Returning to Jamerica! Day 6 - Busch Gardens + All Day Dining

[JoJo88]

Returning to Jamerica! November 2013

INDEX

Day 6 – Busch Gardens + All Day Dining

Tuesday 12th November

It was a first for us today, and somewhere that Adam in particular had been especially looking forward to. I say a first – Simon & I had visited Busch Gardens during our two weeks at St Pete’s Beach in 1999, but it was a first for us as a family, and I have to admit that I barely remembered any of it, apart from one particular incident which I will tell you about later……

With the park due to open at 10am, and the journey estimated to be somewhere between 60 & 90 minutes, we decided to set off nice and early to make sure we could get the most out of our day. I think we left at around 8am, and after a trouble free drive we were queuing up with equally eager Busch Gardeners just after 9.

We had a wait of about half an hour, and so we passed the time by getting the boys creamed up, and they passed the time by foolishly fiddling around with the car seats. I say foolishly because at one point Daniel pressed something and almost ended up being squirted out the window as the seat started to fold itself up. He won’t be doing that again!

Eventually we were let in, and parted with our only cash of the day, $15 for parking. We got parked up, right at the front of the car park about 4 cars in and, making sure we had everything with us – back pack, ticket vouchers, Grandma etc etc, headed to the tram which had just pulled up.

We sat near the back of the tram for the short journey across the road to the park, and were highly entertained by the CM giving a very lively running commentary as we chugged along. He just went that extra mile and gave the impression that he really loved his job. Thumbs up to the Busch Gardens CM!

When we got to the entrance, we found the little self-service kiosk where we could exchange our vouchers, which I’d printed at home, for actual tickets. A CM came over to help us, and, as we’d gone for the Play & Dine ticket, we were also issued with wrist bands.

The tickets had cost $82, but for a measly $10 extra you could get free dining all day so obviously it was too good a deal to turn down. I’d had a look online at which restaurants were included, and was happy to see that it was most of them. What it entitled us to was up to 1 entrée + 1 side or dessert and a drink each time we went through the line, with no limit to the amount of times you went through the line. Bring. It. On!

I will admit now that I only took one food photo all day, and obviously with it all being free, I have no receipts either so can’t be completely sure what we had, but I think I can remember and I’ll try and include some stock photos just to give a fuller picture of what the dining deal was like. But put it this way, I’ve just this second booked the same tickets for August 

Once we had our Magic Bands on (listen Disney, you’re not the only ones with special bracelets you know ) we headed over to the turnstiles where there was a bit of a wait until the park opened at 10. As we weren’t familiar with BG, we took the opportunity to check the map and see where we should be heading.

Daniel had been asking us on the way if there would be any coasters for him, and we had thought that Gwazi would be a good one for him to try. As Gwazi is right at the front of the park, it seemed as good a place as any to start, and so when the ropes were dropped we headed off to the left. It didn’t take long for us to get there, and when we did it didn’t take us long to realise that Gwazi was closed, and likely to be closed all day.

That wasn’t a great start considering I was acutely aware that there probably weren’t that many good rides suitable for Daniel. In an attempt to keep him interested, I decided to put him on camera duties, strapping the camera securely to his wrist, and it turned out to be a stroke of genius as it kept him amused all day. I did end up with around 4 billion photographs, of differing quality, several like this:

But some good ones like this:

What I’m trying to say, as subtly as possible, is that - courtesy of Daniel - today might be slightly picture heavy!

So with Gwazi having been a literal non-starter, we continued to head round to the left but soon stumbled upon a sign telling us to ‘turn back, nothing to see here’, or words to that effect. It turned out not all of the park opens at the same time, but we must have missed any notice boards telling us that, and so we retraced our steps, imparting our superior knowledge on everyone we passed who had also chosen to go in that direction.

The boys had a little rest (well, they had been walking for all of 5 minutes! ) while we reassessed the map

And decided to head towards Cheetah Hunt instead.

I love how Busch Gardens combines the rides with the animals, rather than there being separate areas for each. In our case it meant that usually Daniel & Grandma had plenty to look at while they were bag minding

But not only that, I would struggle to get my two to the wildlife areas, and yet they did really enjoy seeing the animals as we stumbled upon them. We live 5 minutes from Cotswold Wildlife Park and yet whenever we go there (which, over the last 5 years is never! ) all they ever want to do is play in the park.

