Yesterday we had our first non-theme park day. Instead, we went to Typhoon Lagoon, one of two WDW water parks. This one is premised upon a fishing village ravaged by a typhoon, complete with a huge wave pool with tsunamis (well, the waves are big) every 90 seconds. In addition, there are numerous individual and family water slides and a great area for little kids called Ketchikiddee Creek. Oh yeah, and you can swim with sharks.
Again, we arrived at the park before the 9:00 opening so I could join the half-marathon sprint to secure a covered area for our chairs. (Did I mention it was hot down here?) After we arranged our prized turf, Meghan jumped right into the slides and flumes in Ketchikiddee.
While I thoroughly enjoyed playing with Meghan, Connor was insistently dragging me toward the wave pool. Upon arrival in the pool, his plan became clear - I was to stand in the 6 foot section of the pool (did I mention I'm 6 ft. tall?) and support him (did I mention that he's NOT 6 ft. tall?) until the wave came. This entailed me bobbing up and down and balancing on one toe while attempting to take the occasional breath. When we had mastered this, Connor decided we needed to go out to the 6 ft. 4 in. section of the pool (did I ...?). Anyway, we had a great time though I could only stay in the pool for around 30 minutes at a time with him.
After bouncing back and forth between the wave pool and Ketchikiddee, we all hopped into a family-sized innertube for a flume ride. Then Connor announced that he'd wanted to swim with sharks "all his life". So, off we traipsed, rinsed off our suntan lotion (bad trip decision #2) and donned snorkels for the swim across Shark Reef. We saw brightly colored fish, leopard sharks and manta rays. Afterward Connor confided that he'd been a little scared but was glad he'd done it. (If you look closely in the picture below, you can see a ray and my blooming sunburn.)
For the rest of the afternoon, we wandered the park, going on the Crushin' Gusher slide (that propels you up, not just down) and playing in various pools. Connor even enticed Marie into joining him on Crushin' Gusher after he and I tried it first. Finally, we made one last visit to the wave pool. One thing we didn't do was reapply sunscreen (bad trip decision #3). More about that later.
On our way out of the park,we changed into shorts and tees for a visit to Downtown Disney, a central shopping, entertainment and dining area. We decided to eat at the Rainforest Cafe, which features animatronic jungle animals, aquariums throughout and a thunderstorm (minus the rain) every 30 minutes. The kids had a great time and we all enjoyed the meal.
Finally, as if the day hadn't been long enough, we decided to go to Epcot for the Illuminations fireworks and laser show. Even though the kids enjoyed the fireworks and the multimedia presentation projected upon a globe in the middle of the lake, Marie and I fondly remembered the show in the 80's that predominately featured lasers. now that was amazing!
Tomorrow, Epcot!
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