Trip Report The Many Adventures of the Figaro Family in Florida

Figaro Family · Oct 9, 2017

Sunday August 27, vacation day 8!
When I woke up that morning I couldn't believe we'd already been on vacation for a week! I was happy that we still had a few days left to enjoy our trip. When we were ready to go outside that morning, the sky was definitely more gloomy than any other morning so far. Our plan was to walk to Hollywood Studios and stay there until about 2:30pm since we had to return the rental car to the Dolphin by 4.
We headed out for our first look at the boardwalk in the daylight, really cool! We'd never had a chance to go to this area before so switching Disney resorts really was a great way to see more of the property. We briefly considered taking a boat to HS but didn't see one coming and didn't want to waste time waiting. The walk wasn't too bad, just a little longer than the walk we'd had in the mornings at Universal. Pretty soon HS came into sight!

Had to get some pictures of Maddie with ToT in the background since she was the only one of us who was going to ride it!

This was Extra Magic hour day for HS so we had planned to get in by 8am and go on a ride before our 8:40ADR at Hollywood&Vine, but we'd gotten a bit of a slower start and by the time we got into the park it was 8:20. Not bad but we decided to just hang out at the front of the park and wait for our ADR rather than risk missing it. That meant we had some time for a family photo!

This was a rare occasion where I liked the photos on our phone more than the photo pass ones so I didn't buy the downloads of those. I almost forgot that James is wearing a new shirt I'd picked up for him the day before at the Contemporary gift shop. He's very particular about what Disney shirts he'll wear. He really likes vintage mickey so I was happy to find this one for him!
Then we went over to H&V to check in for our ADR for the Disney Jr. Play & Dine character breakfast. I'd added this breakfast to our itinerary at the last minute before our trip for Xander's benefit. He really had fun the last time he went here so I was hoping it would be a big hit again.
While we waited outside I tried to get a picture of Xander wearing his Mickey hat. He's had it for a few years but will only leave it on for a minute. We'd been carrying it around in the backpack but kept forgetting to have him put it on. This first picture would have been great except he was waving his fists really fast because he was so excited to go inside!

Figaro Family · Oct 9, 2017

Xander definitely remembered this place because he tried to lead us to the exact table we'd sat at before. Luckily he was easily redirected to where we were supposed to sit this time! He's been a lot better about this recently but we used to have problems with Xander getting fixated on sitting at the same table or booth at restaurants and having a hard time with sitting someplace different. The second we got to our table, it was our turn to see Doc McStuffins. I wish we'd had more time to settle in because Xander was pretty distracted and didn't focus in on her as much as he normally would. He loves Doc.

Up next was Jake, he got a lot more love from Xander!

There was a break then between characters so we took our chance to load up on food.
A little later Sophia showed up. She went in for a hug but Xander was feeling the need for some stretches :joyfull:

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Then Xander wanted to hold Sophia's hands for awhile. She seemed to know that he needed some squeezes, very nice princess :inlove:

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MotherofaPrincessLover · Oct 10, 2017

Figaro Family said:
Wow! My mom and dad attempted to make it themselves one Christmas and it wasn't very successful as I recall. Do you have a special recipe? Maybe I'll get ambitious this year.
We have only ever used white sugar and until you asked that question, it had never occurred to me to use brown sugar! That sounds really good.

I don't know the recipe (but can get it) since I've only helped with the rolling it out and cooking it on the grill. Now I'm hungry for some lefse...

Figaro Family · Oct 10, 2017

MotherofaPrincessLover said:
I don't know the recipe (but can get it) since I've only helped with the rolling it out and cooking it on the grill. Now I'm hungry for some lefse...

I'll have to do some research on recipes. I'll try to work up the courage to try it myself this year, if I fail I'll just have to hunt it down somewhere! I told James that I was excited about the idea of trying lefse with brown sugar and he was like "yeah cause that will make it taste less like eating bland paper". I made him take it back. How dare he make fun of my heritage

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Figaro Family · Oct 10, 2017

The last character at our breakfast was Handy Manny and he was the biggest hit with Xander! Handy Manny is still on Disney Jr. channel in reruns but I'm sure most little ones these days aren't as familiar with him as the other characters. Xander has been a Handy Manny fan since waaaaay back when Maddie still liked to watch the show. She had a Handy Manny toolbox and eventually Xander got one too. Last year he was on a big kick of watching Handy Manny every morning before school for several months and started playing with his tool box again which apparently renewed his excitement over Handy Manny!