So, while Daniel & Grandma watched the cheetahs, the rest of us went to ride the latest addition to Busch Gardens. There was barely any wait, just enough time for my palms to start going clammy, something that is usually reserved just for Tower of Terror. I actually love coasters, my fear is more about feeling sick when the ride is over, but sometimes you just have to take the opportunity while it’s there don’t you?

Anyway, Adam chose to ride with his Dad, so I was sat next to young foreign girl of about 16. I told her that I was really nervous, and apologised in advance for any screaming I *might do. (*would definitely). She didn’t say anything in reply, so I guessed she was probably just shy, or didn’t understand a word I’d said!

Well, what can I say, the ride was absolutely brilliant, and seemed to last for ages too. I loved the little bursts of acceleration, complete with (I guess) accompanying cheetah sounds. I felt completely exhilarated as we eventually ground to a halt, cobwebs well and truly blown away. And the girl next to me turned her head and said ‘well, we survived’!

I was little bit wobbly as we disembarked, but didn’t feel too iffy, which is always a bonus. Adam was grinning from ear to ear, he had absolutely loved it too, as had Simon. Cheetah Hunt for me is definitely up there with the best of ‘em

A quick shifty on the map, and it looked like Montu wasn’t that far away, so off we trotted, Adam completely in the coaster zone.
Now, I mentioned earlier that I didn’t remember much about Busch Gardens from our visit 15 years previous, apart from one particular incident, and up until that point, I hadn’t actually remembered that it was a Montu memory that had stuck in my head. However, first glimpse of that yellow & blue monstrosity and it all came flooding back to me. Let’s just say, one ride of Montu was probably the beginning of the end of my reckless, foolhardy attitude towards coasters. Simon & I had been working our way around Busch Gardens, with not a care in the world, until Montu chugged back into the station with us on board, and I stumbled off, looking exactly like this:

Minus the hat of course…..

Dear God I felt ill. Thankfully there were ‘facilities’ nearby and so I staggered off to sort myself out (ahem), meanwhile, you might be wondering where Simon was when all this was going on…. He’d gone back for another go!

Needless to say that I quite happily offered to relinquish Grandma of her duties for this ride, but funnily enough she was quite happy to sit it out too.

Daniel amused himself by trying out the seat out for size

And snapping random photos, although on this one he happened to catch Adam & Simon (third row back!)

I waited with baited breath for them to return, mainly to see if Adam had my constitution, but thankfully he was absolutely fine. Simon was looking a little green round the gills but didn’t put in quite the same performance I had. 

It had just turned 11 by now and our wrist bands were starting to twitch so we decided to go and test them out. We’d still hadn’t ventured very far into the park and so our nearest food option was Zagora Café which is just to left of the entrance.

We checked out the menu boards and got chatting with a fellow Brit as we tried to suss out what was what. Each different item on the menu had a colour circle next to it, and we were allowed to choose on of each, so that made it all very easy. The hardest part was deciding what to have, until we remembered that we could go back round again and get something else if we changed our mind!

When I’d been looking at the menus at home, I’d seen a rather lovely looking salad, and so decided to have one of them. The top picture is from the website, the following picture is the reality:

Hmmm, not exactly the same are they? But you know what, it was really nice, apart from the cheese which tasted a bit like vomit (sorry! ), and I felt very virtuous choosing a salad over everything else. The carrot cake obviously counts as one of your five a day too……..

As Daniel’s ticket was a child one, he had to choose an entrée from the children’s menu which was never a problem as it was fairly obvious what he would be eating all day!

As I said before, I won’t be able to recall what we all had, but here is what was on the menu at Zagora Café.

Side choices were things like fries, salad, pots of fruit, and for dessert there was all sorts - cake, strawberries & dipping chocolate, mousse type things, cookies etc. To drink you could choose fizzy pop, bottle of water, chocolate or regular milk or coffees. On our first visit to the café I think we got our money’s worth!

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[JoJo88]

Continued from above...

Once we’d finished our food we headed down the centre of the park through Nairobi towards Timbuktu to see what we could find.

