Tag Archives: busch gardens

March 2011 Trip to Florida – Day 10 (Tuesday)

1 Reply

Cool, we’re now into double digits for the number of days we’ve been here. Awesome. The only bad thing is that means that the number of days we have left is getting smaller 🙁

Before doing this write-up, I asked everyone how they would describe Aquatica, the SeaWorld waterpark. Matthew said it was awesome, sick. Lisa said it was fabulous, better than expected. Andrew said it was sweet like candy (honestly, he did). However you describe it, we had a great time.

Aquatica is just across the street from SeaWorld. It is much smaller than than either SeaWorld and Busch Gardens, but you can still spend as much time there. The grounds are beautiful…

… and the play areas are great.

Andrea’s waterproof camera really came in handy. I took quite a few videos that I can show some of you when we get home.

One of the main attractions in Aquatica is a large man-made beach that is next to the 2 wave pools. There were loungers everywhere, and people enjoying the sun. The wave pool was great, and the kids had fun. Matthew wore a life jacket for most of the day, which made him more brave than normal.

The play area pictured above is called Walkabout Waters, and it is one of those large forts that the kids can climb. There are buckets that spill water, spray water, and other water effects. Once the kids make it to the top, there are also a couple of water slides.

Probably the best attraction at the park is called Roa’s Rapids. It is kind of like a lazy river, but a little faster. There are no tubes allowed, but the water is fast enough and shallow enough that you just float/bob along. It is awesome! There are areas that go a little faster, as well as some water effects. In the right spots, you could basically “surf” along the bottom and you’d keep moving forward. Matthew must have said, “Surf’s up!” about 20 times. Christine liked it to, but I had to hold onto her the whole time.

At some point during our visit, I asked Lisa if I was pink, and she said no. By the time we got home, all of us were pink like lobsters. Nobody was complaining of any pain, so hopefully it is just the colouring.

It looks like we are headed to SeaWorld again on Wednesday with Grandma and Grandpa, and then going back to Aquatica again on Thursday.

March 2011 Trip to Florida – Day 9 (Monday)

Leave a reply

On Monday we headed off to Busch Gardens again. This time, we took the free shuttle out there. Grandma and Grandpa dropped us off so they could have the van. Grandma ended up going to a clinic and has bronchitis. She got a prescription and is hoping to feel some relief soon.

The shuttle was a big tour bus (bathroom included), so that was definitely the way to travel. Lisa said that the bus driver reminder her of the bus driver in the one scene in Enchanted (if you’ve seen it, you’re probably smiling right now). She also had “bulging eyes”, kind of like what you see in Ripley’s or Guinness. She was very nice and kind of funny. We watched part of Shrek the Third on the way, and before we knew it, we were there.

We had gone through most of the park last time, so we just did the same thing again. The kids played for a while in the Sesame Street Safari of Fun, we watched some of the crazy people ride the crazy roller coasters, and we saw lots of animals.

We did try to see a few things that we hadn’t seen last time. In the Jungala area (Andrew’s favourite area), there was a brief show with some performers dressed up as a walking stick, a crane, and frog.

In that same area we also saw some models of various skulls and paw prints. A very nice lady was telling us about some animals, and asked if we wanted to see a snake. The boys of course said yes, so she went and got one for them to hold.

For some reason, one of the boys favourite exhibits is in Egypt. They were fascinated by King Tut’s tomb.

Probably the only drawback of taking the shuttle there, was that you are at the park for the entire day. We were in the park by 11 am, and the bus didn’t leave until 7 pm to bring you home. We thought it might be hard to fill the time, but it went by fairly quickly. At the end of the day, we went to see a Cirque du Soleil type show called Cirque Dreams Jungle Fantasy. The performers were dressed up as various animals. There were 2 girls that could bend in ways we’d never seen. There were a couple of other people who did some aerial tumbling as well as a couple that swung on ribbons (you know… the kind that hand from the top of the stage). Overall it was very impressive.

On the way out I had someone take a picture for us.

As I mentioned before, Busch Gardens was way better than we had expected. It will definitely be something we recommend to others.

It looks like we’ll be headed off to Aquatica (the SeaWorld waterpark) today, and then we’ll head back to SeaWorld tomorrow with Grandma and Grandpa again joining us.

March 2011 Trip to Florida – Day 7 (Saturday)

Leave a reply

It’s hard to believe we’ve been here for a week now! At least we still have another week to go 🙂

Today was supposed to be a slower day, but it didn’t really turn out that way. Grandma and Grandpa weren’t feeling well, so they stayed home while we went out. We went out for breakfast at Sizzlin’ Grill. They have a breakfast buffet that is $3.99. It wasn’t world class meal, but hey, for that price, you can’t complain too much. There was loads of food (eggs, ham, oatmeal, sausage, cereal, pudding, jello, salad, ice cream … I know, a weird mix), but for the 5 of us including tax and tip it was only $30.