Here is the first time Xander met Handy Manny in 2011 in California Adventure :inlove:

He was trying to get Manny's hat because his Papa Ernie (James' stepdad) always wears a baseball cap and they have a game where Xander "steals" it from him!

Maddie had been a good sport through the whole character breakfast. She did not want to get her picture taken with the Disney Jr. characters but she ate her meal and was actually enjoying her brother's reaction to the characters and watching the little kids around us having fun. Handy Manny however, would not let her get out of meeting with him. He demanded that she get up for some pictures!

She decided that it was funny rather than embarrassing so it ended up being a really fun moment :happy:

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We ended up having a long conversation with the family at the table next to us during the meal. We'd been eyeing each other for a little bit figuring out that we each had a special needs kid but not wanting to point it out in case we were wrong

. It's always a delicate dance! Finally the other mom had picked up enough clues from Xander to ask me a question about whether he had a speech board or talker and said that her son had one. This launched us into a discussion of Xander's and her son's different special needs and what we'd done to prepare for our vacations. I showed her and her husband Xander's vacation schedule book which they oohed and ahhed over. I found out that this was their first park day and that they hadn't heard of the DAS program! They were talking about being worried that their son wouldn't be able to handle the line waits and that they'd not been able to get fast passes for very many of his favorites. I talked them through the program and told them they should go to guest relations after they were done eating and get set up since it could make their whole vacation so much less stressful. Hopefully they did and had a good time! It felt good to talk to another family for awhile that shared some of our experiences and to hopefully help them a little, my over planning and research paid forward to others!

Figaro Family · Oct 10, 2017

We stopped for some pictures before leaving the restaurant

We didn't have a FP for Toy Story Mania and the wait time was already over an hour so I went there to get a return time on the DAS then met back up with James and the kids at the animation courtyard.

We saw some stormtroopers!

The only character meet and greet outside of our character meals that Maddie wanted was BB8. She loves the Star Wars droids and was really excited when I told her that there was now a meet and greet with BB8. The wait time was 45 minutes but she decided it was worth it. We didn't think Xander would like waiting so long and a Disney Jr. show was about to start next door so we decided that I would go meet BB8 with Maddie while James took Xander to the show.
The sky was getting more ominous so we put the rain cover over the stroller after James decided to try bringing Xander into the show without it. Xander has seen the show many times at California Adventure and we'd had some difficulty with him making it through the whole show sitting on the floor. He would get anxious and fussy waiting for the show to start and not having a specific chair to sit in. When we went to WDW in 2015, he was allowed into the show in the stroller since it was marked as a wheelchair. He was very content and enjoyed the show much more than he had in the past. I was skeptical about James going in without the stroller but am happy to admit that I was wrong! There are a few benches along the wall at the very back so James wisely sat with Xander on one of those.

For the first time ever, Xander actually got up and danced with the other kids during the dancing parts! He was good about sitting back down each time and didn't try to bolt! James took several videos to prove it to me and they are so cute! James was very proud of Xander

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Meanwhile, Maddie and I waited the 45 minutes for BB8. I may have spent the time catching up on reading trip reports

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Finally we got to see BB8.

He was a big hit with Maddie. She gushed about how cute he was afterwards :joyfull:

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PacNWTigger · Oct 11, 2017

It's wonderful that you were able to give some helpful hints to that other family at breakfast. I'm sure if they were able to get DAS set up that their vacation would go more smoothly. Xander is doing beautifully and doing so many new things!! That is awesome, and I'm betting you guys are super proud.

Figaro Family · Oct 11, 2017

Just before it was our turn to meet BB8, James had called to let me know the Disney Jr. show had finished. He also told me that it was now downpour raining outside

. He and Xander were going to run over to the entrance of the Star Wars area and meet up with us. We killed some time indoors trying to wait out the rain looking at some of the displays.

After awhile we admitted defeat and broke out the ponchos. I was relieved that Xander agreed to put his on since he can be picky about wearing certain coats. I was further relieved that he immediately put on his hood when he saw it was still raining outside. Xander went from the age of two until just last year refusing to wear a hat or hood on his head no matter how rainy or cold it was outside (one winter he even refused to wear his coat!). It severely limited how much he could go outside during the winter. Last year I tried again like I did every year explaining that it was raining out and the hood could keep him from getting wet. Magically I could see him thinking it through as it dawned on him finally that the hood was not an instrument of sensory torture but could actually help him with something else he hates which is getting wet!

