Garth and Louise's Graduation Celebration June 2017 - Day 5 - Discovery Cove

[LostPrincess]

Welcome to my trip report! The index is here, and day 4 is here.

Saturday 17th June - Day 5

For some reason we can’t find the notes for today. I think I left my phone in the hotel because we were going to Discovery Cove so took notes on Garth’s phone but I can’t find them so we’ll have to go by memory and photos!

We were up bright and early today to make the most of our visit to Discovery Cove! We hadn’t booked the Dolphin Swim but we were looking forward to a nice relaxing day to recover from hitting the parks hard since Tuesday. We were quick getting ready and were leaving the room at 7.30. It was a bit muggy this early in the morning.

As per usual we sat by the front of the hotel and waited for our uber.

Mike was with us really quickly at 7.36. With no notes I can’t really remember Mike but I don’t remember anything eventful happening on the journey and in 10 minutes time we were arriving!

There was quite a queue already. In June I should think people are keen to get an early dolphin swim because of the stormy afternoons. We can’t have been waiting too long before we were sent to a counter and issued our passes. By 8 we were walking into the park past this fellow!

His name was Louie. Garth was so excited he loves sloths. We said hello and had a stroke, Garth could have stayed here all day! The park looked so beautiful and green, it was a lovely difference from the theme parks we’d been in all week.

When we were into the main part of the park a lady showed us where breakfast was. It wasn’t too busy and they served us up a breakfast platter each. There were loads of other extras on offer.

This was my breakfast haul, I definitely got too much! Garth’s was similar but he got through a bit more than I did. It was all good although I’m not a big fan of a sausage patty, it was a bit salty for me. It was 8.45 by the time we finished so we cleared our things and walked up towards the lockers and wetsuits. Garth popped his phone in his waterproof phone case and we got suited up in vests before slathering ourselves in the suncream they provided. We put on our swim shoes too. Once we were all ready to go we checked the map on our lanyards- I had one destination in mind and that was the aviary! I loved doing this as a child and I missed out at Busch the other day. We knew the birds would be hungry in the morning so we headed straight there. On the way we walked past a covered area with a sign saying “meet our animal friends here” with a time of 10.15 so we made a mental note to come back then. Photos are all a bit blurry from here on in as the phone was in its case. Once we got to the aviary it didn’t take long to make some new friends.

There were a fair few people in there so we didn’t stay long. We loved this experience. When we were done we decided it was time for the lazy river. We both put life jackets on so we could be truly lazy and got straight in. We did a whole loop just chilling and then decided it was time for a refreshment! We went to the booth nearest the animal friend area so we were nice and close. First we used the loo and topped up on suncream before checking out what was on offer.

We both got cherry slushies and we got some crisps to share- not that we were hungry but it was free! We sat on a sunbed and Garth tried to connect to the wifi to see if he could get a Kraken spotsave for later. No luck though the wifi wasn’t great here. I didn’t really enjoy my slushy, it was a bit too fizzy. I think I binned most of it. Before long we saw an animal handler come out to the little gazebo and we went over to meet some of their beautiful parrots! There were a lot of kids around wanting to hold the parrots but they were pretty heavy and the handler didn’t seem keen on letting them have a go. The first parrot seemed to get irritable so they took him away and bought out a different once which was the one we ended up holding.

A lovely lady offered to take a photo of both of us together. I wish I had a note of the parrots name!

Look at the mark he left on me!

Animal experience complete we returned to the sunbed to finish our snacks. Look who joined us!

We let the food go down a little bit and then went to the pool where the otters and marmoset enclosures were. We put our life jackets back on so we could bob around. We were so chilled out just lying in the shallows. Garth had a bit of a play around with his phone in the case to see if he could get the photos a bit clearer.

We relaxed here for ages before getting out for more food Garth got a pretzel and I got cookies.

Snacks in hand we went to actually have a walk around the park and get our bearings as to where everything was. On the way Garth managed to connect to the wifi and get a Kraken spotsave for later, wooo! We had another loo stop and suncream top up and I took a picture of this:

Over the holiday Garth had started saying “Look Lou I’m a man” and doing an impression of the person on the loo sign as he went in. It’s hard to describe but some of the pictures are so random and we found this one particularly amusing Trust me it was funny at the time By the time we had explored the park it was around 12.30 so we decided to go for some lunch. There were plenty of options as well as a salad bar and a ton of desert options.

I got sweet Hawaiian chicken and Garth got the BBQ pulled pork sandwich. I got MinuteMaid lemonade and Garth got an iced tea. We both got some cheeky pasta from the salad bar as well and some cake.

It was a yummy meal, I barely touched my cake though! We decided to give ourselves plenty of time before swimming again so after we’d eaten we went and got a cocktail each and sat in the shallows again. While we were sat sipping our drinks we started seeing parrots in the trees around us!

I can’t remember what cocktail we had but it was very nice, it was a slushy cocktail. When we were done we decided we’d go to the aviary again. We spent a good 15 minutes in there this time!

We named this guy George!

This was the entrance to the lazy river from the aviary so we went for another loop.

I took my life jacket off for the picture because I felt like a potato I genuinely felt so happy today, it was pure bliss just to relax and not worry about anything! It really hit home that we had finished our degrees and we had a whole summer of relaxing and planning our wedding and we still had an amazing two weeks ahead of us We decided it was time for another cocktail!