Evidently we passed a photo booth:

Adam appeared to be still suffering the after effects of Summit Plummet which Daniel captured beautifully!

And we stopped en route for some animal interaction. Meet Usain Farrah

We also took time out for Daniel to capture this photo as the deadline for the Butlins annual knobbly knees competition was looming, and I knew that if they didn’t hear from me, their 7 times reigning champion they would worry

Beauties aren’t they? Okay, you can stop laughing now…… Ahem, STOP LOOKING AT THEM!

More animals on the way

And eventually we arrived at Timbuktu

Behind these walls is the start of the tower for the new ride, Falcon’s Fury.

It’s a 335ft drop tower, but rather than your usually uppy downy ride, it tips you face first before you begin your descent. It was due to open around about now, but has been delayed. However, it makes no difference to me whether it will be open by the time we visit Busch again in August as there is absolutely no way on earth you’d get me on it.

Adam on the other hand………

It didn’t take Adam long to spot Scorpion,

Busch Garden’s very own corkscrew coaster, and so persuading Simon to join him, off they went. Daniel of course chose to wait with me & Grandma.

I think the little girl is the picture must have been trying to gazump Simon and his ten to two stance, going for a tricky 25 past seven

Either that or she has an invisible chair…….

Anyway, we watched out for Adam & Simon on the Scorpion and as they emerged, something completely unexpected happened. I don’t know what they put in the nuggets at Busch Gardens, but totally out of the blue Daniel handed me the camera, and announced ‘I’m going on that’! I was absolutely gobsmacked, but certainly not going to say anything to try and stop him.

I’ve actually just been watching a video clip that Daniel took of Simon & Adam riding Scorpion, and you can hear the two of us chatting about it, me saying I think he could ride it, and him answering with a definite ‘No’. Then as the clip ends you can just hear him start to say ‘Yep, I’m…….’ (going on that! )

I’ve slowly come to realise that Daniel likes to check things out first before committing, so I can see now that once he’d watched the coaster do its circuit once, he knew exactly what it involved and was happy to have a go. Adam on the other hand would step aboard anything if it was going to give him an adrenaline rush, although with day to day things he likes to know all the finer details before he’s happy.

Simon & Daniel were in the front seats, but, because I was filming them I couldn’t make out the expression on Daniel’s face. If past form was anything to go by, I had my arms ready in the ‘hug’ position, expecting him to need a cuddle. But no, I was completely wrong. As they approached from the ride exit, he whizzed past me (he really must stop doing that and find a restroom! ), grabbing Adam and shouting over his shoulder that he was going back on! And that, I hoped at the time, was the start of Daniel’s love of scary rides!

They had another couple of goes, and after about half an hour at Scorpion we headed round the corner to the dodgems, passing the empty game stalls. These pictures give a good indication of how quiet Busch Gardens was today!

Moonlighting Minions – does Gru know they are ‘hanging out’ at Busch Gardens I wonder?

We had to wait a little while for the boys (all three of them) to have their turn on the bumper cars, probably the longest wait all day apart from waiting for the car park to open first thing! While they were doing that, I swapped my trusty trainers for flip flops as our next port of call was the Congo River Rapids.

However, once the boys had finished smashing into one another I casually brought to attention how wet everyone seemed to be coming off the rapids, and thankfully everyone agreed that perhaps we ought to give it a miss. Phew! Back on with the trainers - you think my knees are bad, you should see my feet!

I think it was at about this point in the holiday that Daniel started missing his Grandad….

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[JoJo88]

Continued from above...

Continuing along the path towards the rapids we came across the Bengal tigers. Daniel was absolutely fascinated by them and we spent a long time there listening to the guide talking about them.

The tiger caused much hilarity by repeatedly marking its territory, which, as we all know involves releasing bodily fluids, and this was in the form of a short sharp spray, reminiscent of those little atomiser things that posh people use, but perhaps not quite as fragrant…..
The boys then spotted a viewing point where they could watch the tigers from within their enclosure. And as luck would have it, one tiger had settled himself on the top of the look out point

There was a bit of a wait before it was the boys’ turn, but eventually they popped up, and this was the view they had

Adam & Simon nipped off to ride Kumba (no thanks! ) while we stayed with the tigers a bit longer. To be honest, I could have spent hours watching them, and Daniel was mesmorised too, but eventually we left to go and meet up with the others.