Last documented time Xander wore a hat, and mittens!(we're still working on getting him back into mittens) at age two. Oh look! Pluto in the background

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...and back in a hood eight years later. Different house, same Pluto!
OK I'm done with the bragging about overcoming sensory disorder issues break :happy:

. Back to the report...

As we left the building we saw more Stormtroopers getting ready for patrol.

It was a good thing we'd covered the stroller because it would have been soaked! There was a lot of water to dump off the cover. Xander hopped in and pulled his legs up at tightly as possible under the shade to avoid getting wet. Then we set off for Toy Story Mania for the DAS return time. We parked the stroller and ducked under cover so everyone could have a bathroom break. I decided that we needed to document the momentous occasion of the first wearing of ponchos.

James decided to be super manly and tough it out so he wasn't wearing one. He just got soaking wet.

I took one picture of the outside of the ride from under the cover then we ran in.

That's rain on James, not sweat :cautious:

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We had a fun time though nobody got the greatest scores. By the time we left the building, no more rain!

Figaro Family · Oct 11, 2017

PacNWTigger said:
It's wonderful that you were able to give some helpful hints to that other family at breakfast. I'm sure if they were able to get DAS set up that their vacation would go more smoothly. Xander is doing beautifully and doing so many new things!! That is awesome, and I'm betting you guys are super proud.

We are really proud of Xander. In spite of some hard moments, he was a champ during the trip and has continued to expand what he's able to handle since we've been back home! I really enjoyed talking to the family at breakfast and was glad that I could help them out. It's so good to see other families not afraid to venture out with their special needs kids even when they know it's going to be difficult!

Figaro Family · Oct 11, 2017

I was just looking over the notes I made shortly after we got back home while the trip was still fresh in my mind. I forgot to mention that at some point on this morning Xander started repeatedly asking for someplace he wanted to go. He kept saying something that sounded like "gear" or "deer". He was very emphatic about it and was making a pointing gesture like he wanted us to go to a specific place in the park. When Xander wants something but isn't sure what the name for it is, he'll make something up that is descriptive of it or say something that he has seen there. We could never figure out exactly what gear or deer was exactly but I still suspect that he was asking for the "Honey I Shrunk the Kids" play area that he'd loved on our last visit to DHS. Of course it is gone now so that was a no go if it was what he was asking for. We had to keep telling him "no" all day. He asked for it repeatedly. I would say "no Xander, it's all closed" He is an expert at opposites so he was ready with the helpful suggestion of "All Open!" , I tried "no, it's all gone" he replied "all back!" We had to resort to just trying to keep him distracted the rest of the day

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After Toy Story, the window was open for our Star Tours FP!

First an obligatory photo of Star Wars Land construction cranes

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Cute droids for Maddie.
The FP line was nice and short for Star Tours so I didn't have much time for line photos, and I actually wanted to take more pictures. There is a lot to see in here! We all enjoyed our tour, Xander even wore his glasses!
We spent some time in the gift shop afterwards. Maddie found a cool Stormtrooper t shirt to buy and surprised me with how excited she was over the make your own droid action figure station. She put together one wearing an Oswald hat and I couldn't resist getting it for her because of how enthusiastic she was about it. I'm not sure how I didn't take any pictures of her building it!
It was almost time for our FP at Rock n Roller coaster so we started walking that direction when we were done in the store.

Because of my neck surgery, I had not been on this ride for 15 years :jawdrop:

. It was James and my favorite ride on our honeymoon in 2000 and our 2002 trip. I became a belated Aerosmith fan because of this ride. I LOVED RnR. It broke my heart not to ride it when we came back in 2011 (four months after my surgery) or any of the times after that. I decided to take a risk this time and go for it. James was happy to point out the multiple warning signs about health issues to me while we were in line

. This would be Xander's first time on RnR since we'd avoided it with him in 2015. Maddie rode on it that time with her cousin and loved it.

