Trip Report Outside the Bubble

Hello friends!

This report will be different from previous reports because as the title states we stayed outside of the bubble. After two trips last year, it was decided we would skip this year and head to the beach for our family vacation, but we just couldn't stay away. However, we did not stay on property nor did we visit any of the 4 main parks, but we did have some Disney fun. So if you are interested, stay tuned!


Me (Heather), Cam and Josh

 

[joshsprincess921]

Today was going to be a Disney day! Not a typical Disney day, but a Disney day indeed! I got up and started breakfast for the family again. I got a new waffle iron for Christmas, so I decided to take it along with us and it was a fun start to our morning!

I also got the mix that Disney uses.

It was hard not to overfill.

But with a few adjustments it could be fixed!

Kid approved!

Unfortunately, I have been dealing with some health issues since February, particularly gastro issues which has me on mostly gluten free/dairy free diet (along with other restrictions ) to control symptoms. I tried the gluten free Krusteez brand and it was yummy!

Gluten Free Mickey Waffles!

After filling up, we got ready to head out!

 

[joshsprincess921]

Josh said about a hundred times that it was so weird to be driving around property. It was really cool though because we used Waze and it took us around areas I had never seen before. But we made it!

Last spring, Cam really loved Blizzard Beach. Over the summer, we came to visit my best friend and we took the boys to the Seaworld waterpark for their birthdays. Along with all of them being 1 year apart, their birthdays are also each a week apart. Cam would not get on any of the slides. He's scared of heights, so the slides that look high and you have to walk up all the stairs scares him, so we ended up in the kid splash area and wave pool most of the day. They also have a rapid river that was a lot of fun. But Disney does good with tucking the slides into the scenery and he said there's something about Disney that makes him feel safer. LOL!

Here is a fuzzy pic of Miss Tilly. I had my phone in one of those waterproof cases, so that's why the pics are a little blurry.

We started out on the family raft rides then hit some other single tube rides.

Then they both somehow convinced me to go on the Humunga Kowabunga. Um yeah, not fun for me!
It was really nice because we hit all but 2 slides before lunch with little to no wait. After the drop slide and some major bathing suit adjustments we all were ready to eat. We ended up at Leaning Palms.

Josh got a chicken sandwich and I got this Jerk Shrimp Rice Bowl. This was so good!

Cam got the usual chicken tenders.

That group of kids were feeding the bird in the water across from us. They literally fed it an entire burger all while giggling and saying they were going to get kicked out!

After lunch we wanted to take it easy for a bit, so we hit the lazy river. It was obvious that the park was becoming more crowded because the lazy river was full and we couldn't get a raft right away so we got in and Dad was the raft until we were eventually able to get some. We took 2 trips around the river.

 

[joshsprincess921]

We had two more slides to conquer. Miss Adventure Falls and Crush "n" Gusher. While in line for Miss Adventure Falls, Cam starts freaking out about Crush "n" Gusher because he sees it's a tall slide with the stairs walking up. He wouldn't even let himself enjoy the Miss Adventure Falls because he kept looking at it. I wanted him to try it but I wasn't going to force it and eventually he was like ok, but he was so nervous. He said he wanted to ride with Josh and I would ride single, so we headed up two different directions. I loved Crush "n" Gusher and so did Josh. Cam said he never wanted to ride it again, but he did say he didn't get injured or die. So there's that.

Finally we hit the wave pool which Cam could stay at all day long. He was absolutely living his best life!

His face says it all here!

We finished out our day at Typhoon Lagoon with some Dole Whip. Josh and I just got a cup of good ole pineapple, but Cam got the Montinui Island Twist Cone which had lime Dole Whip. This was our first taste of the lime flavor and we really liked it!

Overall, a fantastic day at Typhoon!

 

[joshsprincess921]

We were so wore out from the waterpark that we took naps when we got home. It was so nice. Eventually we got up and got dinner ready. I sat on the patio and watched Josh grill up our burgers and hot dogs.

Then I made my son take pictures again and he is so over it, LOL!

Dinner was served!

After dinner, Cam wanted to swim. Too bad the hot tub once again shut off at 7. Finally I told Josh to give me his phone and I sent the manager a message and informed him that we paid $20 extra per day to use the hot tub in the evenings, not in the 90 degree middle of the day temps. I let him know firmly, but in the nicest way possible that I needed this fixed. He immediately sends back instructions on what button we needed to go press on the pump to override the timer. I mean why couldn't he tell us this 3 days ago! So finally we were able to use the hot tub past 7 for the rest of the trip. He also said we would be refunded for the 3 days before, but we have yet to receive our refund for the AC night or the hot tub. I was giving them a week after checkout before I checked in to remind them.

We ended our night with an episode of Stranger Things on the big screen. We ended up finishing up the newest season, part 1 during the week. I can't wait for part 2 to come out next month.

 

[joshsprincess921]

I hope everyone had a great weekend and Happy Father's Day! We have a reservation with my family in New Orleans every year on Lake Pontchartrain for Father's Day and we recreated a photo of Josh and Cam. Cam is growing so much and Josh has lost all of his hair.

