I’d like to say our arrival day morphed into something exciting and memorable, but the true fact is: it didn’t. After I finally awoke from the much-needed siesta, I let Steve snooze until early evening and then decided it was time to get him up and moving (fearing if he rested much longer, he might find he didn’t sleep all night long).
Between the time I woke up and when I woke Steve, I took some time to sit out on the balcony (the rain had long since passed and a left a lovely, comfortable evening in its wake) and called both Jake and my mom to have a chat and let them know we were safely settled. I had texted them both when we landed, but otherwise hand’t spoken with either since we left the day prior. As I had suspected, they had spent the day together (Jake drove up and took Mom for lunch, then grocery and Walmart shopping, and Mom treated them both to Chinese food for supper afterward) so both had lots of funny stories about the other and were eager to give me a full report of their adventures. After hanging up from the second call, as darkness descended over the resort, I woke my sleeping bear and proposed that we go off in search of dinner. If we didn’t take the horse by the tail and get moving at this point, we would probably have decided to skip the evening meal altogether.
Original plans were to hit up Bahama Breeze for dinner on night #1....this was still on Steve’s restaurant wish-list, and not something we knew Jake would enjoy (not his kind of cuisine)....so that’s where we went first. Pulling into the lot, there was a huge line out the door and what seemed like dozens of patrons milling about outside as they waited to be called for an available table. We had no inclination or patience for any kind of a lengthy wait on this particular evening, so we quickly scrapped Plan A and dusted the fog from our brains to formulate a spontaneous Plan B. Looking around at what was in our immediate vicinity and where we might be able to be seated without too much of a delay, we chose Flippers Pizza (which also happened to be on our dining to-do list for a future trip, though not originally planned for this particular vacation). Sometimes, flexibility is key
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We were greeted with a warm and friendly welcome upon entering the restaurant, and were offered our choice of where to sit. We chose a booth along the wall where there were few other patrons. A quiet meal was just what the doctor ordered. It smelled really, really good in there.....we didn’t think we were that hungry until the aroma of garlic and freshly baking pizza crust hit our nostrils, then suddenly, we were starving.
We ordered a pair of Coke Zeros to drink.....the caffeine would probably be very advantageous to our lazy bodies and brains. After surveying the menu, we decided to keep it simple and go with two shareables: Toscana cheese bread for an appetizer, and a large Flippers “Big Pie” (pepperoni, sweet Italian sausage, ham, ground beef, smoked bacon, mushrooms, green pepper, red onions, and meatballs as a substitute for the black olives). We had a nice chat with our server, who explained that everything is house made (desserts excepted) and freshly prepared, so we were looking forward to putting their pizza and breads to a taste test.
The Toscana cheese bread came out first (and really quite quickly)......piping hot, lots of cheese, and oh-so-flavourful:
The marinara sauce on the side was
da bomb.....literally lick-the-inside-of-the-little-bowl fantastic (no, we didn’t...but we thought about it, lol!
). Between the cheese bread and our pizza, we ate every last drop of that warm and garlic-y, tomato-y awesomeness.
Our pizza was brought to the table within minutes of our cheese bread being devoured. We had ordered thin crust as that’s our preference.
We were not disappointed in the size or quality of the pizza. Hot, fresh, and soooo tasty. We are big fans of Giordano’s Pizza, and this is totally different in style, but we were pleased to note that we liked it equally as much. We commented how much Jake (for whom pizza is food group
) would love this place!
With such a great meal thus far, our moods had improved significantly from earlier in the day. Our lazy nap session + a successful dinner = much happier travellers, even if Steve was still feeling under the weather. We debated dessert....
should we, shouldn’t we?.....and decided, what the heck. YOLO
(and hadn’t we earned it with such a testing start?)
Strawberry cheesecake for Mr. Sniffles, chocolate cake for the lady.
These were the only components of our dinner that weren’t made in-house. Our server told us that would change soon, as they were currently in a recipe testing phase for an assortment of baked goods that they will be creating for guests in their wood-fired ovens. That said, the desserts were still good....not knock-our-socks-off incredible, but very yummy nonetheless. The chocolate cake looked, on first glance, like it was sweet and rich enough to kill a small child, but it turned out to be really quite nicely balanced. There was neither a speck nor crumb left from either dessert plate, so they were obviously quite passable.
We were stuffed. Super, uncomfortable stuffed. Our server offered us a take-out box for the rest of the pizza, which Steve was quick to accept. Nothing says “breakfast the next morning” like left-over pizza.
We paid the bill ($46.16 including tax, excluding tip) and headed to the car. On the way back to the villa, we stopped at Publix and picked up the scant few groceries we needed for the week (coffee cream, sugar, bananas, yogurt, a case of bottled water, and milk.....we had brought a box of cereal and a package of Tim Hortons coffee with us in our checked baggage) and then headed back to the resort. Still too weary (and Steve too sick) for a soak in the hot tub or swim in the pool, we turned on the TV, set the timer, and it was lights out. We slept like rocks.
And that rain earlier in the day? It was the only precipitation we’d see all week long. No kidding. Thank you, Mother Nature.
Tomorrow we would rise and greet the day with a fresh and rested start. Sunday at Islands of Adventure is next.
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jump00! Glad to have you reading along!
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. Don't worry, though, your boys will be teenagers soon enough....and then at the very least, you'll be able to sleep in without guilt (and do the crazy late park nights....you'll be closin' the place down!).
. That's just my two cents, of course!! 
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Gosh, I love that guy. He then proceeded to tell me he just didn’t feel like a bunch of rides today: he wanted to focus more on experiences and atmosphere than being flipped around with his head full of mucous. I couldn’t blame him. Not a big ride girl myself, I love taking in all the "little things"throughout the parks that the ride commandos often miss.....and I was with my beloved, so our day was shaping up to be just perfect 
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