I was so excited, and Xander was happily anticipating a new roller coaster experience. Maddie wondered if it could possible live up to her new favorite, Rip Ride Rockit. (spoiler, it did not, though she said it was still pretty fun :bored:

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I loved it!! So much better than Space Mountain. Way better head and neck protection on this ride. It felt much safer to me and I didn't have any problems with spasms

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I was not so thrilled when I looked closer at the ride photo and saw the placement of Xander's hands

. He'd gotten them inside the safety restraint! What if he'd slipped his arms and shoulders in between! I warned James to make sure his arms were firmly outside the restraint when it was pulled down next time :cautious:

. And there would be a next time. Xander begged to go back on the roller coaster immediately, he was so excited.
It was almost time for Maddie's FP at ToT so it worked out perfectly to get a DAS time for RnR and by the time Maddie was done with her ride we could come back for our return time.

James and I are not fans of the drops on ToT so we sat it out with Xander and he had a goldfish snack break while we waited in the lobby. After Maddie's trip through the tower we went back for our second ride on RnR. I didn't get the ride photo for this one but I think Xander's arms were correctly placed this time.

Figaro Family · Oct 12, 2017

After our second ride on RnR we raced over to the Indiana Jones stunt show that was going to start in 20 minutes. When we got there we were turned away because there were no seats left

. There would be one more show later in the day but we couldn't go to it because of the rental car return time. Maddie watched all three original Indy movies with us recently and James is a huge fan, but for some reason we didn't watch the stunt show on any of our past trips together. I'd wanted to catch it this time because with all the other original things at the park shut down now, I have a feeling it will be the next to go. Oh well, I recently converted my family's old home movies to DVD and discovered that I'd filmed the entire stunt show back in 1993. I'll have to cue it up for James and Maddie to watch sometime

. We decided to catch a showing of Muppets 3D instead, which is always a satisfying choice!

I had to get a picture of the new signage.
A show had just started before we got there so we had to wait a bit before going into the final waiting room. That was fine with us since we didn't usually get a chance to take in all the details.

We always think it's funny to ask Xander to open doors that we know he actually can't. He gets very serious about it.

There weren't very many people waiting in front of us so we got an up close look at all the details in the waiting room too!
We loved the show as always. Muppets never get old! Xander was on a roll wearing 3D glasses by this time so he really enjoyed it too. No more blurry shows for him

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I was a little disappointed in the limited selection at the gift shop afterwards. No kids or women's Muppet t shirts! James however hit the jackpot, He will appear in his new shirt on the next day of the trip

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After that we started back toward the front of the park. I'd noticed another gift shop selling women's Star Wars clothes and Maddie wanted to see if there were any other shirts she liked. We ducked in and Maddie found a cool Darth Vader themed tank top that she would also model the next day! On our way out of the store we caught the march of the First Order up close.

We still had a decent amount of time left before we had to get back and return the car but James was starting to get antsy. He hates being late for anything so if he had his way he'd be an hour early all the time. I talked him down by pointing out that we'd be walking back so we knew exactly how long that would take now and everyone was hungry for some kind of snack. We decided to get something at The Trolley Car (aka Starbucks). I have the Starbucks app so I was able to pay with that and collect the points. They won't let you redeem rewards there unfortunately because I had some free drinks saved up

. Maddie and I waited in line to put in our order while James got us a table outside around the back.

Figaro Family · Oct 12, 2017

Maddie chose a Darth Vader cupcake.

The rest of us got cookies.

It doesn't look very appetizing in the picture but it was really good! Xander had his usual chocolate milk and Maddie, James, and I had Frappuccinos.
I sent Maddie out to the table with the first load of things and she came back in to help me carry the rest. We sat down at the umbrella covered table and started munching. A minute later we started hearing a strange noise overhead and realized that it was downpour raining but we were being protected by the umbrella! James jumped up to cover the stroller and we pushed our chairs further in. For some reason we started laughing. This pattern of our luck with the rain was becoming really weird! Of course it didn't start raining until we were undercover, we had cosmic connections :joyfull:

. "Just wait." I giggled "The second we get up to leave it will stop raining!" We had to finish our snacks and drinks anyway so it wasn't like we were compelled to get drenched right that second.

We sat there for a bit longer then we really did have to go so James could return the car. Sure enough, as soon as we got up and started to put on our ponchos the rain magically stopped :jawdrop:

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We walked back to the Beach Club still marveling at our luck and I finally took a picture of the outside.

Our room window is one of the ones on the ground floor wing off to the right.
James still had plenty of time left to bring the car to the Dolphin. On his walk back though, it was confirmed that in order for the rain magic to occur, I had to be there. James did not bring a poncho and got soaked in a new downpour while the kids and I were snug and dry in the room

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rshell68 · Oct 13, 2017

Figaro Family said:
Sure enough, as soon as we got up and started to put on our ponchos the rain magically stopped.