While we were waiting we popped into Bengal Bistro to see what was on offer and the three of us came out armed with cups of massive strawberries and a drink to share. Here’s the menu:

When Simon & Adam arrived back with us, they saw what we had and went in to get some of their own. Daniel finished his strawberries and asked if he could go and get some more. It was great to be able to say ‘course you can son, you fill your boots’, without having to think about the price of them (which I didn’t notice, but I doubt I’d have been letting him have endless pots of them if I’d had to pay! ) Once we’d all finished we headed back into Jungala to see what Tree Top Trails was all about.

That’s not my photo, it’s one I found online. If that was mine it would probably have captured everyone who was in the park that day…..

We spent a lot of time in this area, climbing around in the trees, and there was a lot of sitting done too.

The bats were fascinating, and really quite creepy (so naturally we took no photos! ) but we did get a few of the monkeys

The boys then found the Jumping Jack ride, or Wild Surge as it’s called

I can’t be sure, but I’m guessing whoever had been in the seat next to Daniel had found the ride pretty terrifying…… (thanks Brett – HappyHaunt1000 for pointing that out )

Tower of Terror it was not, but the boys really enjoyed it, and after I’d watched them bob up & down several times, I went for a sit down and left them to it.

All in we spent about an hour in that area, and by the time we left is was approaching 2pm. We grabbed another drink and some more fruit on our way past the Bistro, Adam tried the chocolate milk which he said was really good, and we continued on towards Stanleyville, and Sheikra!

Again, Adam & Simon were the only ones up for that, so we hung about waiting for them, Daniel determined to fill up the memory card as he snapped anything & everything.

This was the nearby wait time board at 2pm

Adam loved Sheikra but judging by this photo, perhaps Simon didn’t?

From there we decided it was time for some more food and so we went to Zambia Smokehouse. I now knew where everyone else was hiding – the queue in there was huge! However, after trying the BBQ chicken I could see why. It was blimmin’ lovely. Daniel had the chicken strips, which I realise is stating the bloody obvious and Grandma had the beef brisket which she also enjoyed. And Adam helped me & Grandma with ours and also tried the strawberries with chocolate dip which were really good too.

We enjoyed a leisurely late lunch, walking some of it off around the Sesame Street area, but there was very little there to keep the boys amused, so we headed back round towards Kumba, Daniel still snapping away as we went

We called in to Bengal Bistro for more strawberries and drinks, then stopped off for the boys to have another go on the bumper cars. And, they actually are bumper cars, rather than dodgems – apparently there is a difference, which gives me the opportunity to shoehorn in another tale from a holiday a few years ago.

Daniel was still a baby so Adam must have been about 3, and we went to Butlins for the weekend, with Grandma, Grandad and my niece who was 7 or 8 at the time.

We were wandering round the fun fair when my Dad & Simon decided to have a go on the ‘bumper cars’. After a few minutes of bumping, all the cars were stopped and everyone was told to stop crashing as they were in fact dodgems, not bumper cars. Well, apparently that rule didn’t apply to Simon & my Dad who continued to bump into each other (and only each other) at every opportunity. Once again the cars were brought to a standstill, with the pair of them looking rather sheepish, until Simon was asked to leave and had to do the walk of shame to the exit…… Of course the rest of us, especially my Dad, found it hilarious and I don’t think my Dad could move his car for the rest of the time through laughing so much…..

Anyway, the boys didn’t take very long the bumper cars this time, and once they came off Adam announced that he wanted to go back on Kumba, and, the bad news (for me) was that he wanted me to go on it with him

Simon was adamant he didn’t want to go on anyway, and Adam wouldn’t go by himself so I was his only hope. I flashed back to my last report where I’d talked about saying ‘yes’ to things when I sometimes really wanted to say ‘no’, and quickly came to the realisation that this was one of those situations.

When Simon heard that I was having a go he didn’t believe it, pointing out the flying pigs in the distance

But I did have a go! There was no queue so for Adam that meant I had no time to change my mind, and for me it meant I had no time to get too anxious about it

Well, what can I say. I did it, but I really didn’t enjoy it. Thankfully it didn’t make me feel ill so no rushing off to powder my nose needed, but it did make my brain rattle around in my head a bit!

