Busch Gardens

We made it into Lazydays by 8:30 am yesterday morning and dealt with Shawn Paul, our service advisor. He has won Best Service Advisor at Lazydays for the last two years and he was certainly a pleasure to deal with. He is easily the best of the advisers we have dealt with so far. We explained our problems to him and we promised a telephone call once he knew more. We were on our way to Busch Gardens quickly.

We arrived at BG shortly after 10 am and checked Buddy into the kennel, as we did last time. He had two other dogs for company this time.

Today's visit was a freebie for us because we had a BG Fun Card. This was a free upgrade for us when we visited here in January and is good for all of 2008. We focused more on seeing the animals and exhibits this time, rather than rollercoaster rides, as we did last time. Although, we just had to try the Sheikra rollercoaster again and the Congo River raft ride for the first time. Both were lots of fun. We were both absolutely soaked through on the Congo River ride. I thought the soaking from a water cannon was purely by chance, but as we left we the ride dripping wet, we saw a crowd gathered at the riverbank. Turns out they were paying 25 cents for single shots on water cannons. These cannons are aimed at the rafts as their passengers come down the river. Passengers wave at the shooters, very unassumingly.....and then they are blasted. We spent a few bucks returning the favor. Retribution is great!! It was a hot day so we dried off fairly quickly.

We spent time seeing the elephants and tigers. The tortoises were huge! The peacock at the top of this blog entry was showing off near the entrance to the Anheuser-Busch beer sampling site. Great beer by the way! The park was only moderately busy so we moved around quite easily. We never waited longer than 15 minutes for any of the rides.

I've attached a couple of short video clips of Sheikra. Pretty neat ride. Lots of screaming going on as you hang over the precipice.

We left the park just after 4 pm. There was a voicemail waiting for us from Lazydays. Our coach was ready as promised. We were on our way back to TTN Orlando in relatively short order. It was a long day but we both enjoyed the day out. Two more days, and then we are on the road home. Where has the winter gone?

Fantasia Gardens

We spent the morning playing mini golf. Disney offers two 18 hole mini golf courses. One, is a regular golf course type theme with grass fairways, greens, etc, while the other has a Fantasia theme. We chose the Fantasia for our day out. The Mickey you see here is outside the main entrance. Now that is one talented gardener! We played to see who would buy lunch. Chris started strong, but faded down the stretch. In the end, it wasn't even close but she did very well for a first timer. I think it is all a matter of luck mostly anyway, as all the holes have lots of twists and bends. It only took about an hour to go around and we were allowed to play through on one hole and come back to a hole we missed later on.


We then drove over and parked at Downtown Disney in front of Planet Hollywood. We were amazed the parking lots were not full. In fact, there weren't many people around at all and it was a beautiful day. We were there just before noon and decided to grab lunch at Planet Hollywood as there was no line to get in. Chris had L.A. Lasagna and I had the Pork Ribs. Both were excellent and served piping hot. The service was excellent too. The atmosphere inside PH was fabulous. So many movie clips showing and lots of memorabilia hung on the walls. After lunch, we walked up the spiral staircase to explore the other two levels of the restaurant. We also bought a picture of the two of us taken by a photographer on the way into the building. It turned out very well and I will post it once I get it scanned.

We wandered around Downtown Disney and saw loads of shops with all type Disney wear for sale. Chris managed to find a wide brimmed hat and hoodie she liked at the Rainforest Cafe. We enjoyed the huge Lego displays too. There was a sea monster actually in the water, a shark, a family walking and others all made of Lego. Hard to believe that someone could actually sculpt such life size figures and all out of Lego! Amazing.

Take a look at the family on the left in front of the Disney Store. At a glance, it is hard to see which figures are real and which are created in Lego. Take a closer look by clicking on the picture to enlarge it.

We got home just after 2 pm and managed to get in a few games of pickleball before supper. All in all, a very enjoyable day.

Sea World

We had a fabulous day at Sea World. The weather warmed up considerably from yesterday. We arrived just before 11 am and checked Buddy into the kennel. Our first stop was the Kraken rollercoaster which we found out did not open until 1 pm. So we had a bit of time to tour the park while waiting. Chris and Sarah had been raving about how good this ride was. We eventually made it onto the ride and even managed to sit in the front row again, like we had done on Shei-Kra at Busch Gardens. The ride was awesome. Lots of loops, with a few half twists thrown in for good measure as well.

The rest of the day was spent viewing all the different animals. The dolphon and killer whale shows were fabulous. We sat in the "soak zone" at both shows but were not to get drenched. Shamu was fantastic to see. There were many of our neighbours in the "soak zone" who left sopping wet. For some reason we lucked out and stayed relatively dry.

I've added some assorted pictures here for you to see.

The seals and walruses were very entertaining. We could walk around their whole habitat and watched many of them acting out for anyone willing to feed them a fish or three. Any fish that weren't scooped by the seals were quickly picked up by any of the water birds, who always seemed to be close by too.

