The Magnificent Seven, Day VII

 (contd.)

Day VII

Pop Century and Disney Springs

We had ourselves another morning of sleeping in a bit - no amusement parks on the agenda today, as this was the Johnson's last day in Florida - and the only thing that required us to get up and go anywhere was one, last visit to Disney Springs.

Their flight didn't leave 'til like 6:30pm, so they wanted to be out of the resort by like 4pm at the latest. It wasn't even 11am yet so we had plenty of time to do one, last circuit of shops and eateries before heading back to Pop Century.

I ended up buying this mug while we were poking around shops today - has the retro 'D' logo from the '80s, along with iconic buildings from the parks, and the size and shape of the mug are perfect for lazy mornings listening to vinyl in my Study.

Ghirardelli. Nobody bothered popping in there for free chocolates this time around. 

The girls all wandered off into the trendy, outlet area of the Disney Springs, while adults hit up a couple of the more Disney-oriented stores.

This Co-Op store is new(ish), and had some cool stuff in there.

I love vintage TV sets. Wouldn't mind a wall of these in my Captain's Quarters downstairs, that'd be bad-ass.

Heading west from Marketplace, we passed in front of the Lego Store (which we didn't bother stopping at) and saw a few, familiar faces.

Meanwhile, the girls continue shopping in the fancier boutiques on the other side of the shopping plaza.

Remember this restaurant? Food sucks but the atmosphere was perfect when your kids were, like, four years old?

This place looks completely different from when Kris and I used to hit it up on an almost weekly basis back in 2007.

I'll never skip this bar again, it was awesome.

Had to move through this giant, train station-ish building in order to get to the 'outlets' (for lack of better term) in order to meet up with the girls.

Coming out the other side of that tunnel-ish building, you find yourself in a canyon of trendy, fashion brands.

It was super hot out (duh), and approaching lunch time, so we gathered up the girls and ushered them to a nearby restaurant the Johnsons had been to on a previous trip.

The Polite Pig - a solid barbecue joint.

Weird pig statues on the front counter you get to check out while waiting in line to order.

They only had four sauces, but they were okay. Big fan of the Black Pepper one, at far left.

Kris, the girls and I weren't super hungry, so we split this sampler tray of various things between our entire family. I didn't get a pic of it before the girls took some of the items off the tray, but it was filled up with trays of random crap. Two things of fries, chips, two things of coleslaw, a couple pickles, a couple diced sausages, a crap-load of pulled pork, tri-tip steak, couple things of brussel sprouts, several cornbread muffins, several pieces of chicken, etc.

After lunch, the girls wanted to hit up that giant, Disney merch store - The World of Disney.

Different sections of merch in this place (if you've never been there before) - it's almost like a mall unto itself.

Finding others in this store is next to impossible - if you lose them, you'll probably never see them again.

After everyone picked up what they wanted, we decided to head back towards the bus pick-up area and head back to Pop Century.

Passing over the. . . pond? Pool?

Sadly didn't get a beer from this place at all this year, but Erik and I did use the restroom here at one point. So there's that.

Awaiting the shuttle to the resort. It was now about 1:30pm, so the Johnsons needed some time to finish packing up all their stuff and double-checking their room before they headed out.

Only ten minutes later, we were back to the resort.

We decided to stay out of the Johnson's hair by going down to the pool and hanging out there until they were cleared out of their room. After a bit they came down and hung out poolside with us for a bit before it was ultimately time for them to head to the front of the resort.

Courtney scheduled an Uber driver and we waited with them and all their crap until they were picked up. Fortunately, aside from a bumpy ride on the flight, they didn't have any major pitfalls on their return journey back to Michigan.

We spent all, damn day down by this pool, from 1:45pm 'til about 8pm. The weather was perfect for it, and it sure as hell beat being cooped up in the hotel room all day.

Taking a snack break.

These squirrels show no fear when it comes with interacting with humans. Adam told us this year that when Covid shut down all the properties for a couple months, TONS of animals - birds, squirrels, etc. - were found dead from starvation. They've lived their whole lives on a diet of french fries, dropped ice cream, and what not. I'm sure that's super healthy.

This guy rarely left us alone. I wanted to crush it with a rock.

Adam popped by after work for a couple beers and to visit some more, and ended up hanging out until we were done with the pool (around 8pm.)

The girls were pretty pooped after a full day out shopping and swimming in the sun, so they were content just hanging out in bed and ordering out for dinner.

Kris and the girls, checking out the online resort menu (you could order your meals online and they would make them for you to take back to your room.) Since I'm the Dad in the group, I offered to walk down to the cafeteria and pick up our crap.

