Day 12, More Aquatica and more Magic Kingdom!

June 11, 2012
We had so much fun at Aquatica that we decided to take a chance and try it again.  Afterall, we did have length of stay entrance passes for the Sea World Parks while we were there.  The rain cleared up and the sun was out and it was another beautiful day.  Yes, it was humid but we were at a water park so we didn't feel it as much.  We arrived early right at opening hoping that we could rent another cabana without making an advance reservation.  We told the kids that we would only stay for 4 hours if we couldn't get a cabana otherwise we'd stay all day long if we were able to get a cabana.  We stayed all day long!

This time the cabana was near the smaller kids splash area.  We were also there so early we had at least an hour and half in that area with very few kids.  All 4 kid sized slides were open and Taylor and Emelia were able to ride them.  Being that I was on that side alone with the girls while the boys went "big slide" riding, I was nervous that Emelia wouldn't understand or be able to navigate up and down the stairs without me.  Fortunately, Taylor helped her out somewhat and the lifeguard helped to get her on the slide and push her down where I could catch her in the pool at the bottom.  Emelia was also wearing a life preserver that would send her floating face up if she had lost her footing at anytime.

As I was waiting for the girls to come down the slide, I noticed that the other 2 slides were ones where you had to ride down in a 2 person raft.  The front of the raft didn't have a hole in the bottom so Emelia could sit in it without falling under the raft and the back of the raft was the traditional inner tube style.  Taylor carried her raft up the stairs and came zipping down.  After seeing a few other people send their little ones down that 2-3 slide, I mustered up the courage to do the same with my two girls.  Sure enough, they both LOVED it!  At that time, I wasn't able to get them up the stairs, into the raft and down into the bottom of the pool to catch them before they came down the slide so I really took a chance and hoped that Emelia stayed seated and the girls didn't capsize.  They were just fine and took 2-3 more rides down before Tony and the boys came back to check on us.

I made them all stay in that area so the older ones could take Emelia down the slide while Tony and I watched and caught them at the bottom of the pool.  Then Tony and I took turns getting Emelia down the traditional water slide while the other one caught her at the bottom of the pool.  Eventually she got so used to coming down by herself, that she started to navigate her way up the stairs and to the top of the slide to come down.  The lifeguard on duty really helped her out getting seated onto the slide which was awesome.  Then it was time for lunch and Emelia pitched a small fit but eventually her hunger won out and we ate lunch.

Afterward we rested in the cabana for 45 minutes and then went out to the kid's pool.  By this time the rafts were all being used and the place was crowded.  So we went into the wave pool and the kids rode some waves.  Emelia really didn't like when the waves were going so every 12 minutes she'd get out of the pool and go walking in the sand.  I knew she was extremely tired by that time so I carried her back to the cabana and she slept while I read and the older kids and Tony went back onto the big slides.  When they got back, it was time for us to eat an early dinner and leave.  I had packed extra clothes so we all changed before we went to eat and left from the restaurant.

Of course, we were already changed and it was only 6pm when we left Aquatica, and being the crazy folks we are, we went to Epcot Center since it was open until 9pm.  We figured we would take in Epcot and then head into the Magic Kingdom afterward since it stayed open until 1am on Tuesday morning.  So rode the monorail into Epcot Center, rode a few rides and as we were boarding the monorail to head back over to the Ticket and Transportation Center to go to The Magic Kingdom, we saw lightening in the sky.  Not wanting to take the chance with a bunch of rain and the rides being closed we opted to head back to the timeshare and relax and start again bright and early.