For a last minute trip, we really crammed a lot in a very very short period of time. Upon landing we had the distinct pleasure of going to pick up our car from Action Nu Car Rental. Grant was proud of himself for only spending $4 a day on the reservation. The old adage, “you get what you pay for” could never have been more true in this case. We waited an hour and half only to be told that they were out of cars. We had a reservation so they literally rented a car from a different dealership for us to be able to have a car. We missed hanging out with friends, but at least we got a working car, which is more than what can be said for most as we learned when we returned the car. Some people were stranded at the airport when the bus mysteriously stopped working.
Our first stop after the car rental was food. Orlando is jammed pack with chains and so we stopped at one of my favorites— Cici’s Pizza. Grant refused and so we split up. He went to Golden Corral, which was a big mistake and one that I know will haunt him for the rest of his life. :) Mine was outstanding; his was a dud.
The next morning, we got up slowly after a late night and went to Volcano Bay. This is Universal’s new waterpark in Orlando and one of the only parks we have not been too in the area. It started out great with minimal waits and we got to ride a fun tube ride right away. Next was one of their premier rides, which was a water tube down from the top of the mountain. I hate enclosed waterslides because of the heat and humidity (it just creeps me out). But, I went through with it. At the bottom I was waiting for Grant only to find out that the park was shutting down to thunder and lightning. It was a huge disappointment because we had only been there for less than hour.
We went to customer service to demand a refund. When it was our turn to speak to a customer service agent and she let us know that everything was back up and running. For our troubles, she was going to award us 4 “Ride Now” passes to any ride we wanted. So we of course choose the ones that had 100 minute waits and skipped everyone who had been waiting. That’s more our style. Grant finally went on the slide I went on earlier. I chickened out because I hated it the first time. We cleaned up and headed to the other side of Universal— to Halloween Horror Nights.
Halloween Horror Nights consisted of 10 haunted houses this year, which was a record. I wanted to get through all of them as we did not get to finish last year. Each one had a different theme and story, but all of them were extremely well done. They also had a really awesome dance show by Academy of Villans to go along with the haunted houses. By 1am the park was closing and we had just completed our final maze. It was a blast, but we were exhausted. This was definitely a common theme for this trip.
Sunday morning, we got up. Returned the car to the awful car rental place and got on a place to Houston. We had a really nice visit with my family and I got to eat my chips/salsa that I love from La Hacienda. The night ended with us playing some JackBoxTV and Grant finally convinced someone to play Fakin’It with him.