We managed to find a turkey leg for lunch. We had tried them before and figured they offered the best value for money at any of the theme parks.

We started filing out of the park around 5:30 pm and just had to hit the bakery on the way out for coffee and a piece of cake. We walked over 6 km in the park. It was Dr. Martin Luther King Day today so the park was quite busy.

Buddy was anxious to see us and apparently kept most of the other dogs and kennel staff entertained for the entire day.

Tomorrow is rest day at the park. Swim in the morning and we shall introduce Matt and Sarah to pickleball in the afternoon. They are threatening to kick our butts.....we shall just have to wait and see.

Patriots and NY Giants

Kids went to Universal Studios yesterday.

Chris and I stayed back at Thousand Trails and played pickleball for a couple of hours in the afternoon. It was very windy which added a new element to playing the game. At times we simply couldn't even get the ball over the net when serving or returning a shot into the wind. Temps were also quite cool yesterday. I think we may have hit 60F but not much more.

Managed to take in most of the Pats/Chargers game in the motorhome and was pleased with the results. Not too happy to see Green Bay bounced by the Giants though. I was rooting for Favre and company to beat the Pats but will now have to root for the Patriots.

It was cold enough here to have the furnace on again last night but warmer temps are to start today. Looks like very cold temps in Ottawa though and they continue to work feverishly to get the canal open.

Kids are thinking of doing Sea World today and it looks like we may be going with them. Chris has been raving about the Kraken roller coaster ride she and Sarah experienced there last year, so no doubt we'll have to give it a go today.

More later.

Busch Gardens

The four of us took in Busch Gardens on Friday. A very interesting park with some awesome rollercoaster rides including Sheikra. The picture here shows the cars hanging over a drop off at the top of the ride. We were in the front car when we did it and you are 160 feet up in the air. They stop the car right at the edge and let you hang for about 5 seconds, contemplating your fate, before they let you go. Your feet are hanging free as well because there is no floor. Just a shoulder harness to hold you in place. The ride only lasts about 40 seconds but we were hitting speeds of 65 mph with all the drops and turns. Lots of screaming on this ride!

We spent the entire day at BG and I think we hit most of the rides including an old wooden rollercoaster. Chris and I found that one the hardest on our bodies. Lots of bumps and jarring of the neck. We were glad that ride was over. We spent some time on a 3/4 scale steam train touring the park and seeing all the wild animals as well. Lots of elephants, rhinoceros, flamingos, giraffe, water buffalo, gorillas, etc.

This is a photo of our ride. I decided to take a picture of a picture instead of paying $20. Note the relaxed expression on my face. Not sure how that happened! The kids did Sheikra again later in the day, but once was enough for us.

We bought tickets that are good for a year at no extra charge, so Chris and I will likely return to BG again at the end of March when we return to Tampa to have some work done on the motorhome.

There is also a skyride which offers an aerial view on the park. Gondolas on a cable take you over just about everything. We saw these rhinos from the air. The was a rhino rally offered as well, which is a off road vehicle ride through the animal habitats but unfortunately the lines were too long for us to do it. Perhaps next time.

We brought Buddy with us and boarded him right at the kennel at BG. It cost $6 which we thought was quite reasonable.

Yesterday, the kids went back to Disney, downtown area and spent the day. There were tornado warnings last night beginning around supper time which made for an interesting time. No funnel clouds materialized anywhere but temps have dropped from high 70s yesterday afternoon, to only 60F today. But at least the sun is out.

Looks like we are headed for Universal Studios today.

Universal Studios and Islands of Adventure

We headed off to Universal Studios yesterday morning. Forecast was for 80F and sunny, we ended up with fog and mist for most of the day and a temperature around 72F. It was great weather to do the parks. The crowds were minimal and most attractions never had waiting lines longer than 10-15 minutes. The first ride we tried was the Hulk. Great roller coaster ride!! The next best ride ride we found was the Dueling Dragons ride. We only tried the one ride there, not realizing there was a totally different second ride that basically cued up at the same place. This had your feet dangling in mid air as you rocketed around the turns. Definitely a lot of fun.

We took advantage of the kennels offered at Universal Studios to board our Bichon, Buddy. It only cost $10 for the day and he had a few other dogs to keep him company. All dogs are boarded in separate cages. Water is provided and we brought his own food for him. We toured Islands of Adventure until about 1 pm and then returned to take Buddy for a walk and feed him his lunch. After that it was back to Universal Studios for the afternoon tour. Universal was interesting as well. Terminator exhibit was amusing. We also enjoyed the Fear Factor Live show. They used tourists for volunteers. Our day ended around 6 pm. Buddy was very glad to see us and was the only dog left in the kennel. We got back to the RV around 7 pm and had a late supper.

Of course we forgot our camera in our RV, so we had to rely on some cell phone pictures instead. Not the same resolution but certainly passable.