February 2025: A Central Florida Winter Vacation: Day 3

Day 3: Monday February 24, 2025

I was awake pretty early today, which honestly was a good thing. I had some decisions to make. Today was the final day of Festival of the Arts, which we wanted to go to, and we had Epcot tickets for today. But the weather was calling for anything from “scattered showers” to a “washout”. Scattered showers are fine for Epcot. A washout when it’s barely 60 degrees, however, is not as fun. So I got up and watched the local news. And when even the meteorologist on WESH called the day a “washout”, I made the decision to pivot.

Decision made, I had a granola bar for breakfast then crawled back into bed for awhile. Nick woke up eventually, and I filled him in on the very loose plan for the day.

Eventually we rallied and started getting ready for the day. We headed out around 10:15 and parked in the lime garage at Disney Springs about 15 minutes later. Security was a process, because Nick’s (unnecessary) sunglasses case in my bag (apparently even the non-mom women are the family stuff haulers of society) forced me to be wanded and have my bag searched, but we were on our way into Disney Springs eventually. Our first stop was the Columbia store where Nick got himself a new raincoat and a new hat, because, as is becoming a Disney vacation tradition, Nick had left his hat at home, but he didn’t want a Chapel Hat in the rain. I also looked for a raincoat, because ponchos are annoying (and I’d forgotten to pack my standard rain coat), but Columbia only seemed to have winter coats in the women’s section. Don’t need one of those! Nick made out really well though…his new coat was majorly on sale, and then when I told the cashier I’m a teacher, he gave us a 20% discount instead of the usual 10% teacher discount, courtesy of one of the coupons that I probably have at home.

Once Nick had some functional rain defense, we headed for lunch at Polite Pig. He got the burnt ends and sweet potato tots. I got the bbq meatballs and a Polite Punch. Lunch was excellent. This place is just consistently awesome. They also gave us a 10% discount with a reward card I’d been given by the resort, which was nice.

After lunch we wandered through World of Disney. I didn’t buy anything yet, but I definitely had my eye on one particular t-shirt.

Browsing complete for now, we headed for the buses, where we didn’t have to wait very long for a bus to the Polynesian. It was apparently a reasonably pleasant ride, or I’d had Nick vacationing too hard already, because he fell asleep on the bus.

Once at the Polynesian, we headed for Pineapple Lanai. One dole whip float, made with swirl!

 
We took that inside and parked ourselves in comfy seats in the lobby to share the float. We sat there for awhile just enjoying the atmosphere. Then we poked around Boutiki before heading upstairs to the monorail. Here the sunglass case once again required the full Mouse-stappo TSA experience, but I was freed by the security dude before the next monorail arrived, so that was a plus.

We did a lovely loop on the monorail, with the views confirming my decision to turn today’s park ticket into a ticket for this fall’s birthday trip instead.

 
Once back at the Polynesian, we headed for the bus stop where we didn’t have to wait long for a bus back to Disney Springs. It was, again, an uneventful bus ride, and pretty soon we were back at the Springs. Nick decided he wanted a donut from Everglazed, so since that’s kind of a hike, and I was kind of done with being rained on, I donned the damn poncho, regretting my packing absentmindedness where I left the rain coat at home.

 
We strolled over to Everglazed, where I got an apple streusel donut and Nick got a coconut something donut. I was really disappointed, in light of the weather, when I discovered that they now package their donuts in paper-ish boxes. But anywho…we headed back towards the middle of Disney Springs. When we reached the lime garage, I sent Nick back to the car with the donuts, and I made one more stop…at Amorettes.

There was a bit of a line, but within a few minutes, I had a strawberry cheesecake in a tissue paper lined bag in hand. I had to restrain myself from laughing too hard when the cashier still put the tissue paper on the top of the bag, despite the rain. That’s pointless.

I joined Nick back at the car, and we headed back to the resort, where I immediately ditched my wet sneakers and socks and photographed the treats!

