Feverish budgeteers

We dosed Mini with Motrin.  It was July 1st- the day of our flight.  She was feeling a bit better.  Not
 100%.  July 2nd would be our get acclimated day.  Mini was scheduled to dance in Championships on the 3rd.  Curly would dance on the 4th.   Our flight home was at 5 am on the 5th.  Short and sweet and exhausting.

This picture tells it all.  Check out all
 of our crap necessary for 2 days of
dancing and no fun at the theme parks.

Hotel strike 1:  Our hotel room had this funky sliding wall with slats.  Not sure what Chip and Joanne Gaines would say about it.  The door slid back and forth to divide the bathroom area from the rest of the room.  The actual bathroom was toilet and shower only.  I prefer a bathroom to have a door that separates the entire area from the living space.  Give me a toilet, sink. mirror, shower - the whole shebang in one room.  I was not a fan of this set up.

Hotel strike 2:  I thought a walkway connected our Double Tree Hotel to the convention center where the dancing took place.  I asked about that specifically when I made my reservation.  Of course I preferred to stay at the hotel that was in the convention center.  So did thousands of other visitors.  The rooms reserved in the hotel at the convention center were gone in seconds once they opened the block of rooms.  We ended up at the Double Tree.  Recalling my conversation with the reservation guy, I should have asked if there was a 'skywalk' instead of a walk way.  Wrong terminology.  My fault.

We arrived to Orlando in the early evening.  Went to bed.  The next day we went to the convention center to get the lay of the land and buy our program.  It was 9 in the morning.  The convention center was less than 3/4 of a mile walk from the Double Tree.  I wanted to see if we could walk it and bypass paying for a taxi.  There would, after all, be several back and forth trips necessary.  I was TRYING  to do Irish dancing on a budget, remember?  Unheard of, but try I would.

We, the budgeteers (not to be confused with Mouseketeers), arrived soaked in our own sweat.  It was THAT humid so early in the morning!  CRAZY!  I missed the non-existent skywalk.

You can barely make out the black and red
t-shirts that the boys were wearing as
 they worked their way through
 the overgrowth back in 2016.

A quick memory from our 2016 visit to Orlando.  We stayed at a hotel called the Royal Caribe.  Or something.  On our 'get the lay of the land day' I suggested that the four of us walk to the convention center.  The boys were not interested in coming to the dancing early, so I wanted to see if walking between our hotel and the convention center was doable.

Um, there were no sidewalks, walkways, or dare-to-dream skywalks.  We were walking on the shoulder of like a highway.  On our return walk back to the hotel, (because I was not willing to call uncle just yet), the boys tried to avoid walking too close to the road.  They veered off behind some tall grass became thicker.  Eventually that tall grass divided where the girls and I were walking and where the boys were SINKING.  The little bit of grass that they were walking on gradually transformed into a swamp.  They had to wade thru the tall grass and reeds by following our voices in order to pop out on the more civilized side near the road where cars were buzzing by us at 70 miles an hour.

My prep area.  Next to the sink there was a
microwave and fridge area (to the right in
this picture, off camera. Just too tight to
 get all the angles).  I hoped the non-aesthetic
 sliding door would work its magic.

This was weeks after the little boy was attacked and killed at a Disney resort by an alligator.  Let's just say we opted for the pricey cab ride from there on out!

Back in present day, I asked one of the assistant teachers to handle hair and makeup for both girls.  I had asked many times what time she would want them to meet with her.  The day before she texted to say she wanted Mini to be at the convention center at 4 am.  The insanity never ends.  4 am?  How could they dance if they woke up in the middle of the night?

She adjusted the time slightly.  I rushed the girls to bed early so we could pretend to be rested the next day when Mini danced.  I slid the goofy slatted door into place so that I could wake up early (understatement) and prepare breakfast and shower pretending not to wake them.