theDIBB - I Wonder If That's A Dibber... Pt10... Busch Gardens

Sarah... 40 ... that'll be me
DH Martin... 41... 'I wonder if they're dibbers...dibb, dibb, dibb'
DS Dale... 17... 'This time I cant wait to go'
DD Shannon..10... A Proper Little Madam

DD Lauren... 21... Disney Virgin
DSIL Sion... 23... Deserves a medal

Monday 16th October... Busch Gardens

We did want to get to Busch Gardens for around 9am but by the time I dragged myself away from breakfast at the side of the pool we were already running late. I got us on the I4 and to Tampa easily but then got us totally lost. Have you noticed that I got us lost . It had nothing to do with a driver that cant study the map himself or follow road signs. Obviously I eventually got us on the right track because we finally arrived at Busch at 10.34

After the usual bag checks and showing our DC passes we grabbed a map and made our way straight to Sheikra. I had been saying for months and months that there was NO WAY I was going on this ride. I love coasters but I rode Oblivion at Alton Towers and just hated the wait looking down at a vertical drop. I was still saying no as we made our way through the park. I was still saying no as we joined the 20 minute queue. Shannon wasn't big enough and surprisingly this was the one ride that she wasn't bothered about missing out on. Dale and myself got on and I was still asking myself why I was doing it... as we approached the first drop I was determined to keep my eyes open. Guess what... I not only kept my eyes open I put my hands up in the air as well. What was I worrying about? I got off of the ride, looked at Dale and asked 'Is that it?'. I really did feel that the ride wasn't that special.
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Dale went on Tidal Wave last time we came but the rest of us didn't because we had only just dried out from the other water rides and it was getting late in the day and cooling down a bit. We always said that the next time we would get the water rides done earlier in the day while it was still really warm. So next on the list was Tidal Wave and I was going commando...no waterproof, well what did you think I meant. We walked straight on to the ride and got duly soaked, in fact I didn't think we could get much wetter but Dale stood on the bridge and proved me wrong. As we walked away he was literally leaving a stream of water.
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We were looking at the tigers in their enclosure when the trainer started giving a talk so we listened to her for a few minutes before leaving Martin happily occupied and going on Python after which we ALL went on the Congo River Rapids...well we were still wet anyway.

Time for another coaster to give us a bit of a blow dry...well Dale and myself anyway while Martin took Shannon for a drink. We really wanted to go on the Congo Train but when we got to the station we found we had got ages to wait so walked into Timbuktu instead. I wish we had waited now as we didn't go back and I really wanted to do a circuit of the plains. Oh well, maybe next time...Lol, I have so many things on the 'maybe next time' list we'll need to go back for about 6 weeks.
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Nobody wanted to wait for Pirates 4D... a show had only just started and it was too hot to stand and bake... sorry, wait... so we headed for Scorpion. It may be only a little coaster but I enjoy this nearly as much as Shannon does and there is not queue, oh well, we may as well stay on and go round again. Shannon went on the carousel afterwards while we sat and had a cool drink and Dale sulked for no reason other than he is a 17 year old boy, who hasn't got his PSP with him and has to wait for his sister. He was even happier 2 minutes later when that same sister announced that she wanted to go on Cheetah Chase... 'that rides rubbish' were just some of the words I heard him muttering. 'Fine, you wait here then' was the reply.
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The park was decorated for Howl-O-Scream and Shannon loved the theming from Timbuktu to Nairobi...
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Even the camels had decided it was too hot...
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... so we decided a sit down was called for and stopped at the Kenya Kanteen for hot dogs and fries while fending off the birds. I really fancied an ice cream but wanted to have a treat so we carried on walking to the Moroccan Delights ice cream parlor... 2 scoops choc ice cream, 1 strawberry split, super sundae and 2 large cokes = $21.45... yummy.

We hadn't told Shannon before about tuts tomb in Egypt because we knew that if we did we wouldn't hear the end of it until we had been there so we didn't tell her until the ice creams were nearly finished. I don't know if the tomb was open last time we came but if it was we certainly didn't see it.

As we passed the Clydesdale Hamlet one of the horses was out to have photo's taken with so we decided that as we were passing anyway we may as well. Dale took the photo, as he is worse than I am when it comes to having a photo taken, but you're not seeing it as the breeze blew my hair over my face and I look like an Old English Sheepdog..lol. While we were there we took a walk through the stables.

Shannon loved tuts tomb. This is just a walk through replica of King Tut's tomb, listening to a commentary and looking at all the treasures. Lol, I am sure Shannon thought they were real, but I certainly wasn't going to put her straight. It nearly cost us an absolute fortune in the shop at the other end and they did have some lovely souvenirs but luckily Shannon listened to us when we told her that we couldn't get it all back home on the plane and settled for a mug.

It was now time for possibly my favorite Rollercoaster in Florida... Montu...wow. Martin took Shannon to the sand dig while we were on it ... what a waste of space that is.

It had been a long, very hot day again with lots of walking and as the park was due to shut in half an hour anyway for Howl-O-Scream we decided to make our way to the exit and try and avoid the crush. Every time we go on holiday Shannon's soft toy collection grows and she had fallen in love with the cuddly white tigers so we picked one up on the way out along with a floppy giraffe for me.

It was only after we got into the car that we realized we had missed Gwazi... what a shame. What was a shame although it is a shame that we missed the Hospitality House.

This was when what Claire had told us about their car problems came back to haunt us. Martin swears that she put some kind of curse on our car. He hadn't told me before but ever since we set off from Orlando that morning the oil light had been flashing and when we saw a Budget office on the way back to the I4 he decided to go in and let them sort it out. But they decided that rather than sort it out they would give us another car, the same kind but just not as nice. No leather seats or electric sliding doors and the kids noticed straight away (and were unhappy) that it didn't have a DVD player in but we just told them we hadn't paid to hire a DVD player. Oh and Claire we had to go and fill the old car up before we exchanged it... no free tank of gas for us. ;) By the time we were half we home we knew we would have to take time soon to go to another Budget office as the air conditioning was broken and the wing mirror wouldn't move...that's beside that fact that it wasn't exactly spotless.

It was already decided that we were eating at Kobe on International Drive this night. We had eaten here before and it was one of our favorite restaurants... lol, another one, there's just something about eating out in Florida...Beef Fried Rice, Kids Chicken, Garlic Shrimp, Sweet and Sour Chicken, Curry Beef, 2 ice creams, 3 cokes, 1 Chardonnay and a Baileys = $92.28
Back to the villa, a Bud, hot tub and :zzz: