OUR 2020 DISNEY’S VERO BEACH TRIP: DAY 5 (JUNGLES!! BINGO! CRAB LEGS!!!)

So Day 5. Day 5 was a Monday.

HAHAHAHAA!!!

Oh Garfield, you…PFFTTHAHAHAHA

You silly ca…BWAHAHAHAHA

Sorry. Give me a second.

…

…

OK, sorry about that.

Garfield always gets me.

But this time, that lasagna-loving feline got it wrong. On account of this was a pretty great Monday.

Day 5 started with us waking up late. I mean, waking up late FOR US. Nickie and I didn’t wake up until like 8AM. Maybe even 8:15.

We’re bad.

And as many days have started on this vacation, this one started with us going for a walk on the beach.

It was a beautiful day. In fact, it was so beautiful I wanted to trade in the treadmill at the fitness center for an outside run. So Nickie and I headed back to our room.

And as we were walking back to our room, we spotted Carrie on the beach doing some yoga. So she invited us to join her and we did some light stretches. Which for me are heavy stretches. On account of not flexible.

And then I was off for my run. I wanted to check out this Jungle Trail so I stopped off at the front desk for a map and headed outside.

To access the Jungle Trail (and some of the other resort activities such as basketball and tennis) you have to get across the street. And OF COURSE Disney has a magical way to cross the street.

You go through a tunnel.

Underground.

…

OK fine. That’s not THAT magical. But. BUT. Look at this tunnel.

Yeah Peter Pan in the house!! I mean…in the tunnel!!

So I run through the tunnel and look to my right to see an entrance to what looks like a jungly trail.

I run in and make my way down the path, through the jungle. In about, I don’t know, a few yards or so, the trail opens up to this…

And um. That’s it. That’s the end of the trail. I run around the water, searching for maybe where the trail picks back up. But that’s it. I even leave the trail and then come back in. Nope, that’s it. That’s the entire trail.

Now, that’s not the entire JUNGLE trail of course. It’s just the entire erm…THIS…trail. I was starting to feel like maybe I wasn’t on the Jungle Trail after all.

And I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking, “but Wayne, didn’t you have a map?”

Well yes. But unfortunately…

…a map. I obviously can’t read a map.

Turns out to get to the Jungle Trail you do have to cross the street, but then you have to run up to the traffic light and take a left. The entrance is actually a little ways down the road. It’s hard getting used to being at a Disney resort and everything not being right there.

But yeah, I did make it. I ran down the trail a couple miles and ran back. It was a nice run for sure. Takes you through some trees and opens up onto this….

Upon my return to the resort, I realized I never snapped a pic of this guy. Look at this littler chunker-munker.

When I got back to the resort, Nickie said the Chicago Goodys wanted to take a bike ride and asked if we wanted to go. They also yelled over from their room and asked us. Look, here they are. Asking us. AND disturbing the peace.

Being that I just went on a run, I declined but Myles, Owen, and Nickie decided to join them. They ended up going for a 7-mile ride.

And by “they,” I mean Scott, Myles, and Gwen. Matilda and Owen were not exactly having it. So they returned a little earlier, with Nickie and Carrie.

Which worked out for me because we all went down to the pool to play some POOLSIDE BINGO!!!

Owen and Matilda played along too and, honestly, I wasn’t sure if there was a point if we were going to win more frisbees. We were swimming in frisbees from trivia at this point. I said to Owen, “I wish it was candy.” On account of I am a 5 year-old trapped in a 43 year-old’s body.

The first game was standard Bingo. And look at me…

Yup. WINNER! I walked up to grab my prize and…

…

CANDY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Yes! There were some other prizes, like change purses and what not but I mean. Candy. They had M&Ms and Skittles.

I really hope I have communicated effectively how excited I was at the candy.

Owen was also excited. And he also won a round. And he ate some M&Ms.

When everyone returned from the bike ride, we had lunch (again) at Wind & Waves Market. I ordered a super yumtown southwestern chicken wrap.

Owen and Gwen also got in their daily dose of ping pong. These kids played a SERIOUS amount of ping pong this trip.

Being that we have a problem were a little hot, Nickie and I decided we wanted some alcoholic Dole Whips. Pro tip – if you want an alcoholic Dole Whip at Disney’s Vero Beach, you buy a Dole Whip at Wind & Waves Market and then bring it over to the pool bar. They will hook you up with a shot of whatever you wanna put in there. We opted for spiced rum.

I promised the kids I would play some basketball with them, but I also wanted to hang at the beach for a bit. So Nickie and I told them 20 minutes and brought our Dole Whips to the sand.

I made the decision on Day 5 to finally venture into the ocean. The water was chilly, but honestly no colder than a summer ocean in New England. And the waves were humungo. I mean, this picture doesn’t do it justice, but trust me – they were knocking me over.

Afterwards, Nickie and I sat on our towel, drank our Dole Whips, and looked out at the ocean. It was a beautiful day and I was with a beautiful lady.

But the kids of course were down on the beach in 20 minutes. Exactly. And I had to head over to the basketball court. Back through the tunnel…

…and onto the blacktop.

Right? Blacktop? Is that what they call it? And a basket is called a touchdown?

ACTION SHOT!

