curious on what will happen