Short TR - Aug 15-19 2020

GoofyDad_4427

Mouseketeer
Joined
Nov 21, 2017
Participants: Me (42), Wife (42) Son (14) and Son (10)
Resort: Royal Pacific with connecting standard rooms
Flight: Southwest direct from Pittsburgh
Transportation: Happy Limos both ways

Those that frequent the Royal Pacific thread might recall that my older son, a baseball player, recently blew out his elbow. We thought this ruined our plans for a late summer vacation, but then we decided to squeeze in a short trip in between his MRI (Saturday afternoon) and his doctor appointment (Thursday morning). SPOILER ALERT: No ligament damage, but the bone avulsion is worse than originally thought. He will be getting reconstructive surgery on Monday morning and then will be rehabbing. He will be able to start throwing again in 8-16 weeks, so he will be ready for the high school season in 2021 which is great news!

Saturday evening:
Our Southwest flight left Pittsburgh at 5:50 and was set to arrive at MCO at 8:05. We all ate Chic-fil-a in the Pittsburgh airport. The flight departed and landed on time. There was 20 total passengers on our flight, which made me feel like a moron for purchasing the early bird checkin, but I guess it was just habit. Everyone in the airport and plane was real good about wearing masks. Our bags were rolling out when we made it to baggage claim, but because of new rules the driver could not meet us there, so we had to lug our own bags downstairs to the pickup point. Everything went smooth, we were at RP by 8:40 and in our room by 8:50. My younger son wanted to go to the pool, so we decided to go check it out. However then my older son went in the bathroom, and 15 minutes later my wife and younger son could wait no longer and went to the pool. She texted me that it was packed, and it was hard to find chairs, but they eventually did. 15 minutes later (so now 30 minutes total) and older son finally makes it out of the bathroom, so we head down to meet them. Get to swim for about 30 minutes before they close everything up. We stopped at Tuk Tuk for some snacks, and called it a night. Tuk Tuk is pretty good for what it is, and we stopped in there multiple times every day.

Sunday:
We wake up and head to the pool around 11:00. It's pretty busy, but not unmanageable. We ate lunch at the pool bar. Youngest son loved the chicken fingers and got them every day. I had a chicken quesadilla which was good, and both the wife and older son had fish tacos which they liked. We had several buckets of beer. We were at the pool until ~2:00 when the rain came. The pool was closed for a long time and we went back to the room. Got cleaned up and headed over to the Hard Rock for dinner at the Palm. The food was fantastic as always, but its always disappointing when they bring the check and you realize that you could have eaten out the entire next week for what you just paid for dinner. But everyone loved it, so there's that. One tip here. My younger son was going to order the filet off the kids menu, but its only 4 ounces. Instead he order two kids meals, which ended up being $34 total and 8 ounces of filet, instead of ordering the 9 ounce filet off the regular menu for $55.

Monday:
Immediate ghost town. We head to the pool and its completely empty, like maybe two other families. We get lunch again at the pool bar, and today I got the pepperoni pizza which was very good. Also started with a few original margaritas which were good, then we switched over to the mixed buckets which came with 3 beers for me and 3 berry Truly for the wife. Important pool note, although they don't sell beach balls anymore, you are still allowed to have them in the pool. No other balls are permitted. Luckily we had brought a beach ball, and at the pool services hut they still have the machine to inflate it. They commented that it felt like the old days because they used to inflate tons of them every day, but in our 4+ days there, we didn't see anyone else with a beach ball. Anyway, the kids are bored and we are the only ones in the pool, so I invent a game similar to water polo where the hand rails on the pool steps are the goal, and someone defends and someone tries to score. The game was a big hit, and throughout the trip we even had a few other kids asking if they could play. It was probably the first fair game my kids have ever played, because my older son could only use his left arm which made it pretty even. We made it until 2:00 when the rain came again, and we had just gotten a fresh bucket of drinks. So we took that bucket up into the lounge with the giant TV by the sushi place, and watched the NBA playoffs while consuming the beverages. Then they were just reopening the pool, when I got the notification that Hagrids was open. We have annual passes that were set to expire at the end of May, but got extended to the end of August with COVID, so we got cleaned up and headed to the parks a little after 4:00. IOA was open until 6, so we went straight to Hagrids and waited in the line. There was a delay for a little bit when we were about 25 people away from riding. The attendant told us they had to remove someone from the ride that didn't want to ride it, but due to the length of the delay I think it was the nice way of saying that someone yakked and they were cleaning it up. Anyway, everyone loved the ride! The smoothness of it made us okay with my older son riding it with his elbow brace. After my and younger son rode Spiderman, and then we headed back. The boys didn't want to head out anywhere, so we ordered them room service while me and wifey went to Jake's. The food at Jake's was awesome!! Got the pretzel appetizer, then she had the salmon and I had the buffalo chicken pizza. I also got the red beer because I read so much about it on here, but I would say it was just okay. I'm mostly a light beer drinker and the kind of person that goes for quantity over quality, so to each their own.

Tuesday:
Younger son and I get up early and hit early entry at Studios. We ride Minions and Gringott, then Men in Black, Transformers, and Jimmy fallon. The Mummy was what we were most looking forward to, but it was down with mechanical issues. At 9:30 we are done, and stopped for a pretzel and drink. Then we headed back to RPR and hit the pool. One or two other families there. There were many buckets consumed and we made it until about 3:00 (lunch was pretty much the same thing as previous days) when the rain came again. We took naps in the room and left around 7:30 to head to Citywalk for dinner. Unfortunately most things were closed, and the boys shut down Antijitos, so we ended up going to Margaritaville. Long story short, it is never worth eating there with all of the other much better options available.

Wednesday:
We packed up our stuff, dropped our bags off at luggage services, dropped our clothes for later off in the gym locker room, and hit the pool again. We were the only people at the pool for almost the entire day. Lunch didn't change much, but the weather did!! We actually got a full day in at the pool. We stayed until 5:00, got changed, and got picked up at 5:30. Ride to the airport and flight home were uneventful, with about 50 people on our plane. We got Chic-fil-a once again in the Orlando airport, which was pretty dead.

Other Notes:
The music at the pool is terrible. Its like they surveyed 100 people age 80+ as to what they would want to hear. They need to appeal more to the customer base, which is young families.
The little kids splash area is refreshingly cool. Compared to the hot water in the pool, younger son and I made multiple trips over to the water cannons each day to get refreshed.
Service at the pool area was fantastic. All bartenders and wait staff did a phenomenal job!
Connecting standard rooms are MUCH better than a king suite which we have had in the past. Having 2 bathrooms and much more drawers is much better.
I did not see a single pedal bike on my whole trip!! After getting run off the road last year and breaking my toe, I couldn't have been happier!
Whether you get your temperature taken in the resort, at the boat, or at the security check on the walkway, there was never a line.
 
Good news on your son!! Glad he`ll be fit to start next year.....

Thanks for your review, it`s nice when folks come back and let us know how their trip went......nice to hear you had such a lovely trip and glad there were no pedal bikes to bother you this time......I remember now your incident last year......
 
Thanks so much for sharing the details of your trip! We usually have a car service, so the note about meeting the driver downstairs after getting your bags is helpful.

I’m so glad you all had a wonderful time!
 



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