Still, one thing I want to do is go to theme and water parks a lot, so we decided I'd take the three oldest to Universal Studios' Volcano Bay water park.
The parking garage is a bit away from the park with a shuttle to the park entrance. ...almost as exciting as the waterpark itself! Well, no, not really, but still a fun bonus!
The kids had a lot of excited energy ready to come out on that bus!
Many of the tallest slides are in the top of that volcano you see behind us.
The girls decided I had "palm tree" hair. I can see it!
The park was expensive, and it was fantastic! Five & Six-person tube slides with steep side-to-sides, two lazy rivers (one wasn't so lazy), and even an aqua-coaster--a roller coaster type slide that used magnets to propel your tube up the inclines.
They had a number of slides of types I've wanted to go on for a long time, like drop slides, where you start standing up and the floor drops away beneath you for a steep plunge! They also had a couple that ended in 4 and 6-ft free-drops into a deeper pool.
One of the brilliant aspects of this park are what they call the "Tapu-Tapu." It's a wristwatch type device that manages long lines. If a line gets long for a certain slide, you can "tap in" and it will put you in a "virtual line," telling you to come back in "30 minutes," for example, to get in the physical line. It was also used to match you to pictures it took of you while riding a slide, much like theme parks do with roller coasters. For $50+, we decided not to buy our pictures, but we did look at them. It was a fun review of our day!
Multiple people, more than I would have expected, complimented our kids for how brave they were going on some of those taller slides. For the most part, I think the kids were baffled. They were having fun! Plus, they didn't feel brave--they had to. Part of coming was a promise that they would be willing to go on any slide we went on. We couldn't have them getting to the top and then backing out when three of us were already down at the bottom! Still, I think they took some pride in the number of compliments they received.
At the end of the day, "tragedy" struck. One of Eliza's flip flops was missing. We searched and searched, but to no avail. We even went on a bit of a goose chase as lost and found sent us up to find someone cleaning up the park who... etc. Leaving Amy & Noel as buddies by the exit, Eliza and I backtracked one last time. We met security who were keeping people herded toward the exit, and, after a security escort for a final search that turned up nothing, we gave up and went to leave, Eliza with only one flip flop. As we turned to toward the exit, another security person stopped us and said "the security guard you spoke with behind you wants you to wait here for a minute." We said "okay" and waited for him to catch back up. He asked if that was her only footwear. I said it was all she had here, she had more at home though. He said to hold up a minute. They got her size and ended up giving her a free pair of flip flops from the gift shop! I was blown away! I didn't expect any such. Way beyond anything that was deserved or expected. I was impressed to say the least.
Eliza was happy to get the flip flops--she likes them better than her old ones! But she is still a little sad because she can't wear her matching pair with Noel anymore. The cutie!
So all in all, a wonderful time!
At home, Eliza asked me to take a picture of her hair. She liked how it came out after all that water time.
And a random fun pic of the kids being goofy!
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