Now back to the trip report!

 

[joshsprincess921]

Josh's brother and his family were visiting Universal the same week we were there for our nephew's graduation trip. We made plans to meet up with them at Disney Springs. This would end up being the most time I'd ever spent at Disney Springs in one day. We met them at Splitsville once we arrived to do a little bowling and have lunch!

We had lots of fun bowling and visiting. My only complaint is the hole for your thumb in the bowling balls was so small. I have small hands and my thumb still hardly it. In fact, my thumb was sore for 3 days after, hah!

We also enjoyed our drinks and food very much. Josh has been talking about the Splitsville sushi since October so we definitely were getting it again. We highly recommend.

 

[Zipadeelady]

Josh's brother and his family were visiting Universal the same week we were there for our nephew's graduation trip. We made plans to meet up with them at Disney Springs. This would end up being the most time I'd ever spent at Disney Springs in one day. We met them at Splitsville once we arrived to do a little bowling and have lunch!

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We had lots of fun bowling and visiting. My only complaint is the hole for your thumb in the bowling balls was so small. I have small hands and my thumb still hardly it. In fact, my thumb was sore for 3 days after, hah!

We also enjoyed our drinks and food very much. Josh has been talking about the Splitsville sushi since October so we definitely were getting it again. We highly recommend.

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It seems crazy wanting sushi at a bowling ally but my son still says it's some of the best sushi he's ever had. I'll trust him since I won't eat it.

 

[joshsprincess921]

It seems crazy wanting sushi at a bowling ally but my son still says it's some of the best sushi he's ever had. I'll trust him since I won't eat it.

It really is. Josh is so picky with sushi. There is only one place in our area he will eat it and he raves about Splitsville. The fish is very fresh which makes all the difference. My BIL got the nachos and they looked super good to. It was enough to feed 4 people!

 

[Billy6]

Josh's brother and his family were visiting Universal the same week we were there for our nephew's graduation trip. We made plans to meet up with them at Disney Springs. This would end up being the most time I'd ever spent at Disney Springs in one day. We met them at Splitsville once we arrived to do a little bowling and have lunch!

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We had lots of fun bowling and visiting. My only complaint is the hole for your thumb in the bowling balls was so small. I have small hands and my thumb still hardly it. In fact, my thumb was sore for 3 days after, hah!

We also enjoyed our drinks and food very much. Josh has been talking about the Splitsville sushi since October so we definitely were getting it again. We highly recommend.

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Great stuff! I can't help but notice that the escalator at Splitsville was having issues in one of your photos!! I went 2 weeks ago(June 8th) and dined/bowled there and the escalator had issues too!! LOL When I was there, a Croc shoe was stuck at the top! I hope no toes were chopped....

Had the sushi there too...YUM!

 

[joshsprincess921]

Great stuff! I can't help but notice that the escalator at Splitsville was having issues in one of your photos!! I went 2 weeks ago(June 8th) and dined/bowled there and the escalator had issues too!! LOL When I was there, a Croc shoe was stuck at the top! I hope no toes were chopped....

Had the sushi there too...YUM!

Ok, I had to go back and look haha. I hadn't noticed really. I'm pretty sure we rode it up and down, but obviously my memory is not serving me well, but my goodness, yes hope no one lost a toe!

Did you bowl as well?

 

[Billy6]

Ok, I had to go back and look haha. I hadn't noticed really. I'm pretty sure we rode it up and down, but obviously my memory is not serving me well, but my goodness, yes hope no one lost a toe!

Did you bowl as well?

Yes we did! Very fun...never have there and it was a great change of pace.

It's on the pic of your son, on his own...We rode it too, but later in the evening, employees were gathered around it. Had to take the elevator down and back up...

 

[Tuvalu]

the escalator had issues too!! LOL When I was there, a Croc shoe was stuck at the top! I hope no toes were chopped....

I'm pretty sure we rode it up and down, but obviously my memory is not serving me well, but my goodness, yes hope no one lost a toe!

I have to chime in here!

Last Monday, as Em and I waited in line for Living With the Land, we heard a loud bang and grinding noise. We immediately turned toward the down escalator. The escalator had stopped suddenly and a teen boy was standing at the bottom wearing only one Croc — his other one had gotten trapped in the escalator. Of course several CMs rushed to his side (the boy was fine) and the escalator was cordoned off until it could be repaired.

After our ride we waited for some friends at a table in Sunshine Seasons. During conversation with our friends, we mentioned the Croc escalator incident. The couple next to us interrupted our conversation with another Croc escalator tale, loudly proclaiming “and it sawed her foot right off!”

Ewww. Why they felt the need to share that with us (when we weren’t talking with them) is beyond me.

 

[Billy6]

I have to chime in here!

Last Monday, as Em and I waited in line for Living With the Land, we heard a loud bang and grinding noise. We immediately turned toward the down escalator. The escalator had stopped suddenly and a teen boy was standing at the bottom wearing only one Croc — his other one had gotten trapped in the escalator. Of course several CMs rushed to his side (the boy was fine) and the escalator was cordoned off until it could be repaired.

