theDIBB - Here Now! first WDW family holiday - Day 19, Seaworld & Aquatica

Today was a free day on our planner. The Eastons had decided they were having a day at the pool and we let our kids choose which park they wanted to revisit. After some Discovery Cove begging, explaining again that one is not like other parks, but maybe you can get a last minute deal on the internet mum etc etc, they finally accepted we can not do Discovery cove again! They decided on Seaworld. Since we had already been and wouldn't need to do everything, we agreed we would do Seaworld in the morning and Aquatica in the afternoon, as hubby really wanted to try that ride where the floor drops away from you to send you down the flume.

So we got ready, Kevin packed the coolbag, and away we went at 8:45. We stopped at Walgreens at the bottom of the road as I needed to get something to give me some relief from my mossie bites. I always get eaten alive by mossies but over the last few years have been ok going to Turkey / Spain by using a combination of taking antihistamines for a few weeks before we go, the using Avon Oil and Jungle Fever every night. However, I forgot to take the antihistamines, only brought Avon SSS Oil with me, and as day just turns into night out here and you are not going home to get ready for the evening, I did not do my usual shower then applying all my anti mossie stuff. So yesterday morning I woke up with 18 bites on my right shoulder and arm, and a few on my right leg. I think it happened either when we were waiting for the Indian takeaway, or when sitting at the pool watching the kids playing that night. They are huge and itching like mad. So off we went to Walgreens. It was a quick visit and I picked up some antihistamines and a Benadryl extra strength itch stopping cream both of which started straight away. I don't know which, or if both worked but I have not felt any itching since. Brilliant.

We drove up to Seaworld at 9:30 and my mind was wandering about our first visit here, how nice it was etc, when I suddenly had a realisation. I whipped my planner out and started counting, only to confirm my fear. We were at 15 days since our first visit to Seaworld. My heart sank as this meant our tickets were now invalid. When I told Kevin he was not best pleased, especially as it meant he will have missed Aquatica. As we were now at the parking booth we handed over the parking pass and waited to see what he said. He just handed us the usual parking receipt and said nothing, so off we went. So we decided to go to the gate and see what happened.

We went to a turnstile with a woman at it. Kevin scanned first, it looked like it had not worked at first but then she looked at something and waved him through, and the turnstile moved round. She did this with all of us so we were left unsure as to whether it had worked, or whether she had done something to over-ride it. Maybe they allow an extra days grace, maybe its 14 days after you have used it. Oh well we were in, and if it worked here it should work at Aquatica right?

We went for a shot on Manta which was a walk on, then walked round to the Dolphin show. We missed the first part of this last time and it was great seeing it start to end. It has a section of acrobatic high diving which was excellent. At 10:30, H&K went for another shot on Manta, this time queueing for 25 minutes. We then made our way round to Kraken and walked straight on this twice. I decided I really like this one. It is very smooth with lots of loop the loops to make your tummy lift. Theres no jerky throwing your head back like Manta does.

We skipped Atlantis, walked through Antartica towards the Sky Tower as we wanted to try that, but it was off due to 'high winds'. There was a slight breeze! It must be mighty sensitive.

So we walked on round and spent some time watching the mothers and calves in the dolphin nursery, and enjoyed going under the tunnel looking at the sharks. We didn't want to do the Shamu show again so went behind it and let the kids play in the big play area they loved so much last visit.

We left the park at 12:15 and headed for the car park, where we ate lunch from the coolbag. Drive round the corner and into Aquatica. Showed the car parking pass to the booth and this time it clearly didn't work as he seems confused and said 'have you guys just come from Seaworld?' and we said yes. He just shrugged and said OK and gave us a parking receipt.

Parked and went to the turnstile. This time the cards would not scan and the attendant said they were invalid so we would need to go to Guest Services to investigate. Uh oh.

At Guest Services she looked it up and said we were a day over validity, so they had expired and we could not use them. I explained we had just come from Seaworld, but she said it did not show we had scanned them at Seaworld (so that attendant must have overridden them right enough). I showed her our Seaworld parking receipt and she called for a manager. I explained to the manager that I appreciated we now knew they were expired, but that we had moved from Seaworld to Aquatica in good faith having used them this morning. She said the Seaworld attendant should not have let us in but started typing furiously on her computer. After a few more minutes of this she handed me 4 complimentary tickets and said that since we had not used Aquatica during our 14 days, and we were only 1 day iver, she would comp us in and hoped we enjoyed the rest of our day. Yeehah! I thanked her profusely and set off to get the others, whom I had made stand to the side to make it easier to speak with the manager without the kids 'helpfully' butting in.

We went in, got a locker, found me a sunbed and off the other 3 went to explore.

I settled on the sunbed with my kindle. I can't believe I am still reading the same book I started on the plane and that I am only a third of the way through it. Just shows how different this holiday is. We usually go to 5 star all inclusives in Turkey with their own water slides and funfairs. So the kids spend a fortnight playing in the pool and slides, Kevin splits between lying on a sunbed and playing in the pools and I spend a fortnight on a sunbed, reading, with the odd dip to cool down. We get dressed up at night and eat at a nice restaurant before some drinks and a show / dancing. I can get through 7 or 8 books on those holidays!

I dozed off and later they arrived back saying they had been on every ride, and all 3 of them had done the dropping down thing and loved it.

I went on the lazy river with the kids while Kevin had a wee rest on the sunbed. I quite liked this but felt it should have been much longer. Preferred the one at Typhoon Lagoon to be honest.

We left the park just before closing at 5pm with the opinion being the rides were slightly better than TL, but the wave pool and lazy river at TL made it the better park overall. We have not made it to Blizzard Beach yet and I am not sure we will now. We stopped at the Premium Outlets Vineland (again!) on the way home so I could pick up some 501s from the Levi store that my brother had just asked me to get. Kevin tried a couple of pairs on while there and liked them so got those.

The kids were dead beat now, so we just stopped at Walmart for bread and milk and headed back to the Villa. They had the remaining costco hotdogs on big sub rolls for dinner, while I had some chicken, and the kids jumped in the pool for a while. I wrote up my TR from Emmas birthday and had a few glasses of wine. Kevin started packed the first suitcase with mostly new things and stuff we definitely would not need (noooo!). We fell into bed at 11pm.