Alayna's loaded fries. I went with that roasted chicken meal again - wanted something healthy after snacking on barbecue and snacks all day.

We found some energy later in the evening, however, so we decided to venture down to the Hippie Dippie Pool one last time to just beat outside under the palm trees. Along the way, Kris and Alayna found free bracelets outside someone's room (there's a Facebook page dedicated to this resort, and one of the things people do at this particular resort is leave small trinkets for others, whether to give away or trade.)

Poolside family selfie.

Abby takes an artsy palm tree pic.

We didn't hang out down there long before folks started getting drowsy, so we wandered back to the '50s.

Stay tuned for the Hough's Journey Home, coming up next. . .

- to be concluded. . .

The Magnificent Seven, Day V

 (contd.)

Day V

The Pool (feat. the Voigts) and Disney Springs

The next morning, everyone got to sleep in. . . and it was f***ing great. The Houghs had tackled three, intense days of amusement parks in temperatures where the Real Feel was 110 degrees - logging between 20,000 - and 30,000 steps a day - and starting each of these days off at 5:30am. To be able to sleep in an extra hour or two, and take our time getting around in the morning, was definitely appreciated. By 10am, after packing our coolers (we bought these collapsible ones for the trip) and finishing coffees, Erik and I headed down to the '50s area pool and snagged up a table and a bunch of recliners for our party (the poolside furniture and tables usually get snatched up quick, but this early in the morning no one was there.) 

One of these lifeguards must have been in training or something, 'cause they had some dummy thrown in a bin that one of them had brought over, and eventually they pulled it out and were practically CPR or what-not on it.

Up outside the hotel room, Kris, Courtney and the girls were slowly but surely getting around. Alayna, surprisingly, was done before the others and was out on the balcony taking a picture of the henna she had done on the back of her hand in The World Showcase the day before.

There was this squirrel that was up there that was 100% NOT afraid of human beings. Zero fear.

As folks slowly started to leave the rooms, the squirrel paid them no mind whatsoever.

Courtney tries to make a friend.

We didn't have any squirrels down by the pool (yet), but we did have a bluetooth speaker and beer, so that we were fine.

We Houghs spent months buying new summer clothes leading up to the trip (all the weird polo shirts I've been wearing to the parks were all purchased in the month or two leading up to this trip.) Also picked up a few, new swimsuits and three of these sleeveless Hawaiian shirts for the pool (or lake days, if we ever get any this summer.)

The girls were still finishing up getting ready in the room(s), but we adults were already itching to get into the water. Brought my GoPro down again to get some more aquatic footage (always fun.)

Taking selfies with this thing sucks 'cause it's so small you don't know if you're getting everyone in frame or not. And the picture quality isn't up to phone-level, but I guess the video option is if you set it to 4K.)

The ability to take footage underwater makes it worth having, for sure.

Every week Abby has to take a video of her MHS Varsity Pom routine to send to her coaches for analysis. This week she tried explaining to her coaches that she was in Florida on vacation and didn't have access to her poms. They were cool with it and asked if she could send a video using other items instead, so Abby improvised: a Powerade Zero (for her blue pom) and a banana (for her yellow pom.)

The kids finally get their asses down to the pool, just in time for a family picture in the pool (someone didn't wipe the lens so you'll have to excuse the water smudging.)

Abby and Ella played with the GoPro more than I did in the pool. . .

Underwater antics.

Not sure if they were going to film a entire movie here or what. They actually filmed a 12-minute video but that was obviously far too big to upload to Blogger's server.

Another group shot.

This would have been great if there hadn't have been a frickin' water droplet covering Ella's face.

Whenever these two hang out they regress to a six-year-old mentality.

Bronzing. One of my favorite things to do in the summer.

Our wives and kids stepped out of the pool and one point to take a snack break in the shade, and Kris took a pic of Erik and I stubbornly refusing to leave the pool (where we had brought our bluetooth speaker over to the edge - unfortunately they don't allow you to have drinks anywhere near the pool, so we were beer-less for the time being.) 

Doing what she does best.

The Johnsons

I asked one of the lifeguards at one point why the patrolled the way they do - two lifeguards sit in those high-seats, under umbrellas, while a third walks back and forth on a far side of the pool, ten steps exactly in each direction (yes, I counted.)

Ella had some henna done at Epcot as well.

Around 2pm, the Voigts showed up to kill some time with us poolside for a bit. Kris and Courtney ventured off to buy some fancy frozen drinks from the poolside bar in the '60s area and brought them back to where we were.

The Voigts have a pool of their own, so they're always down for some swim time.

The skies were looking a little perilous, but the rain was holding off for the time being.

Erik tries making a new friend.

