You Get a Suite! You Get a Suite! Everybody Gets a Suite! December 2023 Trip Report! (Updated 4/26!)

[ThreeBoyMama]

That sounds like such a fun weekend! You and your mom always look so happy to be spending time together

 

[rdkeim]

Thanks for sharing your mini staycation! You and your Mom have good times together. It looks like you live in a beautiful area - very nice. The virtual 10K sounds interesting and fun! I'll have to check it out.

 

[SimplyGoofy]

What a fun weekend with your mom! It looks like you had a great time and ate tons of good food. Also, congratulations on your 10K!

 

[VAtink]

How fun to have your mom come visit and to do the virtual race! Thanks for sharing!

It was so much fun, I'm glad we tried out the virtual race, although now my mom wants to do the real thing! I'm not sure if I'm on board with having to wake up at like 2am while in Disney to catch the race bus, but we'll see, if it means an extra trip to Disney I may be able to do it.

 

[VAtink]

Doing the Virtual race was an awesome idea! Glad you and your mom had a good visit.

It was a lot of fun, and a great way to show my mom around my town. I'm so happy we signed up for it!

 

[VAtink]

It sounds like a great mini vacation with your mom, congrats on the 10k!!

Thanks! It was such a fun little vacation. I wish it were longer, but I gotta save up my vacation time to use on our AP trips!

 

[VAtink]

I love the fact that you can walk to such a beautiful view with outdoor dining. It looks like being on vacation.

Me too, I love my little city, there are so many great things within walking distance!

I didn't realize that you could do your own route for a Disney virtual race. That is very cool and it looks like an interesting route.

Yup, I don't think they give much thought to the virtual runners these days. Which is good since I forgot to stop our timer at the end so I only have an estimate of what our actual time was.

Congratulations! A 10K is a really long race. I've done a few of them in my younger days.

Thanks! We figured we do at least a 10k every day in Disney, so this would be no different. HA! It's easier in Disney.

I loved going to the Farmers' markets in downtown Chicago when I worked there. The hardest part was bringing the heavy fruit and vegetables back home.

Farmers markets are so great, I love going to them, especially in the summer when they have so much fresh produce. It is true about lugging everything home, one year I bought a jasmine plant in like a gallon container, now that was a pain to walk home! (and it's still going strong, about to bloom!)

It looks like you had a great weekend.

It was a great long weekend, it's always fun when my mom visits!

 

[VAtink]

I love that you and your mom are so close and just really enjoy spending time together. What a great weekend!!!

Me too! We had such a great time this weekend, I'm so happy she came to visit!

And your doggo is so adorable. I especially love his grey little snout.

Aw, thank you! He's gotten so grey lately, but he still acts like a puppy which is good!

 

[VAtink]

That sounds like such a fun weekend! You and your mom always look so happy to be spending time together

It was such a great weekend, we really do enjoy spending time together!

 

[VAtink]

Thanks for sharing your mini staycation! You and your Mom have good times together. It looks like you live in a beautiful area - very nice. The virtual 10K sounds interesting and fun! I'll have to check it out.

You're welcome! Yeah, I live in a really beautiful small city, everything is basically within walking distance, which I love.

The 10k was a lot of fun, I would definitely do it again!

 

[VAtink]

What a fun weekend with your mom! It looks like you had a great time and ate tons of good food. Also, congratulations on your 10K!

Haha, yes we ate a LOT of food! One of the reasons I love when my mom visits is we get to go try out a lot of restaurants! And thank you!

 

[DVCjj]

How absolutely delightful to have your adorable mom fly in to spend a weekend! Such an amazing relationship you have.

I've never been to the Virginia area but it sure looked wonderful.

 

[VAtink]

How absolutely delightful to have your adorable mom fly in to spend a weekend! Such an amazing relationship you have.

It was so great to have her visit! We do have an amazing relationship, I'm very lucky!

I've never been to the Virginia area but it sure looked wonderful.

There are some really nice areas around here, my city has been working for the last decade or so to attract more people (especially younger people) to move here, so we have some pretty cool places now. Helps that we're right on the river!

