David and I booked two nights at Universal's Aventura Hotel and went to Volcano Bay for my Birthday. I figured it would be a fun, economical Birthday that wouldn't financially set us back. We invited all of our friends. So it was David, me, Olivia, Kyle, Archer, Missy, Dakota, and Ali. A nice big group for the day. David's Dad was supposed to come but he was a no call no show, go figure.
First off, the hotel. Oh. My. God. If you ever find yourself wanting to book a stay at Universal might I suggest to look no where else but Aventura? We got the deluxe two queen room (they were out of single bed deluxe rooms) and it was AMAZING. The whole room is connected to and controlled by an iPad on the nightstand. Lights, air, TV, services, etc. Everything controlled from the iPad. It was a very long curved room with floor to ceiling windows stretching across its length. The hotel has 17 floors, we were on the eighth, and the views were incredible. We opened the windows at night, killed the lights, and watched the EPCOT fireworks from our bed. It was incredible!
The hotel even has a room delivery robot. We placed a couple of orders trying to get the robot, for some reason we kept getting humans.
The reasoning behind staying at this hotel was it's proximity to Volcano Bay. There is a garden path that is a very short stroll from the hotel pool to the front gates of Volcano Bay. This meant we didn't have to drive to the park and pay for parking. Well, okay so that's the one drawback of staying at Aventura. Parking. You have to pay ~$18/day for parking, so it's about the equivalent of driving to the parks and paying for parking there. I wish parking, like almost every hotel I've ever stayed at, was just included in the price of the room. I wasn't aware before checking in that parking was an additional charge and it caught us off guard.
Okay, back to my Birthday. Due to poor planning on our end no one really knew when to show up. So around 10:30 AM everyone started trickling in.
Missy came with the most adorable gift basket I think I've ever received. Apparently she hit up Walmart the night before and bought a bunch of my favorite things and put it inside an adorable basket. There was some Nickelodeon Nicktoon themed night shorts, Extra Toasty Cheez-Its, black licorice, extra dark chocolate, Reese's thins, and some Birthday girl gear like a sash, crown, glasses and cup. Of course I had to equip it immediately.
Tweeds and David paired up and got me some Star Trek mugs. One of them even includes my a line from one of my favorite Star Trek episodes that reads "There are four lights!"
Shortly after everyone arrived we walked over to Volcano Bay and went immediately to the attraction I was most looking forward too: TeAwa the Fearless River. It's like a lazy river on steroids and in the middle of a 'roid rage. You put on a life jacket and float down a whitewater river experience. I did this about 6-8 times and honestly, I could have done it all day.
But it was definitely not suitable for the baby to experience and so David and Olivia had to alternate watching the baby and going down the river.
After we got our fill of whitewater it was about lunch time and we were all hungry so we went to the front of the park to have lunch.
After lunch we were ready to get back in the water and what would be better than another lazy river? Nothing. So we went to Kopiko Wai Winding River.
I love the whitewater experience, but Kopiko Wai Winding River is just a bit better in my opinion. Sure, it's slower and not scary, but you can grab an intertube and just float around enjoying the scenery. There's even a part where you go into a cave. I believe it's part of the volcano, but I may be wrong on that.
After a couple of rotations through David took Archer to the kids area while Olivia enjoyed the lazy river. It's so cool to see David taking care of the baby. It really stokes that baby fever in me.
After enjoying the lazy river for a couple of hours we decided to hit the wave pool.
At first the waves were kind of meh but then the next couple of rounds of waves got a little more intense. At one point I was trying to catch a video of Missy but was really struggling to stay above water. This is not a complaint by the way. The more powerful, the better in my humble opinion.
We stayed at the wave pool for a bit. At one point I went and got myself a Birthday drink. Mom had Apple Payed me some money with the request to get myself a drink and so I made it a point to do that. I went with Tiki Punch which tasted really good, but I'm guessing my bartender saw my Birthday pin and decided to give it an extra punch. It was STRONG.
And then, like that our time was up. We went back to the hotel, cleaned up and had some Arby's. I got to show Dakota the Oculus and he played a round or two of Beat Saber. We seized the opportunity to get some beautiful shots in the room (like the picture in the cover taken by Dakota) and then said goodnight to everyone. Tomorrow morning we will wake up and leave the hotel.
What an amazing Birthday and I felt so grateful to have so many friends join us. I often find myself feeling lonely and friendless, but this day was definitely a reminder for me that I am not friendless. I have so many good friends.
I can tell that David is inspired too. He kept telling me what a great Birthday it was and how my Birthday's are always so fun. I told him that it's because I've learned to drop the false humility when it comes to Birthdays. He's like how I used to be. I used to think that I didn't really want to celebrate my Birthday and wanted to treat it like any other day. Now I see how much of a waste that is. Fuck it! It's my Birthday and I want to spend it with friends and loved ones and I want to help them celebrate me.
At the end of the day, despite all of my insecurities, I think I'm a pretty awesome person and I do want to celebrate that. Hopefully next year on his Birthday he'll want to celebrate himself just the same.
We'll see.
