So, after such a long and great day we passed out quickly the night of 'day 3'. Once we got up, we had to hurry up and pack our stuff, get it transferred by bell services to our next hotel, and rush off to get to Ohana's for breakfast!
I have to say, I was juggling a lot of luggage that morning. We planned to meet L and A at blizzard beach after breakfast and so had a bag with swimming gear, along with our normal backpack full of stuff, her stroller, her play bag, etc. Once we made it to Poly, I was very glad that luggage services was able to hold onto most of our extra bags while we had breakfast.
Today was another super hot day.
This day is my least photo day. We never went to a theme park, just a water park, and my camera is NOT going in a water park.
So, I am going to put our Ohana photos in with this post as it will be a smaller one anyway.
We arrived upstairs at Ohana, checked it, was given lei's... upon lei's upon lei's. My DD lost her's about 5x while waiting for us to be called. Now that isn't saying we had to wait a long time, that is just how easy it is for my DD to lose something she is to wear. We had our photo taken by Photopass (CD is still at dads though...) and we waited to be called. I loved the CM handing out the lei's because neither one had any issue with DD asking for more of them. Every time she lost one, she got another one, and even got two of them for her stitch as well.
DD had fun pretending this wooden 'drum' was real:
and dad couldn't resist trying to get a nice photo in while he could. (but his flash was acting wonky.)
So, we got seated and what do we find right outside our window?
A pretty bird.
We didn't even get to greet our server before Stitch himself arrived!
Stitch loved his 'baby' stitch, and took plenty of time with DD.
Breakfast was good, but I felt the server was super rushed and thus was rushing with us.
Why do I say that? Because we didn't even get a chance to really eat anything before she was back asking if we needed more or were done. o.0 you gave us this less than 10 min ago, we are lucky to have gotten my child to say what she wants to eat out of it, nevertheless actually eat anything!
After our food was rushed on and off our table, it seemed to have taken forever for another character to come. Oh, and we missed the parade as DD had to use the potty. We came back at the tail end, and she and I was begging CM's with the baskets of musical instruments to give DD one, as that is part of the reason we even made this ADR. None would, until I was the last person standing there and said my kid wasn't given one and this was why we made the ADR. In all she got to shake one, less than a min, after the parade was done. So even THIS was rushed. *sigh* To be honest, I think this was the worst of our meals. LTT wasn't all that good, but at least the food was good. We barely were allowed to taste the food before it was being whisked away again.
Eventually Lilo made it by our table, and she too loved the little stitch.
With how everyone else was rushing us, I am super glad the characters at least took a little bit of time with us. Nearly made up for it, while at the same time making the other CM's seem even more rediculious as, we of course are going to be here until we see all 4 characters, so why are you trying to take the food off the table and push us to hurry when the characters are no were near having made a round?
Oh, and it was a bad day for DD already, she was so antsy, she missed her chance to get her wiggles out by missing that parade, the food was gone, so she couldn't munch of that... she was stuck just -waiting-.
Mickey was a bit more rushed than stitch and lilo were. and pluto was the quickest of them all. *shrugs*
He did interact with her, more so than at other places where they just did the sign, photo and go, but I could tell he himself was feeling rushed (or he needed a potty break. LOL.)
DD was happy when we were all done and ready to leave. she had more fun taking random photos after we were out of there than being at ohanas.
I was highly disappointed, despite that smile on my face. This Ohana experience was nothing like what I remembered from my childhood. and for it to have been our last dining plan experience of the trip... well, if that had been the actual end of our trip it wouldn't have made for a happy Scott. Happily we have more to our trip, we just are no longer doing the packaged hotel+dining+tickets deal. More freestyling, paid out of pocket from here on out.
So... what did we do the rest of the day? Once done being disappointed at ohana, we walked around poly a little. Seemed pretty nice and if I ever win the lotto that we do not play, this would be on our list of other places to stay.
After walking around a bit, we got our bags back from luggage services and hopped the bus for blizzard beach!
Once there we met up with L and A. The four of us went down one of the family slides together a couple times, which was fun. Sadly, this caused the death of L and A's cellphones as they had mistakenly thought a ziplock baggie would keep their stuff safe from the water.

of course, after the first trip down the slide that baggie was half full of water!
After that, we split up. DD wanted to play in the kiddie section, and they wished to do the lazy river and some other rides.
DD loved the kiddy section, being able to go up and slide down on her own, and I enjoyed being able to sit and see her do so. I was able to sit! on my own! YAY! as a single parent of a special needs kid, this is not a usual occurrence!
After that, I made my DD come and do what *I* wanted to do, and that was go down the Lazy river. So we did. of course, DD nearly gave me a heart attack at one point! She decided that, even after telling her repeatedly that she had to stay ON the raft, that she wanted to swim holding onto it. of course, she did so inside a darker tunnel with a very strong current.

and I was stuck on top of my raft! I finally managed to flip myself off my raft, and struggle to where DD was nearly drowning, only to happily find that someone heard me yelling and had grabbed DD up for me.

This was very scary. and thankfully was exactly what needed to happen for DD to remember that I don't tell her no at Disney without reason.
After going around one last time on the river, I decided we had enough water time and started to look around to find L and A. This was made a million times harder since their phones were dead. Sadly this theme follows the rest of the trip.
See, without those phones they had no way to tell time. So even when we had set times and spots to meet up... well, Disney does funny things with your internal sense of time and so without an actual clock, your kinda set up to not be there! Anyway, I put DD in her stroller (yes, we had the stroller with even at the waterpark. only had it parked for a little while as we did the family rides.) and walked around trying to think of where I could find those two. as I was walking around DD passed out cold.
oh yeah, I wasn't kidding when I said stitch went EVERYWHERE.
I did manage to sneak him out of the photo so you can see sleeping beauty:
Eventually I found L and A in the wave pool, and we all went and got dressed and headed out.
I am getting fuzzy on details now. I do know I left out that I was very unhappy about the refillable soda mug at blizzard beach. I asked multiple CM's at the booth I bought the mug if you can hold onto the mug while ridding down the raft slides. they said yes. So I went ahead and bought it. turns out they were wrong and we ended up having to either: walk all the way back up to the top of the little mountain to walk down with the mug again, or just not ride. My DD so couldn't do that walk, which is why we rode the lift up in the first place. anyway, I was losing my voice and this one CM thought I was yelling and getting overly upset when it was just my voice dying.... and in the end, this CM walked the mug down for us. which was nice, but wasn't the point. the point was I wouldn't have bought the dang thing if they had told me WHEN I ASKED that I couldn't actually carry it with me all day, on the slides too. I understand WHY you can't (at least on some slides. not the family raft one, where you can easily hold onto it... but still.) the point was, I asked. I didn't just ask one CM, I asked a couple of them. I felt basically that I was lied to (which I was) and cheated out of money I wouldn't have spent if they had told the truth. having a mug I can't carry with all the time, but have to set in one spot and go out of my way to get back to repeatedly wasn't my goal. Add in the sticker they put on was put on winkley and didn't even scan most the time, and when I figured that out, and asked if they could either fix the sticker or replace it or something (as I even had the receipt for the mug I bought less than 30 min before, from this same CM!) and they gave me a real hard time about it.
I don't see me giving in and going to the water parks again. Ever. I don't like water parks in the first place, but after such a headache over a freaking mug, why should I bother? much more fun in the theme parks, and if I need to drink something I can easily find a bubbler or a place to get one. oh, and I CAN carry a mug around there.
So, the only other things I know we did that day was go to our traditional place. We *always* go to Kobe's when we go to Disney!
I am doing that in another post so I have more photo allowance.
Next Posting