Travel Day 2 (Saturday, 11/18) Lots of pictures!
From the time we hit Jacksonville, I started bouncing in my seat with excitement! Corey and I started firing off HP trivia at each other and even Tony chimed in....with some hilarious answers!! By the time we hit Orlando we were in stitches! We couldn't believe all the construction!
After all the months of anticipation, we made the final turn and made that sweet sweet drive and pulled up and were met by the friendly Hard Rock valet staff! Everyone is so genuinely friendly and makes you feel like you're the most important person they'll speak with all day. Even though it's obvious that it's busy, they never make you feel rushed and hurried. It's vacation, they realize it and they want you to feel it every step of the way. With all the bags sorted to be stored until we had our room number, we handed over the keys to valet and off we went to check in.
Natalia greeted us at the check in desk and made us feel like we'd come home! She was friendly and welcoming without being fake. She could tell that I was excited and asked if we were celebrating anything special. I didn't give her a lot of details, just a very quick that we'd had to delay a couple of times due to Corey's injuries and that we were very very happy to be back.
Got through check in and went over to take care of our park tickets. With the in-hotel pickup, this is such a breeze! We'd purchased one Power Pass and two 5 day park-to-park tickets.
Tickets in hand we went off to explore the hotel for a few minutes to end up by the pool to grab a snack and drinks while we waited for our room number.
The sun was out and it was a beautiful day! Tony had the Ahi Tuna Poke, I had the Tomato Caprese salad and Corey had chips and salsa at the beach club. Tony and I enjoyed a glass of wine and a mojito and Corey had an orange Fanta. Shortly after we finished I got the text that we had a room number! We went back to the check in desk and Natalia was happily waving us back to see her. We'd be in room 6015. She apologized that it wouldn't be the greatest view...we were so happy to be back that we couldn't care less. She went over everything and told us that there was something for us in the room key portfolio. We thanked her for everything and went on our merry way. In the elevator Tony took a closer look in the portfolio and found that she'd given us three vouchers for the Kitchen breakfast buffet!
And just because you can never see too many pictures of an empty Hard Rock room. This is room 6015. I intentionally left all of the lights off so that it would show in the pictures as you'd see it in the light of day.
And there you have Room 6015 at the HRH. While I wasn't jazzed about the view when we first arrived, we came to discover that it was perfect! Just to the right in that window shot was the roof of the front drive. On the couple of mornings that we had some drizzle, we could instantly tell whether or not it had stopped and with the windows and sheers opened we had a ton of natural light in the room. It's a room that we'd definitely ask for again. It was quiet during the week and far enough away from the elevators to not be bothered by foot traffic noise.
In short order bell services arrived with our bags. Tony and I changed into shorts and T-shirts and we headed to City Walk to get our lanyards for the trip and just take in that we were really there!
This was our first family selfie of the trip.
We made our way around to the Uni store and browsed....Corey and I may have giggled like 8yr olds.....and picked out our lanyards. I went with Gryffindor, Corey was Ravenclaw and my precious Tony....Merry Grinchmas. I also had a couple of T-shirts, Corey had picked out a Ravenclaw coffee mug and there were some other odds and ends. When I went to pay I was all excited to use my shiny new Power Pass for the discount, the TM laughed at my excitement and was bummed for me to discover that we hadn't entered the parks yet. She called someone over, he scanned something told us to have an absolutely amazing vacation and went on his way. I looked at our total and it had dropped by half! Whatever he'd done was overly generous and just sent me over the edge. I sought him on our way out and thanked him profusely and told him it was unnecessary but just made our day that much more over the top happy.
We made our way back to HR and I got us unpacked and the bags stored away in the closet. So glad I'd brought those extra packs of hangers from Target! I used an over the door shoe organizer on the bathroom door to keep the vanity clear. I also brought an extra large utility tote tucked away in a corner to drop park purchase bags in so we could keep the room clutter free. A large laundry tote would keep dirty clothes separate and make it easy when we went back home. Unpacked and organized, we headed down to the pool to unwind and cap off the night.
We were so relaxed by the pool we ended up just deciding to order dinner while we lounged.....life sure is stressful at HRH.
I had a turkey club wrap, Tony had a philly cheesesteak and Corey had chicken tenders. This is how we wrapped up the day.
Day 3 is up early for park day 1!