Ella tried feeding it a Twizzler straight out of her hand (it didn't work.)

The rain came on abruptly, and we were forced to retreat back up to our room around 3pm. The Voigts hung out for a bit but eventually took off for home (Adam would end up swinging by for one more poolside visit after getting out of work on Tuesday), and the rest of us started to shower and get ready for our evening at Disney Springs.

Setting off for the shuttle bus.

We had to wait for about ten minutes for another bus to arrive to shuttle us down to Disney Springs.

Another selfie for SnapChat.

It was going to be raining on and off for the remainder of the evening, so we'd have to make sure we were ready to duck in to restaurants and stores whenever the need arose.

Kris and Courtney - and especially the girls - were all about shopping in the big name stores (Ron Jon, Kendra Scott, etc.), but Erik and I didn't have any interest in that.

We set off towards the bars to kill some time over a few drinks.

This is that high-end sushi joint that Alayna wanted to hit up for her 14th birthday.

This is a pretty cool spot for a beer, but we had a different bar in mind this time around.

I had never been in this bar before, which is surprising 'cause this one is Indiana Jones-themed (which is obviously right up my alley.)

The whole backstory of this bar is that the pilot, Jaques, from the opening scene of Raiders of the Lost Ark, settled down after the events in the movie and opened up a watering hole.

The interior of this place is covered in Easter eggs from the movies - artifacts and cool stuff from all the movies (along with other stuff that fits in with the whole globe-trotting, adventurer motif.)

(I really wanted to shut the door to this capsule and seal in all those people. Ultimately decided against it.)

The drink and snack menu for the Hangar Bar.

The snake that crawls up into Indiana Jones' lap while they're escaping the South American natives in a plane in the opening sequence of the first movie.

Erik got some kind of fancy cocktail (I stuck to beer.)

Some of the tap options they had on hand today.

Had a waitress commemorate our visit (still can't believe I've never hung out in this place before.)

Left of the safe you can spot the one and only Ark of the Covenant.

We were going to leave at one point and meet up with our families, but it was pouring outside and we were stuck where we were, so we had no choice but to go back in for another round of drinks.

Seems like a dick move, but whatever.

Map behind the bar.

On our walk back towards our family, we popped in to Raglan Road to hit up the bathrooms and the merch store (though neither of us found anything to buy in the store this time around.)

Popped into this store next to check out their collection of hats, but didn't see anything that jumped out at me.

Our family was already heading down to the west end of Disney Springs for our dinner reservation, so we started heading off that way.

We had an upstairs reservation at Splitsville - some high-end bowling complex with really good food - but it wasn't quite time yet for that. The girls had all gone in to another store, so Erik and I had a little more time to kill.

We were in front of House of Blues and figured we could pick up a beer here.

We had bought a beer here. Ordered two but were chatting it up with the bartender and they gave us one on the house, which was pretty badass.

By the time we had drank those, it was time to rendezvous with our families, so we headed upstairs to meet up with them.

We had a great table overlooking Disney Springs, and our server - off to the right there - was actually from Royal Oak, Michigan. Small world.

Kris and Courtney informed us we would be drinking water for dinner - like the couple of buzzkills that they are - but the girls all got fancy, frozen drinks with their meals.

The view from our table.

Doing what I do best.

Abby, trying to figure out what she's going to go with for dinner.

I stole a few coasters today. I have zero shame.

Erik ordered a few appetizers for us, including these loaded fries that were f***ing unbelievable.

Whetting their palettes.

The food arrived and the portion sizes were INSANE.

Kris, ogling everyone's food. She'll appreciate I included this picture in today's post.

Chow time.

Went with a burger today. Usually food this rich gets my stomach acting up, but I was willing to risk it because hot damn this looked good. 

Most of us thoroughly enjoyed our meal, and after an hour or two we were ready to head out. Alayna almost threw up, though - whether because she consumed an insane amount of raw sushi, or had too much sun earlier in the day, or whatever - so Kris and Courtney volunteered to take her back early to the resort.

So they set off for the Pop Century bus, leaving Erik and I to help Abby and Ella pick up the remainder of their shopping crap.

Both girls wanted to go to this upscale, trendy jewelry store - Kendra Scott - that's all the rage with teenage girls right now. We had to wait around for about an hour in there, while all these girls (and their moms) picked out over-priced jewelry.

With their trendy jewelry acquired, we started to head back towards the bus, and got a couple pics of the girls after their successful evening of shopping.

So there you go, gang - another fun-filled day in Florida brought to a close. We headed back to the resort and turned in for the night, as we had one, action-packed day in the parks remaining for this year's vacation: Hollywood Studios. Stay tuned. . .

- to be continued. . .