I played a little bit with the kids but then a group of other kids showed up to play and kids that aren’t mine scare me so I got the heck out of there.

Myles and Owen ended up playing with them though and they were nice, I guess. Still though. Can’t be too careful.

While I was off playing basketball with the kids, Nickie paid Island Grove Packing Company (the gift shop) a visit. She bought some of her favorite champagne.

Annnd she bought me this shirt I had been eyeing for the past couple days. I legit am in love with this shirt.

Earlier that day, we had signed up for an activity I was particularly interested in – Disney Map photo frames. And the time had come to head down to the community center to make some Disney Map photo frames, whatever those were.

We met in the community center and the whole process was explained. Essentially there were a bunch of Disney Parks maps in front of us and we could cut out pieces we wanted to use on our frame. We then would glue the pieces to our frame and finally paint glue over the pictures to create a glossy finish and eliminate any unglued corners or anything.

Really fun. Plus, while we were making our frames, the cast member in charge was asking about our trip and what we were enjoying at the resort as well. As we were talking, we mentioned that there was one activity it was looking like we weren’t gonna get to do. And it was one we were really looking forward to – Mickey Tye Dye t-shirts. Turned out we missed our window and they wouldn’t be doing it again while we were there.

The cast member said, “hold on a sec” and excused herself. She came back and said that one of the activities the next day had no sign-ups so they could slot us in to do the t-shirts if we wanted to. Insanely nice, right? So we had more resort activities to look forward to. Nice!

We finished up our frames and brought them back to our room to dry. But check these guys out. Not bad for non-professional frame maker people.

I know though. That family is quite as attractive as us. I get it.

After making our frames, the kids wanted to play some more basketball (surprise, surprise) so they grabbed a ball and went back to the court.

Nickie and I decided to go to the Green Cabin Room. It was such a nice day, we wanted to sit out on the balcony and look out at the ocean.

And also, with it having been minutes since we had a drink, we ordered some Mai Tais.

The plan was just to have a drink but when a cheese plate is offered, we have a really hard time resisting. We are basically like the exact opposite of Lactose Intolerant.

We are Lactose TooTolerant.

The cheese plate is a chef’s selection so I really don’t remember everything that was on there. I think there was a brie and a goat cheese but I can’t remember what that hard cheese was. But…BUT. I do remember how good the honeycomb was. And those almonds. Seriously, this was a REALLY GOOD cheese plate. I want it. Right now. Give me cheese.

Really nice though. Myles came to hang out for a little bit and when we were done, we walked down to the room off the lobby to find Owen, Carrie, Gwen, and Matilda playing some Disney Vacation Club Monopoly.

It’s a cool little room down there. They had a bunch of games. I think I remember them having Tower of Terror Clue, Scrabble, Monopoly, and maybe some others. And all the boards are part of the table-tops. Brilliant!

Soon enough, though, it was dinner time. We were having dinner off the resort again. This time, we had made reservations at The Crab Stop, another place we had heard a lot about on Facebook and YouTube.

Time for some crab legs, y’all!

Look. Look how excited Myles was.

Look at these guys. All crabby and what not.

I started my meal with a Grey Goose martini dirty.

We started off with some appetizers for the table – Zucchini Stix…

…and Mozzarella Stix.

Yup. They end both with an “x.” Despite this, they were still pretty good.

Now, while The Crab Stop does offer some different combos, we opted to just order some King Crab Legs and Snow Crab for the table.

And after a couple hours? They did come.

OK, fine. That was an exaggeration. But the service was hella-slow. Hella. Slow. Which was weird since by the time our food came, we were pretty much the only people in the restaurant.

But hey…look. Crab.

And as you can see, there were some chicken fingers and cheeseburgers strewn about for the kids.

The crab was really good though. Super fresh-tasting. My one complaint would be they were a tad heavy on the Old Bay Seasoning. I still thought they were tasty, but the seasoning was a little overpowering.

After dinner, we drove back to the resort. Owen, Myles, Gwen, and Matilda wanted to continue their High School Musical-thon. Next on the schedule? The only theatrically-released High School Musical movie – High School Musical 3.

And on account of that movie being awesome, we all decided to join them. We grabbed the DVD from the gift shop and walked over to the Chicago Goodys’ room to settle in for some QT with Troy and Gabriella.

And Chad.

And Taylor.

And Kelsi.

And Ryan.

And Martha Cox.

And Zeke. With his crème brulee.

And Sharpay. I mean, obviously. Obviously Sharpay.

I love High School Musical is what I am trying to say.

On the way over, I realized we hadn’t gotten a picture of this awesome sign.

Matilda opted out of the movie to watch something much less awesome in her bedroom. The rest of us settled into the living room and got ready for (sniff, tear…) graduation.

And soon enough, that quality time I talked about earlier? It happened.

I don’t think I need to say it, but of course the movie was great. And the newbies thought so too. Scott was especially impressed.

After the movie ended, it was time to call it a night. But Day 5 was a really nice day, right? Next post will focus on Day 6 and Day 7. Which wasn’t really much of a day as it was the day we left. But still, Day 6. Day 6 is a good one. So if I were you, I would keep checking here constantly to drive up my traffic make sure you’re the first one to read it.