Forget the Beach, We're Doing the Desert

New Orleans travelog #11
Kenner, LA - Wednesday, 26 Apr 2023, 8pm

This is the part of the trip where we diverge from the original plan we made months ago. Originally we planned drive to Florida this evening after wrapping up our brief jaunt through MIssissippi and spend 4 nights in Pensacola Beach. Ten days ago we canceled our beach plans. Instead we've driven back to New Orleans, returned our rental car, and are flying out early tomorrow morning. Oh, but we're not going home. A day after canceling the beach and struggling with what to do instead we forged plans with friends for a waterpark vacation in Phoenix.

You might think, "Wait, you traded off 4 days at the beach for... the desert?!" Yes, it's the desert, but the waterpark should be really fun. It's bigger than the one we've visited several times in the past. Plus we'll meet friends there. Plus the weather's not great at the beach anyway. Here's what's on tap at Pensacola Beach:



Ugh. It'd be a trip full of rainy days with high temps not rising above the mid 70s. That's poor beach weather. 👎

And here's what's waiting for us in Phoenix:



Beautiful lazy river & waterslide weather!

Off to Phoenix. Aaaand it's Delayed.

Phoenix late April travelog #1
38,000' over Texas - Thursday, 27 Apr 2023, 9am

This morning we awoke early, alarms ringing at 5am, for our fligth to Phoenix. We had a 7:25am departure out of New Orleans. I say had because by the time we returned the rental car and checked our flight status....



...Our flight was already delayed.

It's surprising to see a delay this early in the morning. I've noted before that Southwest usually has delays later in the day but not in the morning. That's partly because they don't do overnight flights. In fact they use the overnight period when no planes are flying to reboot their systems. Yes, they do preventive reboot of their entire IT system every single night. They stated this in the news recently after their latest operational meltdown. While there are all kinds of problems with the situation that makes that necessary, one benefit is that usually first-of-the-morning flights run fine as nothing's had time to go wrong yet. Usually. Edit: it wasn't a first-of-the-morning flight. Our aircraft already made a trip from Austin to New Orleans.

Well, now we're in the air. Our delay at one point looked to be as bad as 30 minutes, but amounted to just under 15 minutes when we left. I don't even mind terribly as we were getting in to Phoenix plenty early anyway. We'll see what's ready when we get there.

Back to Phoenix for a Waterpark Hotel

Phoenix late April travelog #2
Arizona Grand Hotel - Thursday, 27 Apr 2023, 6pm

We're back in Phoenix for a stay at a hotel resort with a waterpark. Yes, it hasn't even been a month since the last time we did this, in early April. That's why I've put "late April" in the subhead. It's not even a different month. But it is a different hotel! This time we're staying at the Arizona Grand.



What's the Arizona Grand? Well, it turns out it's a lot like the Pointe Hilton we've stayed at a few times in the past. The layout of the rooms is similar. The rooms are suites, as you can see in the pictures above and below. Up front there's a living room; in the back is the bedroom.



The bedroom has a balcony. Ours overlooks the main waterpark area... though it isn't quite high enough to offer a commanding view of the resort. The layout of the buildings is similar, too. After we tire of the main waterpark there's a smaller pool and hot tub in the courtyard of our building. I have a strong suspicion this used to be a Pointe Hotel, too, years ago but didn't reflag to Hilton when the two others in town did. Or maybe it did reflag to Hilton but then went independent.



The selling point of the Arizona Grand is that its waterpark is bigger than the other hotel's. The lazy river is wider and... faster. I don't know if I like that better. It was thankfully uncrowded on this Thursday afternoon after lunch. It will probably be a lot busier by Saturday. Maybe one thing keeping boisterous kids out of the lazy river pool is the wave pool next to it. There's nothing wrong with boisterous kids, per se. Kids are allowed to have fun, too. But the lazy river pool is for being lazy. The life guards ought to pass out speeding tickets for people going too fast.

This hotel also has bigger water slides than the other hotel. I don't have a picture of there yet, but there are three. Update: included a pic in subsequent blog entry. One's got lots of turns and is about twice the height of the twisty slide at the other hotel. Two slides are speed slides with about an 80 foot drop. I rode the twisty-turn-y slide a few times but haven't braved the speed slides yet. Buy hey, there's still 3 more days here, and nothing else to worry about having to do!