Then we started thinking about dinner. It didn’t take us very long to come to the conclusion that takeout pizza was a good idea, so after a few minutes of fighting with their online ordering system (I swear my zip code is valid!), I called Flippers and placed an order for a cheese pizza and the asiago pepperoni pinwheel things.

It was a bit of an adventure getting to Flippers because traffic and road construction, but I made it eventually, and then, more importantly, made it back to the resort. We thoroughly enjoyed our (unphotographed) pizza and asiago bites, and I eventually also dug into that cheesecake from Amorettes. We then spent the evening just chilling. Nick watched whatever weird content he streams (which by now he had figured out how to stream to the living room TV) and I read. And then I showered and crashed early, because zero stamina/total exhaustion.

February 2025: A Central Florida Winter Vacation: Day 2

Day 2: Sunday February 23, 2025

As is my usual, I was awake fairly early, after a surprisingly good night’s sleep, by my standards. My late 30s have not been kind to me in terms of sleep, among other things. But I did legitimately sleep Saturday night. I was exhausted, and that bed was really comfortable.

Around the time of sunrise, I stepped out onto the balcony. To our right, we had a view of the Gulf, but to the left, we had a view of the bay. So, I was hoping I’d catch a bit of sunrise. I did. I also caught a bit of the sand raking operations on the beach. I have to say…the beach is a pretty noisy place early in the morning, between sand raking and a guy riding a giant blower, blowing sand off the sidewalk. But that slider door was pretty soundproof.

After watching all the colors change and the beach action, I got dressed and then headed down to the beach for a morning walk while Nick continued sleeping. This was a walk filled with good views, some seashells, and some quiet reflection. The hurricane damaged Pier 60 felt like kind of an analogy of life right now…battered but still standing.

Once I’d wandered back to the vicinity of the resort, I headed back inside to rally Nick. Thankfully, he woke up pretty quickly and got ready, and we were on our way to breakfast shortly.

Crabby’s is another spot we had really enjoyed during our previous visit to Clearwater, and it’s a very short walk from the Hyatt, so we were seated for breakfast within a few minutes of walking out of our hotel. Crabby’s is an open air restaurant, with a wonderful view of the beach. I had a mimosa and some sort of eggs benedict. Nick had a coffee and some sort of French Toast. The food was excellent and who doesn’t like eating breakfast with fresh air and a view of the beach in February?!

Breakfast consumed, we headed back to the room to finish packing and enjoy the view for a few more minutes. Clearwater Beach is definitely quieter on a Sunday morning than on a Saturday afternoon!

Once we were ready, we took our luggage down to the car and then headed down to the lobby to check out. The elevators work much more efficiently when there aren’t like 5 weddings happening! Check out was easy and pretty soon we were in the car, watching the spectacle that was an angry woman trying to figure out how to get out of the parking garage. Someone that works there came out to help her and then he took our key and swiped us out of the garage so that there were no issues. We joked with him about the morning entertainment and then we were on our way.

The drive to Tampa was uneventful, and pretty soon we were in line to park at Busch Gardens. We got there a bit later than I’d originally intended (about 10:45), so the line lasted awhile. Like…it was 20 minutes from entering the parking line to parking. WOAH.

Once parked, it was an easy walk over to the entrance to the park itself. Once inside Busch Gardens we discovered that not only was it a weekend, but there was also a Passholder Appreciation event, and some doctors gathering occurring today. No wonder the place was so busy.

We headed towards the section of the park where the Mardi Gras stuff would be, because according to the entertainment schedule, the brass band would be performing at 11:30 about 15 minutes after we entered the park.

 
When we got to the stage, there was a crowd gathering, so we thought we were in the right spot. There was also a sign listing showtimes starting at 1:30. Huh? We sat for a few, and the sound techs watched probably 100 people gather near the stage, never saying anything. Eventually, someone walked up to the sound tech and they were told “yeah, they’re not performing until 1:30”. Cool, thanks.

