2021 Florida Trip - Sunday and Disney Springs

Our 2021 Florida Trip Report continues with the third day of our adventures. After morning church services, we visit Disney Springs for some shopping and fun…

Sunday, June 6

Sunday is church day for us, even on vacation. For the past several years, we have visited a congregation that meets in a hotel meeting room nearby. However, COVID strikes again, so that congregation is not currently meeting. Our backup plan was to watch our home church services online, thanks to everything being streamed these days. 

Because of the time difference, Bible class started at 10:00 and worship was at 11:00, so we did not have to get up all that early. We had a leisurely morning waiting for everything to start, which was nice. And except for a technical glitch during the first part of Bible class, everything worked just fine. It was nice to have that connection back home since our usual vacation option was not available.

Lunch was next, with our traditional condo lunch of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches on the screened-in porch. It was a beautiful day as far as the weather was concerned, and it was a nice day to eat out on the porch. Maybe just a little warm and humid, but that is what we would expect in Florida.

Plus, the heat and humidity made it perfect weather to visit the condo pool after we ate. Because of the pandemic, the pool rules state that there should be a maximum of 15 people in the pool. To me, that was slightly ambiguous, as it sounded like that applied to people actually in the pool and not around the pool. But the most we ever saw during the week was 18 people (yes, I’m the kind to count), and they were all spread out with only a few people in the pool at that time. So I felt like we were safe. The water temperature was just right, the shade was there when we wanted it, and it was all good. 

Jaylin and Laura throw a football in the pool. While most of the other people had left by this point, there were still a few there, even if they were out of camera range.

One of the places we love to visit is Disney Springs. So after we finished in the pool, we got in the car and headed that way. Our traditional parking spot is the Orange Garage, probably because it is the first garage we get to coming in from our direction. The sign at the entrance said that there were plenty of parking spaces at the 4th level, so we headed up there and found a spot.

When we rode the escalators down to the 2nd level to walk over to Disney Springs, we encountered the security line, which had not been there on our previous visits. Now, everyone has to walk through security scanners before entering. I completely understand why they do that, but I wonder why it took them as long as it did to start that.

I do like the setup that they use, where you are able to keep everything in your pockets and walk through the scanners with your bag if you have one. However, I had brought my full camera bag, so I was flagged by the machine and sent to the secondary check. There, one of the guards checked my camera bag, which had my camera, another lens, a flash, and my sunglasses. Seeing all of that, he said I was good to go. It was not a big hassle, but I decided that on our next visit I would just bring my smaller camera bag without all of the extra accessories.

We usually stop by the Disney Springs Fire Department. But only because the building also has another use.

Our first stop is a store we have not visited in a while, the Coca-Cola Store. But since Jaylin and I had visited the World of Coca-Cola in Atlanta a few weeks earlier, he wanted to see what they had in this store compared to the Atlanta store. And in looking around, I found a few things to buy, too. But we did not buy anything on that visit, deciding to check out what else was there at Disney Springs and maybe stop back by on another day.

We went in Uniqlo, where we always seem to find something good, including this time. Why do they always seem to have things that we need in there? They did have some cool, reusable drawstring bags for purchases. Much higher quality than the reusable bags that most other stores charge you extra for.

And this might be a good time to mention that all of the indoor areas at Disney Springs (just like everywhere at Walt Disney World at that time) were requiring masks, regardless of whether you had been vaccinated or not. That would change the week after we were there, by the way. But back to our story.

Walking along outside at Disney Springs, mask-free.

We then went in one of the newest Disney Springs stores, Ron Jon Surf Shop. Of course, we Burnses are no strangers to Ron Jon, always visiting the Cocoa Beach location whenever we are in the area. It was cool that they now have a Disney Springs location, too. And it was a two-story store! And as usual for a Ron Jon visit, we did not leave empty-handed. 

Our first time to visit the new Disney Springs Ron Jon Surf Shop.

World of Disney was next for us, but first, we had to figure out how to get in. Most all of the stores at Disney Springs had dedicated entrance and exit doors, and World of Disney was no exception. We had to go to the far end of the store from where we were, and then wind around a maze to get in. We did have to wait, but only for a minute or two, and then they let people in again. Because of all of that, World of Disney did seem to be a little less crowded than usual, which was nice. We wandered all through the store and actually left without buying anything, even though we had said we would most likely not be back because of the line. 

One of the many World of Disney entrances, except that all of those entrances were currently closed except for one. And it was not this one.

Hunger was getting the best of us by that point, so we decided to try something new. The Polite Pig barbecue restaurant smelled good every time we walked by it, so we thought we would check it out. We had to wait in line for about 10 to 15 minutes to order, which was not too bad. And then we did not have trouble finding a place to sit inside the restaurant.

Waiting in line to order at Polite Pig

Our food was brought to us a few minutes later. I got a southern style barbecue sandwich, and it was good. It even had what I am pretty sure were Claussen pickle slices on it, which are some of my favorites. The meal was a little bit high priced in my opinion, but we all liked what we had.

Disney Springs in the evening. Although there were a lot more people there than how this makes it look.

A quick photo on a bridge with another bridge in the background.

It was starting to get late, and we knew we would not have time to visit all of the stores that we would want to see. But we also knew we would be back, too. So we decided to head out, going back to our car in the Orange Garage.

Passing by the Coca-Cola Store on our way out, since I did not take a good photo of the exterior when we got there.

One last view (for today) of Disney Springs from the Orange Garage

On our way back to the condo, we stopped at one of the many souvenir stores along US 192 that we like to visit, just to see what they had. We like several of these different shops, and we usually stop by many of them at least once during our trip, even if they all mostly have the same things.

Our last stop of the evening was back to Target to get some lunchables for the next day’s lunch. But when we pulled into the parking lot, it started raining, and then quickly moved on to pouring. We sat there in the car for a bit to see if it would end, but it did not. So we finally gave up and went back to the condo for the night, knowing that we could go grocery shopping the next day.

After all, we had more fun planned for the next day ahead of us.

Check back soon for more from our 2021 Florida Trip!