Friday was a LONG day. Because we didn’t get to bed until 2 am (I checked my watch when we turned the lights off, and it read 1:59), I didn’t set my alarm for a 6 am wake-up like I had originally planned. Instead, I set a 9 am alarm and decided sleep was more important than beating traffic.
I woke up before my alarm, about 7:30 am, which was only five and a half hours of sleep. Ugh. But I was definitely awake, so I quietly killed some time in the room and then got in the shower. When I left the bathroom, a little before 9 am, Andrew was up. And a little after 9 am I pulled back the curtains to let the light in to wake Madeline up. She did not love the idea.
Packing went fairly well, although we had a lot more things than when we arrived in Orlando. At Disney Springs, Madeline had bought two sweatshirts, so even though she’d left room in her suitcase for purchases, she was struggling to fit everything. Andrew and I helped roll and stuff, and we got it all in without even unzipping her expansion. I put all of the costumes, shoes, and accessories in the Dream Duffel. It fit, but I was concerned that it’s overweight. If so, I’d have to do some rearranging at the airport when we flew hom!
We loaded up the car and left the Hilton around 10:30 am, which was not too bad. Since we hadn’t eaten, we needed some breakfast, and Madeline suggested Starbucks, which was fine with Andrew and me. We hit one not too far from the hotel and said good bye to Orlando. Traffic through Orlando was not bad, but it got really busy as we headed east toward the beaches. By the time we got to I-95, it was a solid three lanes of heavy traffic. Andrew did a great job of driving, and we arrived at the Omni Resort on Amelia Island around 2:00 pm.
Check-in went smoothly, and we really liked our room. It was slightly bigger than our room at the HIlton, with an ocean view and a small balcony. Andrew and I unpacked while Madeline relaxed. She spotted a large turtle moving across a grassy area between our room and the ocean. We changed into swimsuits, grabbed towels from the pool deck, and went to play in the ocean. The waves were strong, but the shelf went out far, and we all were able to stand and had fun playing in the water.
Ocean play made us hungry, so we went to the restaurant by the pool and got a small lunch. My margarita was just ok, but Andrew and I split an ocean bowl with rice, seaweed, mango, cucumber, edamame, carrot, radish, and crisp garlic, and it was terrific. After we ate we played in the pool a bit, and then I decided to find the spa and see if they would make an exception to the minimum age posted on the web site. It turned out the spa was a ten-minute walk from the pool (this property is huge), and they refused to make an exception. Boo. So I walked back to the pool, and we hung out there for a while.
After the pool, we walked to the fitness center in the hotel (there’s also a larger one farther away on the property) and checked it out. It didn’t really have what either Andrew or I wanted, so it was good to have seen it and know that. I was really tired at that point, so Madeline and I chilled in the room for a while, but Andrew decided to explore a bit. When he came back, I freshened up a bit, and he and I went walking around together. We ended up at Seaglass, the bar off the lobby, and grabbed a table outside at the top of the pool deck. Andrew got us drinks from the bar, and we enjoyed sitting in the shade outside.
When we finished our drinks we went to the room to grab Madeline for dinner. We were expecting her to want to skip dinner, and we were prepared to insist, but she wanted to go to dinner. We decided we’d go to the restaurant just below our room, for the convenience. When we checked in we got a list of activities for the weekend, and there were three different dinner experiences listed. They all looked good, so we planned to go to each one of them on the three different nights we were there. The first one we did was the Pasta Experience. The restaurant in our wing isn’t usually open for dinner, but they had a special buffet-style pasta bar with pasta freshly made right there. There was a big table in the buffet room, and on one side they had pasta ingredients and a pasta-making machine, and on the other the pasta was in bowls. I chose the fettuccine. You put your pasta in a bowl then walked it to the chef and chose your sauce, marinara or Alfredo. Madeline got marinara, Andrew got Alfredo, and I got half and half. While our pasta cooked, we walked around the room and got other items off of the buffet: asparagus and green bean casserole, freshly baked breads, flank steak, and several salads were all available. The food was good, although I left the asparagus on the plate because it was too soggy for me. After dinner I grabbed some lemon cheesecake and was full and content.
We went back to our room, and Andrew and I sat on the balcony watching the moon reflect off of the ocean. Occasionally, someone on the beach on either side of the hotel would set off fireworks. It was great, until I got a couple bug bites and decided to move indoors. We were all still tired from our long day Friday and short night, so we all fell asleep pretty early. It was a good day of unwinding from nationals week.