So, we set off, checking out the different animals around the park. We found a shocking amount of animal habitats to be “closed for routine maintenance” or very limited on animals. Multiple rides were also closed. As we walked, Nick vetoed all of the roller coasters we passed, so we just kept checking out the animals. The highlight was hearing the tiger roar. But I was sure there had been a LOT more animals in virtually all of the exhibits when I’d been here previously.

Eventually we got hungry, so we made our way back to the Mardi Gras area. At Busch Gardens, this is kind of a weekend festival, so they have some food booths and some entertainment areas set up in, let’s call it their festival area. Nick got crawfish etouffee and some drink (bourbon daisy maybe?) from one of the food booths, which we ate Epcot festival style, because Epcot festivals are better. I got cajun rice from another, and then got “king cake” and beignets from another food booth. We were both pretty disappointed to see that even just an hour after opening these food booths, they’d already run out of hurricane. How can you have Mardi Gras without hurricanes?! The festival food was fine, although, the beignets were…doughnut holes and the “king cake” was a decorated jelly doughnut so those were tasty, but fails.

 We then watched the brass band, which was excellent, and probably the highlight of the day.

After listening to some music, we wandered the park a bit more, checking out the animal enclosures we had missed earlier, me realizing that I had even less stamina than I’d thought. Stamina has been an ongoing issue for me since I had walking pneumonia in the fall, but it HAD been getting marginally better, so I don’t know if it’s tied to that, or tied to the chaos that has been my life recently. Either way, I was DRAGGING. This does NOT bode well for the rest of the week.

Once we had seen all the animals we think were available to be seen, and confirmed that we didn’t want to ride anything that was open, we headed for the exit. We were able to get on a loading tram back to the parking lot. It was probably 2:40 when we got back to the car.

The drive to Orlando was…traffic filled. It took about an hour and a half to get to our resort for the week, the Hilton Grand Vacation Club Tuscany Village.

Check in was efficient and friendly, and when they sent us to the hospitality desk (groan) to get our parking pass, they surprisingly accepted our very first “no” when they offered to sign us up for a timeshare presentation breakfast. Once we had our parking pass, we headed back to the car and drove over to building three.

We gathered our luggage and headed for the 4th floor. Our unit, 3415 was at the very end of the building, one of the few without a view of the water in the middle of the resort. Classic RCI reservation location. Much like solo diners usually get stuck with lousy table locations at Disney restaurants, RCI reservations usually get lousy locations at resorts. But…the elevator in this building came quickly, the building was compact enough that we really weren’t THAT far from the elevator, and we walked into a very well appointed, immaculately clean unit. Nick and I were both happy with it immediately.

We settled in and then started the great dinner debate. After a bit we settled on Ford’s Garage, basically across the street. I’d heard good things, the online reviews seemed solid, and Nick sells Fords so he was intrigued based on what he’d seen when we’d driven by earlier.

There was a line when we got to Ford’s Garage, but when we got to the front of the line, the hostess said she would be able to seat us momentarily since we were only a party of two. Nice. We were immediately impressed with the theming of this restaurant. Service was excellent and the food (burgers for both of us) was excellent too. I think we both had some sort of flavored margarita to drink.

 
After dinner, we headed basically next door to Publix. We got a case of water and a few cans of Nick’s favorite iced tea: Peace Tea. Nick was kinda blown away when I told him that the $10 I spent there for all of that was basically the cost of two bottles of water in any of the theme parks (and about a soda and a half at Busch Gardens). So even if we didn’t finish all of it, we would come out WAY ahead. I’m not willing to cook on vacation, but I’m very much in support of buying cheaper bottled water.

Vacation chore done, we hopped back in the car and made our way back to Tuscany Village. Nick settled in the living room to watch movies on his tablet (in fleece pajama pants?!) and I showered and crashed for the night. I was exhausted.