THE GOODBYE TO PLEASURE ISLAND TRIP

DATES: August 28th - September 1st

CAST: Me (Chris; 5th trip to the World), Tink (My GF; first trip to WDW in 9 years).

RESORT: Coronado Springs (first time for both of us)

DAY 3: TYPHOON LAGOON, DOWNTOWN DISNEY, & GOODBYE, PLEASURE ISLAND!
FRIDAY AUGUST 29, 2008

So this was it. An emotional night. Just kidding, but it was the last night I'd stay in Pleasure Island. This is what the trip was all about. Well, aside from having an amazing time with Crystal!

We woke up - and hey - it's getting harder and harder to roll out of bed on so little sleep. So we slept until 10:30, haha. Got up, went directly to Typhoon Lagoon. Missed the first bus be mere seconds, so we waited a bit for the next one. It was cloudy, and raining slightly - the first rainfall of the trip. And go figure, we were headed for a water park. When we got on the bus, the rain rain rain came down down down...but a dozen people including us still got off the bus stop at TL. Crystal and I preferred TL this trip over Blizzard Beach - because we come from Winnipeg: home of several feet of snow each year. Be it fake or real snow, we didn't want to see any of it - this trip.

We changed and headed to Crushin Gusher when an announcement came on: "Due to the approaching thunderstorm, all slides are now closed. Please take shelter and we will inform you when it's safe to return." And with that announcement, the rain POURED HARD. We found shelter, though we were still outside, standing on a wet ground - perfect with a thunder and lightning storm...yikes. Anyhow, after about 25 minutes of hard rain, half the park cleared out - and we all cleared out of the shelter, as the park reopened. We were worried that we just wasted our "water park and fun" option on the passes...but all was good. We were one of the first people back on Crushin Gusher - did two slides...then Shark Reef - Crystal loved it and so did I - lots of fun. This was followed by warming up in the lazy river...so much fun too - so RELAXING! We did Humunga Kowabunga a couple of times too - again, no lineup.

We spent the last part our time at TL in the wave pool, and once braved it out in the extremely deep end to ride a wave. After being exhausted (having no food yet!) we decided to change and leave to go back to the hotel and shower before our big night out.

We each showered in our room at CSR, and took the bus to Downtown Disney where we immediately sat down in Planet Hollywood for dinner. We were on the lower level and Crystal was the one to notice we were on the "big screens" a couple of times. Good times, haha. Meal was good, but again as I've stressed before - it's too LOUD. Next time we won't be going back there.

We did a ton of shopping at World of Disney and Legoland. We then bought our club pass for PLEASURE ISLAND....destination: Mannequinn's Dance Palace. WHAT AN AMAZING TIME! I can't believe they're all closing still...even some of the cast members are shocked and not happy about this. but we enjoyed the rotating dance floor, the hundeds of lights and big smoke effects and lasers. Trust me (this one's for you, Pluto) rum was a big part of the evening As you can see in my current avatar, we eventually had to leave - was probably 1am. I waved goodbye to Pleasure Island...it will be missed.

I was hungry when we went back so we ordered garlic bread and pizza from Famous Pizza...quick delivery and not-too-bad pizza. We fell asleep around 3. The next day would be conquering the two WDW Kingdoms: AK and MK...with MK having extra magic hours til 3am!!!!

UP NEXT:
DAY 3: Animal Kingdom & Magic Kingdom with EMH!!!

Chris