I am so going to miss Taco Bell breakfasts when not in America. I could eat the sausage crunch wrap (with no egg) every day all day and I don’t think I’d ever get tired of it. Taco Bell was required before we headed to Volcano Bay water park on Wednesday. 
It was again, perfect weather to visit a water park as the sky was blue and the temperature had again dipped over into the thirties. Now being a water park, I didn’t have my phone on me so photos are scarce.
As you scan your pass to get in, you get given a ‘Tappy-Tappy,’ which you use to register a time to go on a ride. It’s meant to limit queue times, and I imagine it does to an extent, but we still queued for about twenty minutes to half an hour on the rides we did. Oh-yah was the first one which had a four foot drop off the end into a 10ft deep pool.
The lazy river, was actually a lazy river here and you didn’t have to swim round it like the one at Discovery Cove which was a bonus!
The rubber ring rides had the bonus of not having to carry your own rubber ring up to the top! A slope thing did it for you. I remember back in the day visiting Splashdown and having to lug your ring allllllll the way to the top, but now, this machine does it for you!
The first ring ride had Nathan and I on one with two others and Sam, Brenda and Rich went on another ring. As you fly down into a bowl it feels like you’ll go flying off the edge but thankfully, due to some sort of physics I guess, you continue flying straight down into the next part of the ride. It was a good ride! 
The log flume allowed Nathan and I to ‘get air’ on one part. How? I have no idea but I most definitely felt my backside leave the ground! They even had a wave pool there and the whole ‘resort’ was huge. We found a second lazy river too and they actually had man made beaches with deck chairs and umbrellas. 
The resort is centred around a volcano which has a 120ft trap door drop ride, which we all chickened out of. My fear of falling would only be exacerbated by that ride I think!! Overall, it was a fun morning and we left around 3pm and headed to Disney Springs.
Disney Springs is the Disney version of CityWalk at Universal except it’s free to park at.
There are a load of shops and restaurants that lean more towards Disney than the films like Universal does. It’s a lovely place to wander round. They have a Disney shop and other aspects of Disney such as a home shop, clothes shop and a sweet shop. I wouldn’t even say it catered for children because the home shop sold things I’d happily have in my own non-existent home! 
We used the afternoon to seek out potential purchases whilst taking in the cool signage and characters dotted around. Oh and we can’t forget the Christmas shop!
Im not a huge Disney fan, Lion King is my all time favourite Disney film but, one has to appreciate the art and attention to detail across all the shops. It’s amazing. I even picked up a new book to read, which I do highly recommend (no it’s not a kids book), imagine Harry Potter meets Disney! 
The above is book two as book one is now packed away but it truly is a good read! I read it over the course of two days! I even managed to do a spot of Christmas shopping at Disney Springs. We are at Planet Hollywood, which turned out to be very disappointing for Nathan and Rich but they got a free steak out of it! We took the boat back across the river to the car park which was operated by a cute old man and we passed beautiful pastel coloured hotel buildings with Mickey Mouse planted into the grass in different colours. 
For someone who hasn’t visited Florida before, the vastness of the world of Disney and Universal and the parks and everything else that goes along with it, I found myself oftentimes with my mouth ajar.
Until next time…