Busch Gardens today, a little bit wet, but not from waterparks!
Up nice and early and went to this huge Mall in Orlando so that we could go to the Abercrombie shop for Charlotte, she was desperate to get some clothes from there and was successful, but then so was Jack and Lewis! In saying that we got there too early so had to wait around for a while in the knowledge that we had a good 90 minute drive ahead of us. We then got distracted by the Jack Wills shop and more importantly (!) the Aeropostale shop – we love this one as the clothes are the type we like but very, very cheap. It was no surprise that we ended up leaving for Busch Gardens a lot later than planned!
I mentioned getting wet, today the rain descended on Orlando, and it simply did not stop. From the first thing in the morning and all the way through the day it was just drizzling it was absolutely chucking it down, not pleasant! The drive to Busch went without incident and the park was open but none of the rides were running, it was too dangerous with the lightening etc. even after the mini-train trip from the car park to the main entrance we then waited as it was torrential. The kids loved it though!
So we were there, what could we do??? First plan, run to the safari train ride, that was due at one of the stations in 10 mins, got there, wet, and waited…waited some more….waited even more….watching the lightning and flooding to then be told even the safari train was cancelled. This was getting a little desperate.
Nearby there were various enclosures under shelter so we darted in and out of those, leaping over puddles and being quite unsuccessful in trying to keep dry to look at the various caged animals or bats and the animal hospital which was really interesting…visiting the Gorilla enclosure was hilarious, one mischievous minor was teasing, and very much annoying, the adult male and the fights and clouts going on was really quite a show. But the little one kept returning, simply throwing more straw and dust at the adult to wind him up. Very entertaining!
Managed to go to a couple of the shows that were on, one of which being a Cirque show, not quite Cirque du Soleil but along that theme and that was brilliant, not so brilliant was a pirate 4D one which was just simply desperate. That was more or less the last straw by then, we were wet, cold and thoroughly depressed by that last show and it being about 5.00pm decided enough was enough…so we walked out of that theatre with every intention of going home…only to be greeted by no rain and the clackety clack of roller-coaster tracks…the rides were ON!!!
Other people had clearly had the same demoralised attitude as us and had gone home, meaning the park was near enough empty, which meant for us ‘die-hards’ there were fantastic looking roller-coasters and no queues…theme park heaven! We rushed round as many as we could as the park announced they were going to close earlier than usual, we still managed all of them and most times we didn’t even have to get off to have another go… Because of the time constraint we were quite literally running from one ride to the next – these were some of the best out of all the ones we’d visited so far this break.
The best was saved until last, it was a ‘Cheetah’ ride and was brilliant and we were the last ride of the day on it – and Jack was allowed too so that was doubly-pleasing. It was a shame that the park did close that bit earlier but we were so glad we stuck it out and got the rides in the end.
On the way home we found a lovely Italian restaurant to stop into and once seated soon realised that we’d not picked the cheapest one in town…both Tash and I backed off from going the full hog and let the kids have what they wanted. Jack making us smile each time checking that the cokes were definitely ‘free refills’ – we still can’t quite get used to that concept!
Long drive home, but uneventful. An interesting day, not ruined by the weather, and in view of the great weather and lack of rain so far on this holiday it wasn’t something to really complain about. Hopefully not too many more days like it though!
No comments:
Post a Comment