More 2009 Trip Report

20th August 2009

Shopping and Floating :-)

Don't quite know why we picked one of the hottest days to do some morning shopping, it wasn't a particularly good idea :-)

After some brekkie at Perkins on the US 192, served by a very friendly old lady and a very wistful look from me at the bakery section (too full to take any away, and the cakes would have got too hot in the car while we shopped anyway), we took a doodle down the 192 in search of some retail therapy with Mapman's map. Found the Lake Buena Vista Outlet, and happy not to drive too far we stopped here. Spotted a family on Segways and found Celebration too, noting where it was in case we had time to visit another time.

As we got out of the car the heat hit us! Boy, did we dart for the nearest shop! We visited:
one big shop that sold clothes and bags (nothing posh, but can't remember its name),
the Book Warehouse (woop, woop, I just luurve new books!), Converse (where we parted with quite a bit of dosh...Lee and Katie both got some shoes, Katie got some T-shirts and a zipper sweat-top, all in purple, and I only found one T shirt in my size, and, being a size 16 and never having a problem finding my size at home I was quite upset by this!)
Character Outlet (for souvenirs, and some lovely scrapbooking stuff including some punches that I knew cost way more at home...that made up for the lack of T shirts ),
Nike shop (this is where we parted with lots of dosh again, but to this day I say it was money very well spent because what we bought has washed and ironed repeatedly over the year without fading, shrinking, or twisting to make ironing a nightmare. The T-shirts were much thicker than the flimsy ones over here. I got a man's (well, it fit!) black T-shirt with white Orlando lettering on the front, DH and DS bought about 5 Nike T-shirts each. Katie and I were tempted by trainers, but we don't really wear them that often so we reined ourselves in.

By this time the darting in and out of the air-conditioned shops had worn us out! We vowed never to do daytime shopping in Orlando again! Not surprising, the car said it was 105 degrees outside!

We went back to the villa and got our swimwear on ready to hit Typhoon Lagoon, our first visit to a waterpark! Boy did we love it! I wasn't keen on the big waves in the Lagoon, the force of them surprised me and I was glad my kiddies weren't little anymore, I don't think I could have held them in my arms and stayed upright! Tiring of the waves very quickly we all grabbed a big floating donut and hit Castaway Creek. Now that's more like it! Bum in, feet up, lie back with sunnies on and just drift (or bounce off other donuts it was so busy!). Occasionally we'd drift into a quiet spot, occasionally we'd get wedged in by others and one of us would have to up-end, tip out and more to a less crowded spot, but oh how hub and I liked just not doing alot! We lost Katie and Sam early on and thought we'd catch them up, but no, they were on a mission to complete the circuit and overtake us. They did too, twice! In the end, about an hour or so later (we had no idea how much time had passed, it didn't seem this long, if I'd have known I would have worried about the kids!) we managed to find each other at one of the entrances. The kids and hub wanted to hit the waves again, but I had sunbathing on my mind. They dumped me on a sunbed somewhere southwest of Typhoon Tilly, a good way back from the lagoon, grabbed a swig of water and a couple of crisps and went off on their merry way. Some time later, while looking out to see if they were coming back I spotted a little Asian lifeguard sprint up the beach like a rocket, hurdle over a fence into a hut to get one of those boards used to help injured folk, and dash back down the beach. Everyone was looking toward the lagoon, and you know that moment when you think, "where's my three? I can't see them. Are they ok?" that's what went through my mind, I stood up for a better look and could see guests exiting the pool, but no sign of my three.

They eventually came back to me and told me what they'd seen. Apparently hub saw a lifeguard jump in the deeper part of the lagoon and slowly make her way across it, while another dived in and got to the casualty much quicker and helped the injured woman who was being held up in the water by a man. They kept her afloat in the deep water while the bodyboard was taken out to her. While this was happening everyone had to exit the lagoon. Very shortly afterwards and ambulance came along. We decided at this point that we'd have enough sun and water and we left the park. We don't know what happened to her, we think she hurt her back, but I hope she was ok. These water parks aren't always 100% safe. Those waves are dangerous!

Once back at the villa, I realised when I looked at my Passporter plan of TL that we'd only touched the surface and hadn't been on any of the slides, but we were all happy just to have lazed around.

I didn't take my camera so there's no piccies for today.

That evening, after a nice shower and freshen up we went to Bob Evans for dinner and on to Walmart for a mammoth browse around. I love that shop! So much to look at. Katie and I had a good rummage on a length of shelving that had a ton of reduced stationary and scrapbooking items in big boxes. Heaven, we like a bargain :-)

Next up, Epcot again,