(If you missed Part I, you can read it here).
Busch Gardens
My brother Bubba has been talking up Busch Gardens for years, so we gave it a shot, and Bubba and his wife met us there.
We started off by riding a roller coaster called Iron Gwazi.
I.
Can’t.
Even.
I didn’t look at it before getting on. I just went, and oh my heck! It was amazing, but also, I have no idea what I experienced out there. It was so trippy.
Busch Gardens had some great roller coasters. Sadly a lot were closed, but the ones we were able to ride were awesome.
Busch Gardens has a kangaroo encounter as well as some other fun animal exhibits.
I laughed so hard when I got this salad that is priced on the menu at $7.95. It was like three bites of lettuce and four wet croutons. It was bad. So very bad!
We liked Busch Gardens, but we were only able to endure it because we purchased the Quick Queue passes. They are way understaffed, and you can definitely tell.
The meal plan makes it nice because then you can have bad food do-overs (there is some really bad food, but Chick-fil-A helps) (still closed Sundays, FYI).
Meanwhile, back at the Vrbo…
When we got back to the house that night, we got our routine Walmart+ delivery (I placed an order everyday for whatever we needed or wanted and had it delivered around the time we arrived back at the house). Then the kids played in the pool, and Zoe started screaming for Scotty because she saw a raccoon on the roof. It was stuck up there and trying to use the lanai screen to climb back down. Zoe was absolutely terrified and raising hell over that stupid raccoon. Scotty and Nicky tried to guide it with the pool net, but it just ran off to the other side of the roof. Then it would come back to the same corner over and over again to try and get down. Zoe would scream every time. This went on for over an hour until we finally got Zoe to stay quiet long enough for the raccoon to climb headfirst down the drain pipe. It was quite an ordeal.
SeaWorld
We’ve been to SeaWorld in San Diego, but not since Nicky was a toddler. Maybe. We don’t remember if Daisy has been. Zoe and Eva definitely have not been, and Zoe has been obsessed with penguins since she was little, so we’ve always wanted to take her.
Penguins
We purchased our Busch Gardens and SeaWorld tickets as a package, so we had Quick Queue passes and the meal plan for both parks.
It was rainy, so crowds were mild. They ended up having to shut down the rides for an hour for a single lightning strike, but we are no strangers to theme parks in the rain, so we were prepared with ponchos and patience.
The rides at SeaWorld were so fun! We particularly loved Manta, Cheetah Hunt, and Mako. But, like Busch Gardens, they were way understaffed (even more so than Busch Gardens), which occasionally resulted in chaos in the lines. I don’t handle line disorder well.
In addition to rides, we watched the dolphin show and the sea lion show.
We ended our night in Sesame Street Land, which is just adorable! None of my kids ever liked Sesame Street, and I’ve always been sad about that.
Look at those four yahoos! They don’t even know. They just don’t even know.
SeaWorld closed at 7:00, so we were able to get back to the house early and work on laundry and packing. But this night… oh, this night… Scotty’s food finally caught up to him, and he spent hours in the bathroom fighting from both ends while I paced around the house going, “Please don’t be contagious! Please don’t be contagious!”
(It was not contagious. We now conclude it was definitely a food issue. Scotty had been eating low sugar/lo carb for a few months prior to this trip, and then he went hog wild. It didn’t help that he’d sat in the hot tub for an hour letting four days of theme park food cook inside him, either).
To be continued…
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