Tuesday was another competition day, but not until evening, so I went to bed Monday night without an alarm. Unfortunately, my brain decided that 6 am was a good time to wake up. I grabbed my phone to use to light my way around the room, but unfortunately it didn’t charge the night before (I plugged it in, but the other end wasn’t actually connected to power). I instead grabbed my iPad, used it to find clothes, plugged my iPhone in the bathroom outlet, and changed into proper clothing. I went to the lobby and worked in the lobby bar area. After about an hour, Andrew joined me. It was a pretty good place to work early, without much distraction. I texted Madeline to let me know when she was up, and she texted me back about 8:30. I went back to the room, and we both got ready to head out.

Our plan for the day was to go to Voodoo Doughnuts at City Walk, shop a little at City Walk, and then go to Target. If we had just been planning City Walk, I would have ubered there, but it didn’t make sense to uber to one place and back and then get the car and drive to the next place. So we drove to City Walk, and parking at Universal was crazy. And expensive. The attended collected our $30 and asked what we were doing. When we told him we were just there for doughnuts, he did a really nice thing. He told us that it was cheap movie day, and when you buy movie tickets, they refund your parking if you show them your receipt.

We entered City Walk with a crush of people going to the park. Fortunately, though, the line for Voodoo Doughnuts wasn’t even out the door. We got three doughnuts: I had a Memphis Mafia, which looked like an apple fritter but was fried dough with cinnamon and banana chunks, glazed, and topped with chocolate chips, peanuts, and both chocolate and peanut butter drizzle. It was worth fighting the crowd for! I don’t remember what Madeline’s was called, but it was a glazed ring with vanilla frosting, then half dipped in some kind of sugar (strawberry? blueberry?), with sprinkles or something on the other half. I also got a maple bacon bar to take back to Andrew.

We found a shady spot to eat our doughnuts, and while we were sitting there a frozen yogurt place opened, so Madeline had frozen yogurt for breakfast for the second time in a week. We shopped a bit, and when we saw men’s swim trunks we bought a pair for Andrew. He had only brought one pair of swim trunks and was already regretting it, so we remedied the problem. On our way back to the parking garage we stopped at the movie theater. I handed her our parking receipt and got two movie tickets and $19 in cash back. Not bad!

Traffic was crazy on the way to Target, and what was probably a twenty minute drive felt like an hour. As we were pulling into the Target plaza Madeline spied a Chick fil A, so we diverted to lunch before our shopping. Target went well and wasn’t too crowded, and we were able to get the things Madeline needed and a couple things for Andrew too. Fortunately, the drive back to the hotel was much less annoying.

Madeline went down to the competition to watch her friends compete their solos and cheer them on, and I went to the room. Andrew was there working, and I was able to work a bit as well. But soon housekeeping showed up, so I found a table in a hallway off the main lobby and worked there. Andrew joined me for a while, but then he left to find a place to take a video meeting. Madeline texted that she and Khloey were in our room getting ready for Madeline’s solos, and then later that she was ready and would I bring the Dream Duffel down at her call time. (For those who don’t know, a Dream Duffel is a brand of performance luggage that has extending rods that hold a bar you can hang costumes on. It’s brilliant, really, and I don’t know how we’d do dance without ours – we have two)

Soon I went to the room to get ready for the evening, and I took the Dream Duffel down to the dressing room. As I was passing the stage area, an IDA dance was on, so I watched and cheered before heading to the lobby bar to meet Andrew for a drink. We watched the interim solo awards ceremony on the live stream. After awards Madeline joined us, and another dance mom, Christy. We ended up ordering a charcuterie platter and munching on it. We had a nice time talking, but before long a couple of IDA instructors came by and told Madeline that she should head down early to warm up, because the competition was running early. That was a really nice difference from two years ago. Last time we were in Orlando, every night was an hour or more late, and most evenings went until after midnight. This time, they seemed to always be running ahead.

After we paid the bill Andrew and I went down to the competition area to watch Madeline’s first solo, Hollywood. This was her old solo from the 2021-22 season, and she chose to re-compete it this year. She then had a two-hour break before this year’s new solo, Breathe Out. She looked great in both and scored platinum points but didn’t place. However, her teammate, Alina, made the finale!

We made it back to the room around 11 pm and were ready, once again, for a good night’s sleep.