"Disneyworld: Day Three"

10/25/2001

TUESDAY: The Pools
Ugh.

We woke up tired and sore from Monday's running around. Over breakfast, it was decided that this would be the day of rest and relaxation. CL didn't mind too much because he had been wanting to get into the resort's pools since he saw them.

Orange Lake Resort has seven pools in two locations. The North Clubhouse has a big U-shaped pool with waterfalls at one end and a waterslide at the other. It also has a 12 person hottub and two kiddie pools. The West Clubhouse has an Olympic sized pool, a kiddie pool, a small rectangular pool, one shaped like a blob and an 8 person hottub. We went to the West Clubhouse since it was bigger and also had a Putt-Putt Golf course next to it.

I spent the morning just sunning while CL played in the water. The interesting thing about the kiddie pools is that they all have big, 15-foot tall "mushrooms" in the middle of them. Water goes up through the "stem" and comes out the top, over the "cap" and creates a 360 degree waterfall. CL thought that was the coolest thing ever! *g*

We took a break from the pool to play a few rounds of Putt-Putt. The wind started to really pick up and I briefly wondered if we were going to have some serious weather hit us... all while replaying the lightening strike scene from "Caddyshack" in my head. The competition was fierce though. CL got several holes-in-one and was ahead of me several times. When it was all over though, age and craftiness won out over youth and vigor... twice. *g* Since he did so well, I bought lunch for us. Well, that and he doesn't really have any money.

We had about an hour to kill before the resort's scheduled 4:00pm "Kid's Pool Games" started. I decided to teach the Lad how to dive for coins. As you know, he's already taken three levels of swimming lessons so he's pretty comfortable in the water now. Which is good because a year ago he wouldn't even put his head under the water. Anyway, I find 8 pennies (they're easier to see in the water, y'know) in my pocket and challange him to see how many he can grab from the bottom in one breath. He started out with three and worked his way up to all eight. He couldn't quite get the hang of keeping himself underwater, so I had to go with him and sort of hold him down. The "Kid's Pool Games" consisted of seeing who could make the biggest and smallest splash, diving for tokens and water-relay races. When that was over, we headed back to our little bungalow to decide about dinner.

We looked through some of the brochures that we got at check-in and decided to try Medieval Times. I called and found out that they had spaces left for the 8:00pm show. We got the Royal Pass, which allowed us to sit in the front row and get in first. We sat on the long bench and practiced shouting "Green! Green! Green!" since that's the section we were in and thus the knight we were to cheer for. The show started off with some displays of horses and riders, then more horses, then the knights came in (insert much cheering... although to their credit nobody tried to start the wave or sing any songs by Queen), then the jousting, then the ground fighting and finally the Black Knight tries to take over everything -- but is soundly defeated and dragged off to the dungeon.

Dinner consisted of soup (drunk from a bowl), bread, chicken, ribs, baked potato and an apple turnover for dessert. Since we were a part of the Middle Ages, there was no silverware. The only thing that was messy was the baked chicken though and they gave us little moist towelettes.

What? That's period. Isn't it?

I know it was kind of silly and the only thing remotely period was the horse dung, but I've always been curious about what Medieval Times was like and CL just wanted to see the "horsey fights". If you can willfully suspend your disbelief and want to just have a fun and different sort of evening, then I would recommend Medieval Times. Just don't go there in garb and show up the nice people working there.