Don't let @TheMouseFan read this....They sure didn't have your luck during their trip

Jedi Stitch · Oct 13, 2017

Figaro Family said:
We are back! It's going to take me a little bit of time to organize the photos and my thoughts but I thought I'd at least get this trip report started. For anyone who wants to get to know us, you can read my pre-trip report "Everybody's Got a Laughing Place (and I can't wait to get to mine!)"
Quick re-rundown of the family: Me (Jo), my husband James, daughter Maddie (13), son Xander (10).
This was the longest vacation our family of four has ever taken together. Ten nights total in three different hotel rooms. It was a lot of togetherness but I think we all handled it pretty well, aside from various late night awakenings from loud snoring(James and Xander) and my daughter Maddie's sleep talking. I'm sure she does this at home too, but we don't hear her in her room. Every night on every vacation we've been on she'll sit up suddenly and start angrily lecturing about something while wildly gesturing. She never remembers it the next day and I'm left curious what she was dreaming about. No one complained about anything I did, so I assume I slept like an angel that does not snore or talk in her sleep.
I'll begin with the very end of the trip while it is still fresh in my mind then go back to the beginning when I get the photos organized.
The trip ended last night with a bit of good news then bad news. Good news was our flight got us home to Portland a full hour early!!!! It was a combo of being able to take off 15 minutes ahead of schedule and winds of some kind that shaved of the other 45 minutes. We were supposed to get home at 7:30pm pacific time but got in closer to 6:30. We were really excited because that meant we had a chance at picking up our three pets from boarding before the place closed at 9pm. We had thought we'd have to wait until this morning.
The first inkling of bad news came when we got our car from the long term lot and tried to pay the parking fee. James swiped his credit card but it got rejected. He tried again, rejected again. We try mine (same account), it gets rejected. "That's not good..." we say to each other. He pays with the bank card and we race home so we can drop of the luggage and James and Maddie can go to pick up the pets. I say "don't you think we should call the credit card company?" he says "I don't wan't to waste time with that, let's just get the pets home". They get to the boarding place and James tries to pay, the credit card gets rejected again. So there he is in the pet hotel calling the credit card company to find out what's going on. Apparently multiple fraudulent charges started showing up on our account while we were in the air and our cards got shut down. We use Disney Chase Visa and I do have to applaud them for catching this so quickly. James was able to get them to let our charge for the pet boarding go through before they fully shut down the account and we were able to identify all the charges that we did not make and don't have to worry about them. It didn't make for a nice relaxing homecoming at all! I have a bad feeling that it happened at the airport just before we boarded the plane. I went to one of those airport stands that sell snacks and picked up a few things for us to eat on the plane. I swiped the card instead of using the chip without thinking and even had a moment of unease about it at the time. I think it was an ideal place for someone to install one of those card skimmers.
This was truly the most drama filled moment of the entire trip. thought there were a few smaller ones that felt big at the time! I'll start at the beginning on my next post.
...stay tuned for part one: An extremely early morning drive to the airport.

I let my bank know I was taking the trip, from Seattle to Florida. Even then before the trip. most of my ID thefts from hacked places I shopped, ended up being in the Miami Area. So when we planned to go, we gave the bank notice, because we requested all Florida transactions to be automatically flagged. Still, day three we got a call from the bank asking if we had been to Miami. Nope, and there it was three charges in the Miami area. These ID thieves know the happy hunting ground for putting skimmers around the MCO. The rest of the trip we had no problems, but after word we got a call from the fraud at Chase Visa, letting us know they had blocked multiple transactions that were from the Miami area.

TheMouseFan · Oct 13, 2017

rshell68 said:
Don't let @TheMouseFan read this....They sure didn't have your luck during their trip

I've been thinking the same thing as I read along!!

Figaro Family · Oct 13, 2017

TheMouseFan said:
I've been thinking the same thing as I read along!!

Sorry! I have been following your report even before we left on our vacation and was assuming the same thing would happen to us. Our weird good luck continues however, through the last couple days of our trip!

Figaro Family · Oct 13, 2017

Jedi Stitch said:
I let my bank know I was taking the trip, from Seattle to Florida. Even then before the trip. most of my ID thefts from hacked places I shopped, ended up being in the Miami Area. So when we planned to go, we gave the bank notice, because we requested all Florida transactions to be automatically flagged. Still, day three we got a call from the bank asking if we had been to Miami. Nope, and there it was three charges in the Miami area. These ID thieves know the happy hunting ground for putting skimmers around the MCO. The rest of the trip we had no problems, but after word we got a call from the fraud at Chase Visa, letting us know they had blocked multiple transactions that were from the Miami area.

