Back to Day 3
Its was one of our "new things" for thie year, Howl-O-Scream at Busch Gardens. I have wanted to go for a couple of years but we had a not so enjoyable visit to Busch back in 2010 and Mr W was not keen. However, with free Busch Gardens tickets with our Discovery Cove package, it was easier to convince him this year...
...(however we didn't take too many pictures, so please bare with me... unexpected trip report syndrome)
The morning started well, we woke up early and spent a lazy morning in and around the pool and the villa.
This is Fergal the Shark, each year I buy Mr W a different pool inflatable to be our "holiday icon", this year its Fergal, in celebration of Sharknado 3 being shot at Universal. I also bought Mr W a waterproof camera for his birthday, he is loving it.
At midday we decided to head to Busch via a Sweet Tomatoes in Tampa, BIG MISTAKE, we got so lost and over two hours later we decided just to head to Busch... we were grumpy with each other and very hungry by then.
We had booked two nights (Flexible -v v important see tomorrow) at the Holiday Inn Express opposite the park. We checked in, chucked our bags in the room and headed for the shuttle to the parks. If you are looking for a room close to Busch Gardens, I would highly recommend this hotel... The shuttle is a little old but regular and gets you there and back.
Once in the Busch, we grabbed a bite of late lunch (*cough - ice cream - cough*) and a drink and felt 100% better and headed out to enjoy the animals. We love zoos, we got married in one and we think they do brilliant work, I know not everyone agrees with us about that.
We spent a long time looking at the little one, he was so cute playing with his family and being generally annoying...
After a while, we went to a talk about elephants, probably my favourite animal and we learnt a few new things about these amazing beasts...
On the back of this, we hot footed it round to the tigers for the final talk of the day, As a cat lover, I love all Big Cats, but tigers are special.
We then headed back towards the entrance to find out what we needed to do about Howl-O-Scream but after watching Falcon's Fury for a while (NO WAY - Seriously you head down face first)
This is when we got a bit of bad advice, we had booked the VIP Ultimate tour (for $219 each we got a private tour guide as a pair, our HoS tickets, free drinks, including alcohol, a meal at the frist Fiends show, front of the line queue for all houses and any rides we wanted to, 20% discount on any murchandise and other bits and pieces too!) as we were only going to do it once, and didn't want to waste time learning the ropes of HoS, it seemed like a very very good deal. The team at the entrance told us to report to a tent outside - just as the heavens opened - you know one of those storms which only happens in Florida, where in minutes you are soaked to the skin and then some.
Well the tent we had been sent to was the wrong place, we had no where to go for ONE HOUR - there were about 10 of us huddled under an eave of a building with no one from Busch about - by the time people turned an hour later we were all "rather annoyed", Mr W especially. I have an auto-immune disorder and getting very wet and cold causes my joints to flare up. By the time they arrived with towels and apolgies, I thought I would have to go home I was bent double with pain... however a quick phone call later we were all being rushed into the park, told to choose a change of clothes from their big store (including our choice of HoS branded Tshirt) and when we came out, there was a wheelchair waiting for me and the hint of the sun.
We were directed back to the Welcome Centre and introduced to our guide (Chloe) and Sarah who was shadowing Chloe for the evening and was going to be responsible for my chair for the evening. Yes - our party of two - had two private guides for the evening
They gave us our "foot of ale" glass, to keep beer on us through the evening,free rucksack to keep things together and our free towel to ensure we stayed dry, found me a hard cider (I love this girl already) and chatted us through the evening. We said good bye to the other parties we had be sheltering with and headed for our first stop - the Fiends diner show.
We were dry, we were happier than just over an hour ago and we were hungry and looking forward to an evening of horror.