Day Six
Today I am going to a water
park,
My t-shirt of the day is a
new one I bought for this trip. It talks about the July 4th Nathans Hot Dog eating contest.
The same bus that takes you
to Animal Kingdom makes a stop first at BB, so I have been here plenty of
times, just never got off the bus.
For the visit to the water
park, I am only taking my new waterproof camera and a waterproof pouch for my smartphone. I am
taking a change of clothes and a towel.
I have some coupons for a free locker that I printed from my Disney
Rewards Visa website. I am taking this
all in a smaller backpack then what I carried to the theme parks daily.
The good thing about the
Magic Band, they are waterproof and I don’t need to hold onto my Key to the
World card if I decide to get anything, so I will leave my wallet in the
backpack which I will stuff into a locker.
I get off the bus and head
towards the park entrance. I notice one
of the bus station signs says a bus for Downtown Disney and their resorts stops
here. I think, great, I don’t have to
change buses, but take a single bus there.
I head towards the entrance
and find two lines open
, one
for Magic Band holders seem to be empty, so they scan my band and my finger,
and I am in.
Since this is my first time
at
I find the main gift shop,
Beach Haus. I
look around to try and figure out how to rent a locker. I show the coupon to one of the workers and
she tells me the coupon is expired. I
see for the first time, a expiration date of
I am wearing beach
shoes. I am concerned about picking up
things like Athletes foot in these environments. I do notice lots of people are walking
barefoot. I also see signs warning
people that the pavement can get hot. To
help with that, I see they have in ground sprinkler systems spraying the
pavement where people walk. They also have outdoor showers too.
I look at a map and find my
way to the main pool area.
Around the water is a sand
environment. All the lounge chairs are
all reserved already. But I don’t think
I will need one. Perhaps on future
visits when or if I spend the day here, I will try and relax for a couple of
hours. I don’t want to get sunburned, so
I walk around with my t-shirt on.
I walk across the main pool
to make my way to the other side. The
water is nice and warm enough. I try and
find the entrance to the lazy river.
I wait around one of the many
entrances to the lazy river and wait for a empty large
tube to float by me to grab one. There
are a couple of people waiting already too.
And not too many empty ones are floating by. But finally I spot one. I grab the tube, take it by the steps and
proceed to lay in it, and just float.
But I don’t like how it makes my neck feel, so
I wear the tube around my waist, lean forward a little, and float a little like
that.
I take some Instagram videos,
but I hold the cell phone wrong so the videos come out sideways to the people
who view it. I also take photos and
videos along the way. Here are the
videos, first up a combination of the Instagram
videos, right side up,
And another video I took.
I stop to take some
photos. But this time, I lean too far
forward of the tube, and the center of weight keeps my
head in the water. I see the lifeguard,
but he is walking back and forth, and at this moment, walking with his back to
me. There is no one around me right
now. I cant
push against anything to keep my head out of the water. The only thing I can do is try and use my
hands to paddle my way to the edge, grab onto the side to get my head out of
the water. When I get near the edge, I
do a 180 flip in the water and finally standing with my head out of the
water. The lifeguard sees me and asks if
I am ok? I tell him, now I am J
You pass under mountains with
water falling down on you, going through caves.
And they have items near the
water that spray you with water like this.
I have enough of the lazy
river and find a shop to get some type of snack from. I find that they sell Nestle Dibs at
Frostbite Freddy’s. I sit on a table and
relax, eating these things before they melt.
I hope this holds me over till I get to lunch at Planet Hollywood.
I decide to head back to the
I get on a tube, carefully
not to drown myself again, but got bored.
I see a landing coming up, thinking it was the one I entered on, and
left the lazy river. However when I
found a map, I am further from the entrance where I thought I was.
I find a walk path and start
walking towards the large wave pool,
walk across it and head to the locker area. I retrieve my backpack with my clothes and go
to the changing room area.
I realize my bathing suit is
still very wet, so I wrap my towel around it.
I also realized I should have packed another t-shirt since the one I am
wearing is still wet. But unless I buy
one, not too much else I can do.
I have heard stories about
people catching fungus in environments like changing rooms, so I am very
careful not to walk around barefoot.