We walked back through to Timbuktu where the boys decided they wanted to go back on Scorpion. Daniel decided I needed to try it, and as I’d just been on a ride with Adam, I couldn’t refuse, and Grandma decided to go on with Adam to complete the full house. It was good fun, and I loved sharing the ride with my baby.

While the boys went back on again I decided to check out the Desert Grill to see what was on offer. Well, it was gone 4 o’clock by now, time was running out! Again, there was plenty on offer, and it all looked very tempting, but I came out with this little beauty:

Very tasty, but if I’m honest, I was being a bit greedy and so didn’t eat much of it.

The boys had a couple more goes on Scorpion and then spotted the
Sea Serpent, a wild mouse coaster, so rushed off there without so much as a backward glance. It really is lovely that they can now do this sort of thing together and are confident enough to go off (but not too far) without us being with them.

We watched them have a go, and I have to admit that I was more than happy to sit that one out, I really don’t like that kind of ride and don’t think I would have fared well at all, especially after my pure greed a few moments earlier.

We waited ages for the boys to appear down the exit ramp, until we spotted that the little blighters had gone back round and were having another go!

We wanted to ride the Serengeti Safari and time was beginning to run out so we really had to be making a move. We managed to get the message to the boys as they were thrown about on the Sand Serpent, and when their go was over they came to join us.

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[JoJo88]

Continued from above...

We got to the train station in Nairobi and after a few minutes wait, at around 5pm we boarded the train and were on our way. Daniel was still in charge of the camera and did us proud with some of his shots:

They might look a bit blurry, but I’m sure you just need to wipe your laptop/tablet screen

He did manage to get quite a few good pictures

But I won’t bore with you any more, apart from this next one, the lesser spotted mountain Spurs supporter.

It’s not often the boys meet one of their own kind

The safari was really good, and we saw plenty of animals, but it was starting to get dark and was also getting very close to closing time (6pm). We’d hoped to have enough time to squeeze in another visit to Cheetah Hunt, but it was starting to look unlikely.

We decided to leave the safari at the Stanleyville Station as we thought it would give us more chance of getting round to Cheetah Hunt in time, rather than staying on for the full circuit.

Simon said that he wasn’t bothered about going on, but I was on a roll and really wanted to ride again so Adam & I beetled our way through the Sesame Street area, and the bird gardens (look kids, birds!) and eventually got to our destination with moments to spare, doing a side skid into the queuing area. I say queuing area, there was no one else there!

The ride was just as good as before, and it seemed only fitting to end the day in the same way we started it.

We met up with the others and headed back to the exit. However, we spotted that Zagora Café was still serving and so decided to grab something else before we made the journey home. I decided it would have been rude to turn down more food, but didn’t want to overdo it so just went for a small fajita wrap. A piece of chocolate cake might have fallen onto my tray too, but I’m sure if it had then I only had a taste. Honest!

We’d had a really great day at Busch Gardens, and at 6.15 we were on the tram back to the car park.

It helped that the park was so quiet, and the dining deal had been a massive success for us. Daniel had eaten his body weight in Strawberries, and the rest of us had found plenty to enjoy (me especially! ) We literally hadn’t spent a penny all day apart from the parking charge. There were plenty of stalls where the snack items are buy one get one free if you have the dining deal, but we didn’t partake in any (we’re not animals! )

So the verdict on Busch Gardens for us was a massive thumbs up, and it was a definite novelty to explore somewhere less familiar. We are all looking forward to visiting again in August – although I am aware that it’ll be a lot different in the summer months with the heat & crowds. However, if they are too much of a problem, I’ll find solace in Zambia Smokehouse

Day 7 - Epcot / Longhorn Steakhouse

[Gusgusmummy]

Great day loving your report x

[lauz]

Sounds like you all had a great day at Busch Gardens. The meal deal sounds like great value too!

[vanlou]

Brilliant day

We are visiting BG for the 1st time this year and am so excited
Will be giving Falcon's Fury a wide berth too though

[Thing1thing2]

Nice read, lots of lovely photos. Must have been all the more enjoyable with such an empty park!

[mick]

Great day

Joan

[Jessika]

Looks like you had a great day, thank you for posting.