After our ride we waited for some friends at a table in Sunshine Seasons. During conversation with our friends, we mentioned the Croc escalator incident. The couple next to us interrupted our conversation with another Croc escalator tale, loudly proclaiming “and it sawed her foot right off!”

Ewww. Why they felt the need to share that with us (when we weren’t talking with them) is beyond me.

Sawed off? Yikes(if true)... The one I saw was in bad shape, however...

 

[Tuvalu]

Sawed off? Yikes(if true)... The one I saw was in bad shape, however...

The couple were “country folk” so take that as you will….

 

[joshsprincess921]

Wow, I had no idea wearing crocs on an escalator could be so dangerous! Good thing I'll never have to worry about that.

 

[joshsprincess921]

After lunch and bowling, we went shopping...for a LONG time!

I had yet to go into the M&M store, so we started there. That will probably be my first and last time, tbh. So Cam can not eat chocolate and in the entire store of chocolate he spots a single tube of skittles and just has to have them. So yeah, we paid $12 for a cup of skittles. I have since refilled this same cup at home with his beloved sour skittles for 1/3 the price. At least I got a refillable cup out of it.

We had to take some teacup pictures!

We also stopped into the Coke store which was another first for me. I did enjoy this store. We shopped around. My BIL's kids like unique t-shirts so they each found a shirt they really liked and we stopped by the rooftop... is it called bar? lounge? Not sure, but we went up to the roof and had beverages. Josh wanted his brother to try Beverly.

The floats were good, Beverly was not!

We went in lots of other stores, that I didn't document. Josh got a new pair of shoes from Fit2Run. He's been wanting to try out the On Clouds and he's really liking them. Since my niece and nephew love unique shirts, I knew they had to stop in Uniqlo. It was as if they hit the jackpot! Both of them got new wardrobes, haha!

Of course, he checked into World of Disney. Some of you may remember how much Cam LOVES Orange Bird. He was so happy!

I saw somewhere they that have restocked the plushies that smell like oranges this week. I've been trying to get one for a year now. I wish they'd put them on shopDisney!

We spent some time in the Lego store.

 

[joshsprincess921]

Cam had to stop for some photos with Orange Bird.

And we picked up a treat from Everglazed before finally heading to dinner.

Let me tell you...I was over Disney Springs by dinner time! I had shopped til I dropped! We had Chicken Guy. I don't have a picture but I got the Mexican Street Corn Salad and it was very good!

When we got back to the house, I had my treat that I had picked up from Erin McKenna's. My friend has celiac and she had picked up a brownie and banana bread from there a couple weeks prior and she was not impressed. I will say both of those things looked pretty dry. So I decided to go with a lemon cupcake. Gluten free baked goods tend to be very dense and crumbly, but the cupcake, while still a tad dense, was still moist and tasted excellent! I was happy with my choice.

I spent some time resting my sore feet in the hot tub and finished my book. It was a long, exhausting day, but we had a great day spending time with family.

 

[joshsprincess921]

It was our last full day of vacation. Our original plan was that we were going to go to Cocoa Beach for the day, but when checking the weather we saw that there was going to be thunderstorms in the area so we decided it wasn't the best idea to drive out there if we were going to be dodging thunderstorms.

I woke up and cooked all that was left of our breakfast items in the fridge we had our own little breakfast buffet going on!

We decided we'd have a pool day at the Villa, but before it got to hot, we decided to go putt putt. Another first for us! Arrived right at opening.

We had to wait about 10 minutes for the groups ahead of us to move on to the next hole before we could start.

We chose the winter side and had a friend join us!

We had a lot of fun! The course is really cute. We also could see they were going lots of construction over at Blizzard Beach.

 

[joshsprincess921]

More pics from putt putt. Cam got a hole in one on this one!

Going first thing was a smart move because it was starting to really heat up as we finished!!

Back at the Villa for the rest of the day, we enjoyed the pool. I started a new book which I have since finished. I loved it!

My best friend, her husband and boys came to the house again that evening and we grilled steaks for dinner and just enjoyed each others company. It was the perfect ending to our trip!

 

[joshsprincess921]

The next morning, we got the car packed up and we were on the road for 7am. We decided to drive straight through and there was going to be some bad weather so we wanted to leave early. It ended up being perfect timing because we made it home and the sky was BLACK!! In fact, we had to run in and wait to get the car unloaded until after it passed.

I took this as we were leaving Orlando.

Overall, we had a very nice trip. The Villa was very nice and we really enjoyed the pool and theater room and took full advantage of it, but there were some issues and we didn't really feel like the rental company was on top of things. It was a nice perk being 5 minutes from Disney property as well. Given the kind of trip we were taking, it worked for us.

That being said, staying outside the bubble was not for us. It killed us to be so close to the parks and not be going! So much so, that as soon as we got home we booked a trip! We will be headed back to WDW next May!

Thank you all for reading!! I'll be looking forward to reading more of your trips as I wait for mine!