I then went to return my key
for the $5 deposit. Even though I
charged the original $13 fee, I will get back $5 in cash. I handed in my key, but instead of getting $5
back, they offered a souvenir
I leave the park and head
back to the bus station where I saw the sign for Downtown Disney. After waiting for a couple of minutes a bus
pulls up that says Art of Animation. The
bus driver asks me and another family where we want to go. I tell him Downtown Disney. He tells me to ignore the sign that says
Downtown Disney, it is meant for the hotels only. I was thinking maybe there is a path or
something, but I guess he knows better when he tells me to board his bus, then
switch to a DTD bus there.
As we enter Art of Animation
resort, I see a bus leaving for Downtown Disney. I walk over to the queue and wait. Its not a bad
wait. Within a couple of minutes,
another bus for DTD is pulling in. I
confirm with the bus driver that if I want to go to Planet Hollywood, I should
get off at the second bus stop. I am the
only person on the bus to DTD. I told
the bus driver there was a previous bus 5 minutes before he pulled in.
I head to Planet Hollywood.
I ask the downstairs greeter if they are open
for lunch, they are. I walk upstairs which
is a little bit of a chore. At the top
of the stairs, they are taking photos of people against a green screen. I go inside and explain about the $15
voucher. I get seated right away.
I look around at all the
props, none I can really remember where they are from. They have a large screen TV that displays
upcoming movies and such. I realize they
are a little dated since they are talking about a movie that I know came out
months ago. I order the cheeseburger
meal with a milkshake. The meal was pretty
good. The manager starts to talk to me
about my Nathans Hot Dog t-shirt, but is getting
confused about the Boardwalks at
I walked through DTD to the
marketplace bus station to get a bus back to Pop Century, shopping along the
way. Didn’t buy
anything.
T-Rex Cafe
I make it back to the bus
station just in time to see a Pop Century bus close its doors and leave. I sit and wait. It starts to rain, but I am under cover, so I
don’t mind. I see a bus pull up in the
next station for Art of Animation. I think about taking that bus, but I
don’t. I sit and wait, and wait. Another bus pulls in for Art of
Animation. I am thinking, should I get on that bus?
But I figure I waited this long, may as well wait for Pop bus. A couple of minutes later, I board a bus for
Pop. But when we make it to the second
DTD bus station, they switch bus drivers, which is another wait. I finally make it back to Pop
after
I have a
But their purchase program doesn’t include the
beach towel. So I will look elsewhere and
hopefully find the shirts elsewhere.
I am seated after waiting
just a couple of minutes. I am paying out of pocket for the meal. I don’t want to waste 2 dining credits on
this meal. I get the Cheddar Cheese Soup
Bone-In Rib-Eye,
and Neopolitan Cappuccino
Cake.
After dinner, I scout out my
location for Illuminations. I figure to use the one by one of the trader
stations I was at earlier.
I head there and wait about
two minutes before they open the area for people to occupy. I test
out my technology to broadcast live and everything appears to be good, till
about 5 minutes before the show starts.
They let in a large group of people just
outside the handicap rope area, a special party. They are all walking
with cups of beer and pretty rowdy, talking wise.
When Illuminations starts,
they mostly quiet down. I can see fireworks off in the
distance. One of the drunks incorrectly says it’s the
I ustream Illuminations without a problem. Here is the
video of the Ustream broadcast.
Here is the hidef video.
While recording it, I feel a couple of things
landing on me. Not too worried. After the show is over, my white
shirt has lots of black soot marks on it. Worst is the ECV canopy.
It has scorch marks. Not burnt through, but hot enough to scorch the
material. Guess I am lucky I didn’t get any burns.
I head out Epcot and go
through the switch back maze queue for pop bus. As one bus is boarding,
the driver sees me. I tell him I will wait for the next bus. After he
loads the bus, he asks me if that is what I said, I go yes. I don’t like
entering a bus with people on it already. No big deal.
As another bus pulls in, this
bus driver has me sitting in the ecv, which is
unusual. He also refuses to start driving till one person leaves the area
by the rear door.
I make it back to the resort, look around the gift shop while drinking my soda of
choice Orange Soda. Its not diet, but I know it doesn’t have caffeine in
it. I make it back to my room and then take a little swim in the pool
near my room.
photo
taken under water showing surface
I have a 10 am adr at Kona, going to try and get
a good nights sleep and try to get everything done I havent
done so far at the Magic Kingdom. Even though my plans still has me at
the MK another time. I want to save that to repeat favorite items like HM,
Pirates and Buzz.