Goodbye West Palm Beach, Hello Summer Bay Orlando!

The first week of our vacation flew by.  Now, had it not been a COVID year, we would have been heading back to Miami to jump on our Carnival Cruise to the Bahamas... but instead, we got cancelled and are now heading up to Orlando and our second resort called Summer Bay Orlando by Exploria Resorts.  This place is great!  It has a variety of pools and amenities including a minigolf, tennis courts, and a basketball court.  In addition, we could have paid to be part of the Buccaneers Club which includes a climbing wall and zip line (we passed on this).  Overall, this was a nice resort and it had those cool wristband keys (ours were red) that you could use to access your room.  We stayed in building 403 room 208 which was a pretty nice design. (see photos).  We are all looking forward to what is coming up next this week, even though we are all pretty tired.  Tomorrow, our big event is the Discovery Cove.  Excited to check that out!

 

Until We Meet Again, One Last Swim in the Big Blue Ocean

After a challenging day of snorkeling on Peanut Island, we all took a much-needed break in the room and snoozed.  The coolness and comfort (not to mention Mario Golf on the Nintendo Switch) allowed all of us to get in a nice rest.  Afterward, we wanted to go 'Battle The Waves" one more time.  The beginning of our wave time was a little calm, but as night fell and the breeze picked up, we saw more and more biggies crash in.  Jaden & Caleb loved being hauled out on their little cheap tubes to attempt to ride the waves back into shore.  It was a little scary at times, but we eventually got the right combination of undertow and release to make some memorable trips back in.  What a great way to spend our final night in West Palm Beach.

Take the Ferry to Peanut Island

Today's adventure involved getting up early (a typical thing for us on vacation), driving over to the ferry, and hopping on a boat to Peanut Island.  The ferry to the island is about a 15-minute drive from Palm Beach Shores Resorts.  We packed up our snorkel gear, Dad's drone (DJI Mini 2), and our sunscreen.  We were looking for adventure and certainly found some.  

This island is a great little day trip.  You could spend the whole day there and enjoy all the warm sandy beaches you desire.. but know that the final boat to shore is at 5:00 PM.  Interesting story, we learned from the captains that many people (upwards of 1000) will visit the island in a day and as you'd expect, just about all of them decide to leave at 5 PM.  If you can do the math, each boat can haul about 45 people, there could be upwards of 1000 that want to leave at the same time... you get the picture (3+ hours of waiting)!  We didn't do that.  We came, we snorkeled, we left by about noon.  Basically, we were all very tired from our long day in the ocean and at Shark Wake Park yesterday!

All in all, this was a nice little stop on our adventure.

Snorkeling Pictures: https://photos.app.goo.gl/DJFBTKrdDcyzT7wo7

Snorkeling Videos: https://photos.app.goo.gl/BGtRAWFJcbm8vM4v5

Drone Pictures:

Shark Wake Park 561

Well, That was certainly a big day for us. Today we got to visit Shark Wake Park. It's basically this cool place built on the shore of a lake. They have an awesome inflated obstacle course which is right in the middle of the lake and it's just like a slip and slide. It was really hard to stay upright, and I know that I fell at least 10 times while just walking along the paths. There was also a dock that led further out into the lake which was where Caleb, Mom, and Dad got to go wakeboarding.  There was a carpeted blue ramp that led down so that the edge of it was right on the water. Mom was on skis while Dad and Caleb tried boards. Getting on the ride was hard because there were only two ways to get on. Either you had to stand upright and have a drop-off at the end of the ramp, or you had to sit on a bench and hover your board in the air at the right angle. Mom pretty much figured out the whole ski thing right away. The way the rope worked was similar to how you loading a tow rope for tubing.  you know...with the snow... Oh, that's right. I forgot. Floridians. You northerners know what I'm talking about. Anyway, Dad picked up the whole wakeboarding thing pretty quick after being yelled "Arms out!" from the dock by a few locals.  Caleb was having a rough time at first. With face plant...after face plant...after face pla-. Mabey I should stop now. Basically, Caleb couldn't get his board to cooperate. But then, a really nice guy who was also really good at wakeboarding helped Caleb position himself correctly. Overall, we all had an awesome time. Both wakeboarding, and racing around on the inflated obstacle course were so much fun.  Well, bye for now!

blog is written by: Jaden Schmidt

https://sharkwakepark.com/561/

More Photos and Videos: https://photos.app.goo.gl/2Ja8cKe8Be6222t1A

GoPro Videos: https://photos.app.goo.gl/LVasDrzcxusPsydo6