After that we headed to Hawaiian Rumble Adventure Golf. It was a gorgeous day today, so it was nice to be outside enjoying the sun. Christine was free since she is 3, and Lisa was keeping score and taking pictures, so we just had to pay for the 3 boys.

At one point, the couple behind us saw Lisa taking a picture of us and offered to take a picture of all of us.

Andrew tried hard and did fairly well. Matthew would never let the ball stop and just keep hitting it, and would then tell us he only had 2 or 3. Christine would just randomly pick a number. “Christine, what did you get on that hole?” “Um, 17.” I think her total score was something like 170.

After golfing, we headed back to Downtown Disney again for the boys to buy the LEGO that they wanted. We also walked around a bit further up the walkways. We got as far as the Harley Davidson store, and got a picture of each of the kids on a big bike.

We also went to Shell World and got some groceries.

After being out for much of the day, we went back to the house and swam for an hour or so before dinner. After dinner the kids had their showers and then headed off to bed. Christine went to bed a little early, and when Andrew went in to sleep in the other bed in her room, we found Christine asleep slitting up. Her leg looked a little uncomfortable, too.

The rest of us just vegged out for the evening.

Sunday will be another day of rest, and then Monday we think we are headed back to SeaWorld, Tuesday to Aquatica, and Wednesday back to Busch Gardens. The week’s weather looks like it is going to be awesome!

March 2011 Trip to Florida – Day 4 (Wednesday)

Leave a reply

We left the house Wednesday morning at around 9 am and made it past the front gates of Busch Gardens at around 11 am (after getting gas, stamps, and then parking and taking the tram over to the park once we got there). The pamphlets had made Busch Gardens look very nice, but we weren’t sure what it would actually be like (Matthew actually thought it would be full of bushes and gardens only). It was AWESOME! What a beautiful park.

We started off in the kids section, but had to walk past the bird gardens first. The boys seemed to be most excited about seeing a gecko and an armadillo.

The main kids area is called the Sesame Street Safari of Fun. There was a great kids roller coaster (Air Grover)  that the boys and I went on (Andrew and I went on it twice). There was also a huge tree house with rope/tunnel climbing area attached to it. Lisa ran around with Christine and I ran around with the boys. We also watched a bit of a Sesame Street show in the Sunny Day Theatre.

Matthew said his favourite part was Oscar’s Swamp. It was a small splash pad at the base of the tree fort. Andrew’s favourite part was Air Grover, because it went almost as fast as Dragon Mountain at Marineland.

There were a bunch of huge roller coasters. I’m not a big roller coaster fan, but I told the boys I would go on anything with them. I thought Andrew would want to go on something, but he didn’t want to go on any of them. There was one roller coaster called SheikRa that literally dropped you 90° at one point. Yikes! There is also going to be a new roller coaster open this Spring called Cheetah Hunt. Apparently it will go more than 60 MPH and will take you from 0 to 60 in 3 seconds!

The next area was Jungala, and it had another big climbing fort. Great stuff for kids. Christine always had a hard time because her feet are too small, so Lisa kept her down below and went in a small splash pad with her.

Jungala is also the area where they have tigers. They had one viewing area where a tiger was sleeping right next to it, so you could get within a foot or so of it’s head. Cool!

The next area was called Congo, and Lisa and I went on the Congo River Rapids. Andrew was going to go on with us, but then I read a sign out loud that said that you could get wet, possibly soaked. Andrew said, “No way!” and went back to wait with Grandma and Grandpa. I tried to convince him that he probably wouldn’t get wet, but it didn’t work. Well, in the end, we did end up getting soaked!

From the Congo area, we also took a train ride around the whole park. That is the only way to see all of the animals on the Serengeti Plain. That is where the giraffes, hippos, zebras, wildebeest, and other African animals are.

After the train ride we made our way through Timbuktu and Nairobi and saw some more animals before making our way to Egypt. Both Andrew and Matthew were excited to see the King Tut exhibit. There was also an area full of sand and “artifacts” and the kids pretended they were digging up treasure. Andrew and Matthew both repeatedly said how they thought Brianna would have really liked it.

The last thing we wanted to see was the gorilla exhibit. It was gorgeous, but unfortunately, we didn’t see any gorillas. We did however see some monkey’s picking bugs off of each other.

On the way out we saw some alligators.

On the way home we stopped at an IHOP for dinner. It was the first time we had ever been and it was quite good.

We got home at around 8:30 pm and obviously the kids went straight to bed. Christine crashed almost immediately in the van, slept all the way home and kept sleeping as I brought her into the house, so Lisa said to just leave her in her clothes.

A great day!