We normally notify chase when we're traveling but forgot this time. So we were extra impressed that they figured out the fraudulent vs. OK charges and acted so quickly!

Figaro Family · Oct 13, 2017

rshell68 said:
Don't let @TheMouseFan read this....They sure didn't have your luck during their trip

I have been feeling a little guilty. Maybe the universe will balance out and we'll get poured on during our next trip

Figaro Family · Oct 13, 2017

While James had been out returning the rental car I studied this brochure in the room.

The Minnie Van service had been announced the month before and been in the beginning stages of use for the past few weeks. I was really excited when I first heard about it and found out that Beach Club was one of the test resorts. I'd planned the trip to avoid the bus system as much as possible because having to lug Xander's giant stroller while hanging onto him in a crowd of people was not appealing. The two times that it seemed like the bus would be unavoidable were Monday the 28th when we were going to AK, and Tuesday the 29th when we were going to MK from the Beach Club for the Halloween Party. We have never used Uber or Lyft and I know they could potentially be less expensive but I really liked the idea that Disney employees were driving the Minnie Vans and that the $20 was a flat fee and we weren't expected to tip. I had told James all about it and he agreed that the two round trips were worth the splurge.
When he got back to the room and dried off, James went to Bell Services to find out how to sign up. They had him put the Lyft app on his phone then sent him a link so that the Minnie Van service was added within the Lyft app. Then the next morning we could specifically request a Minnie van rather than a generic Lyft car off property. They suggested we wait to request it until we'd actually left our room because the cars had a fast arrival time and some people were requesting them when they weren't even ready to leave their rooms yet.
During the time James was out returning the car and setting up his phone for the Minnie Van service, Xander started getting very vocal about wanting a trip to the pool. It had been raining steadily so I wasn't sure it was going to happen. But when James got back to the room again we checked out the window and the rain had stopped! We had a view of the pool and could tell that it was open and the life guards were out and about. We still had some time before our Beaches&Cream ADR so Xander's swimming wish could come true. There goes that crazy weather luck again

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Maddie liked the idea of having the room to herself for awhile rather than swimming so James and Xander suited up and I went with them to hang out by the pool.

You can see how wet the walkway still was from the rain.
The first thing Xander wanted to do was go down the slide. It turns out that the entrance(which looks like a pirate ship) is way out by the boardwalk and you go all the way across the path through an enclosed part before you reach the final twists down into the pool! I didn't get any photos of it because I was waiting by the edge of the pool for Xander to come out and make sure he swam safely while James walked him up to the top of the slide and followed after him. I kept imagining Xander stopping himself in the enclosed tube and having to be rescued

. Luckily that did not happen and Xander had a blast going down the huge slide!
Xander and James had fun swimming in the pool and we walked around to check out the entire area.

I'd brought James' phone down to the pool and while they were swimming, he got a text from his brother-in-law. They were at the Oregon zoo with Grammy and had told her we'd posted some vacation photos on Facebook. Grammy does not do Facebook but had recently gotten a smart phone and has taken up texting. She now expects James' sister and brother-in-law and us to text her any photos of the grand kids that we put on Facebook or else she feels left out. We're still getting used to this new expectation so of course we forgot and hadn't sent Grammy a single photo during the trip so far. Grammy was expressing her displeasure to our brother-in-law so he sent out an SOS to please send Grammy photos ASAP to get her off his back! So while James was still swimming with Xander, I got to work texting Grammy a bazillion photos and promised her we'd send more later in the week. (as I'm typing this I just realized that we never did :facepalm:

) She was extremely excited at the time and I soon got a new text from brother-in-law thanking me for saving him from an afternoon of complaining Grammy :happy:

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Eventually it was time to go back to the room to get ready for dinner.

Our room was the one directly behind the bench.

12in12 · Oct 14, 2017

I liked your Grammy story and can relate. My mom was always complaining about not getting pictures or news when she didn't have a smart phone. Of course she didn't want or need a smart phone when I offered to get her one but finally my siblings an I got fed up about the complaining and got her the phone anyway. Now my mom loves WhatsApp and uses it every day.