Just this past weekend, my little family was blessed to receive a free two-night three-day stay at the Grand Hyatt hotel in San Antonio on The River Walk. This fortune is one that I will never forget, and neither will our little ones. B has been working some really crazy hours in the past two months. He has been shifting from nights to days and flip-flopping back to a normal schedule only to go back to a chaotic one. Needless to say, we needed some “us time” as a family. The only trips B and our Little Ones have taken have been to my hometown in Louisiana. Even though it is nice to visit, our time is spent trying to catch up with family that we haven’t seen over a year’s time.

Our hotel room was booked for Friday after 2PM, until Sunday morning at 11AM. We arrived around 9PM on Friday night as we had some personal matters to tend to in Tyler, Texas. (You will be able to read about that in another post.)  When we arrived, there were valets waiting to park our vehicle, but we chose to just park ourselves. I checked into the hotel while the bell hops took our luggage and packed it onto a cart. As we stepped into the lobby, our bell hop escorted us to our room. I just had to take a moment to snap a photo of the beautiful chandelier that graced the lobby. Isn’t it gorgeous?

When we shuffled in with our smaller bags, I took in all of the amenities and the decor. The beds looked a little short for B’s long body. He is 6’3, but our littles and I would fit no problem. B walked to the window, and checked out the view. We were on the 24th floor, and I could tell he wasn’t too thrilled about being so high up.

As I came back into our room, I noticed that B opened a bottle of Aquafina that was sitting on the entertainment center area. As I looked closer, the bottle said “REFRESH $5. ” I don’t know about you, but I’ve never purchased a single bottle of water for $5. He was surprised by that as well. Internet was available for $9.95 for 24 hours, so I went without blogging. 24 hours just wouldn’t give me the time I like to spend blogging and reading other’s blogs. B took a while to figure out how to get the TV off of TV on Demand options, since he surely wasn’t going to pay $4.99 per episode to watch TV. When we finally got the TV working, I laughed to myself. I thought, “We are probably the only people in this entire building watching Seinfeld.”

The next morning, we woke up and began our adventure to San Antonio’s Sea World. We weren’t really able to visit rides, but we had fun watching three shows. We caught the end of Azul where the dolphins were jumping, and birds were flying all around the arena.

I really liked watching the last 5 minutes of Azul, but we wanted to really watch the One Ocean whale show. To get to that show, we had to walk nearly 15 minutes away through the park.

Little Girl isn’t used to walking so much, in such hot weather but we made it! B held us a spot but they wouldn’t let us in. We just spent 30 minutes in line to use the bathroom close to the Azul show. I finally persuaded one of the gate attendants to let us through since the people sitting next to B and Little Boy agreed they would hold a couple spaces so we could squeeze in. I rushed through the arena trying to find where they were and felt so much excitement when I saw one of the trainers pop us on the two jumbo-tron type screens. She was thanking everyone for being there and wanted to give a special thank-you for all past, and present servicemen and servicewomen for being part of the United States Armed Forces. I was so proud when we saw so many people stand. They also asked for immediate family members to stand, and to see the beaming faces of all the parents, siblings, and children was a great feeling.

We watched the Shamu Show around 2:45PM. It was very hot outside, and I was thankful for the cool breezes that kept sweeping through the arena. Then, the fun began. I didn’t even see it coming, but out of nowhere a whale was in the air!

 We watched the whales and I couldn’t help looking at B and our littles. Even B would smile when he saw the whales splashing the audience. Lots of people were trying to escape the waves from the performance. It was so wet down front that we chose to  forego photo opps with trainers. We surprised our little ones with a chance to choose one gift from the Shamu Emporium. Little Girl chose a whale trainer Barbie exclusive to Sea World, and Little Bog chose a Shamu ball and bat set.

After we left the Shamu Show around 3:15, we weren’t really sure where we wanted to go to next. We passed the Sesame Street Bay of Play and it was packed full of families and a lot of children. We wanted them to enjoy their time at Sea World but after walking for such a long time, they became very fussy. We managed to find the Elmo Rocks! show. Abby Cadabby is Little Girls favorite, and Little Boy loves Elmo.

After watching Elmo Rocks! we had two very upset little ones. Both Little Boy and Little Girl became so upset they wouldn’t stop crying. They enjoyed the shows, but the walking was far from an enjoyment for them. They were given a choice. They could stop throwing temper tantrums and go to Sea World’s Aquatica or it was time to leave. They couldn’t control their emotions, and with it being so hot out we made the decision to call it a day until they calmed down.

We returned to the hotel and allowed them to play in our (much cooler) room. B rested a little while, and I spent time reading and checking in with family members. I was pretty upset that we never got to step foot inside of Aquatica, but I was glad we got back to the hotel in time for our littles to cool down before supper-time.

For supper, we chose to visit the River Walk. We took the Rio San Antonio boat cruise boarding at 9PM, and exiting around 9:53PM. We really wanted to eat at Casa Rio as we have heard great reviews of it. The wait was 70 minutes for a four-top table. I really didn’t want to be out longer than what we already were, so we decided to walk (and walk, and walk) to find somewhere different. It was really hard to navigate on the River Walk in the dark. We decided to eat at Lone Stare Cafe on Lesoya Street.

We finally made it back to our room around Midnight. It felt like it took forever! Even though it was 103 degrees outside during the Saturday of our vacation, not one of us will ever forget it! I took so many pictures while one vacation, it would simply be impossible to do so.  Would we go back? Yes, but we have agreed that we won’t be taking our little ones to Sea World until they are older and understand that temper tantrums won’t be tolerated. We look forward to visiting many more attractions including San Antonio Children’s Museum, Texas Hill Country and The Alamo. We simply ran out of time since (surprise!) B had to be back to work on Sunday night. Boo on that!

Did I mention that I drove all the way to our San Antonio vacation by myself? If you know me personally, you know how scared of a driver that I am! That in itself, was an achievement for me!

Disclaimer: Thanks to the generosity of one particular bloggy-friend for our hotel stay. You know who you are, and I’m so happy to have been chosen. Thank you to VisitSanAntonio.com for four San Antonio “Passports” for our River Walk cruise, and to SeaWorld San Antonio for tickets to Sea World and to Aquatica in exchange for my honest review provided above.