 

[VAtink]

Day 5, Part 2: Maybe Swimming Isn’t the Best Idea​

We had a nice morning in the room, enjoying our pog-mosas and watching the animals.

Around 11 my mom decided she really wanted to go swimming, even though it was only like 50 degrees outside, but I still decided to join her. I figured the pools were heated so it wouldn’t be too bad.

HA.

I was wrong.

It wasn’t so much the temperature, although that didn’t help, but it was super windy this day, so while the water wasn’t horribly cold, the second we got above the waterline we were hit with that wind and it was brutal!

Not surprisingly, other than two kids, we were the only people in the pool!

My mom even decided to go down the slide, I’m impressed, it was too cold for that for me!

We ended up chatting with the lifeguard there for a while since he didn’t have much to guard besides my mom and I, and I always love sharing stories with other lifeguards. I was one for many years, and ooph, the stories I have from that job!

After spending a bit of time in the pool, we decided to head to the hot tub to warm up. I’m not a fan of how far the hot tubs are away from the pool, and I swear they changed location from the first time we stayed here the year the hotel opened. I distinctly remember being able to see the flamingos from the hot tub back in the day, and it being closer to the pool, but now the hot tubs are just surrounded by bushes with no views of any animals and are off to the side not close to the pool.

We spent a lot of time in the hot tub, it was really nice in there! While there another family came in to enjoy the warmth and we chatted with them for a while, they were really sweet!

Finally after feeling totally waterlogged we decided to head back to our chairs to dry off a bit before heading back inside.

We laid out in the sun for a little while, but since it was still pretty chilly out we didn’t stay for long and once we felt dry enough we headed back inside.

On the way in, we popped up to the lounge to see what the lunch looked like, and I grabbed a strawberry lemonade to take with me back to the room.

Once back in the room my dad mentioned he was hungry, so we decided to head back to the lounge to get some food.

We ended up grabbing some veggies and hummus, and I grabbed a chocolate chip cookie. We also requested sangrias, and the CM offered to “make them special” by adding some POG juice to them. Of course we agreed!

After lunch we headed back to the room to relax. I ended up taking another bath, then spent some time out on the balcony watching the animals.







Around 5:30 we started to get ready, and the funniest thing happened.

At one point I went to use the bathroom in my room, which may seem like a pointless thing to add, but there is a reason!

So the toilet was in a separate room off of the bathroom, which if you just looked into the bathroom quickly it was easy to miss since it was hidden behind the main bathroom door. Well, while I was in there my parents were looking for me and could not find me anywhere! I had no idea since the fan in the room was so loud so I couldn’t hear them calling my name, and they didn’t realize that there was a whole other room connected to my bathroom, so when they peaked in and didn’t see me they thought I wasn’t there.

My dad even thought I was hiding somewhere to try to scare them so went and opened every closet in the room! They even left the room and went to the lounge to look for me. I had no idea any of this was happening.

Eventually after I had changed and finished getting ready I came out of my room, and my parents jumped up and exclaimed “WHERE WERE YOU!?!?”, which was a bit confusing since I’d just been in my room. So I tell them I was just in the room, and they are super confused since they looked in there and didn’t see me. I finally showed them the separate toilet room which they didn’t see when they looked since the door to it was hidden behind the bathroom door!

We all laughed about that for a while, they were so close to calling security since they thought I had disappeared!

Next up: Jollywood, Part 1!​

 

[2xcited2sleep]

What a lovely relaxing day. Hilarious they couldn't find you! I was a lifeguard in my younger years, and I swear it doesn't leave you. I have a hard time relaxing at a pool because I can't help but be conscious of all the swimmers. POG mosas and sangrias sound delightful!!!!

 

[jrmint427]

Eventually after I had changed and finished getting ready I came out of my room, and my parents jumped up and exclaimed “WHERE WERE YOU!?!?”, which was a bit confusing since I’d just been in my room.

That is too funny! Sounds like some nice relaxing time at the pool and hot tub even if it was a chilly day.