It was now half two and we hadn’t done any snorkling yet! We wandered round to the reef and got straight in. There were really big rays on the floor where we entered and it definitely took some getting used to! I was so nervous about standing on them! I thought Garth would be the nervous one because I'd done this before but it was definitely me who was jumping out of my skin whenever they moved As soon as I was used to it we went off and spent ages just watching the fish underneath us. We found it was a lot easier if we took our life jackets off, and even though Garth’s not the strongest swimmer he was fine. We noticed that a crowd was gathering by the side of the reef so we went over and sat on the beach to watch them feeding the stingrays! The keeper was training someone and they had to keep a tally of how many fish each ray had eaten. The experienced keeper knew the rays by name and said they all have really different personalities. She kept shouting out to the trainee the name of a ray whenever they took a fish, I remember one was called Dotty. It was such a cool experience to watch! We hung about snorkling until about half four when we thought it was time so go get dressed and ready for our Kraken spot saver. We took one last visit to the aviary but most of the birds were full up or asleep by now! We grabbed a load of free snacks on the way to get dressed and stuffed them in our bags Just a side note- the showers were amaaaazing! It felt proper luxury! By 5pm we were dressed and finished with our day at Discovery Cove.

It had been amaaaazing. We were both looking a bit pink though We headed out of the park and asked where we could get the free bus to SeaWorld. The cast member took us to a bus stop that was parked right outside and he took us straight away, just the two of us! It was like a luxury transfer! We gave him a few dollars and were walking into the park by half 5. They were selling these all over the place in SeaWorld, bonkers. I just don't get the craze!

We headed straight to Kraken and successfully joined the queue yaaaay! We got to the front of the queue at 5.50pm but then it kicked off a bit. A tour group of young girls were in the front row queue but decided to open the gate themselves to fill up all the other rows, thus skipping those of us who had been waiting for the other rows. I have no idea why but I seem to have taken a photo of them in the act

The American man in front of us kicked off big time. “I paid 6000 dollars for this vacation, I wait my turn, others should wait their turn too!” He said some racist things as well, you know the type! "God Bless America, our country our rules" The cast member just stood there and shrugged. The man was not happy. Anyway 5 minutes later we were about to load. You can see the headsets here at the top that came forward when the restraint gets pulled down.

Garth said he wasn’t feeling well at all and I just put it down to nerves and told him not to worry and that it’d be fine. I really should have listened to him but we’ll come to that later Before long we were finally on the ride! You put the headset on and they come and adjust it. You can look all around and it’s like you’re in a submarine. When we were all ready they sent us off. To be honest, the ride was ok, but I’d have preferred it without VR. I just felt like I was on a simulator But we’d given it a go, and it was a good ride, even though it took a while getting on it! We took a selfie to commemorate our experience!

Garth still didn’t feel great but I thought it was just the VR- 2nd time I had ignored him, bad fiancée points We’d done all we came for so left the park to get an uber to Walmart. We had a few bits we wanted to pick up before we moved to Disney on Monday! Ira was with us at 6.39pm, he was a silent driver. On the journey I all of a sudden started feeling ill... really ill I was hot and my stomach was cramping and I just felt like death. When we got to Walmart (7.03pm btw, thanks Ira!) we decided to just dash for the things we needed and get back to the Rosen asap. We headed to the laundry detergent first, it was a whole wall of Tide!

It was all super big packs and we weren’t sure how much we’d use so we left it and decided to just get small packs at the launderette. At this point I suddenly had to leg it back to the front of Walmart to the loos! I thought I was going to be sick I waited in there a while to see if I’d be sick but soon I felt a bit better so decided to go and rejoin Garth so we could go home sooner rather than later. It seemed that we weren’t capable of having a good nose around Walmart without something getting in our way! Both feeling sorry for ourselves we went to the clothing department to pick up a few bits we needed. One was a backpack to replace the cheap fold out one that we’d bought with us. We found one for $4.97, bargain! Next was a Harry Potter t-shirt for Garth’s Dad. Garth left a pen in his work jacket and it went in the wash with his Dad’s t-shirt from HP studios So we got him a replacement t-shirt for $12.47 (he loved it when we got home! ). Garth also picked out a blue Mickey Mouse t-shirt for himself for $12.47. No pics, sorry! We were soo ready to go home to the hotel. After a crazy queue we finally got to the self-service machine. I had to sit down while Garth scanned the shopping, I felt awful so he grabbed me a bottle of water too. Total came to $33.64 and we paid on the FairFX card. I felt so bad for ignoring Garth earlier because I was feeling sooo rough and I’d just shrugged it off when he felt this bad He was looking after me so much, he truly is such a selfless person. He ordered the uber on my phone and Colina was with us at 7.31pm. She was really chatty and Garth chatted to her the whole way home so I could doze. We were home at 7.50pm. I have no more pictures and obviously no notes from today so I can only presume we went straight to bed! It had been a completely amazing chilled out day just with a bit of a rubbish ending with us both feeling bleugh! We don’t know if it was too much sun or something we’d eaten, but *spoilers* I can inform you that Garth was up all night being sick I hate ending today on that note because it was such a great day! It was great to recharge our batteries and finally ride the Kraken, and we would 100% do Discovery Cove again in a heartbeat!

After a turbulent night’s sleep, tomorrow we try and take it easy with a visit to Florida Mall, but Garth soon encourages me to let him go back into the sun and head to Universal Studios!

Steps today: 20521

[Siff]

Really great TR thus far, you write like a pro! Sorry the both of you ended the day on a sore note

[collybird]

What a lovely day with a bummer of an ending, I hope you both recovered quickly, being ill on holiday is awful.

[Cazzius]

Discovery Cove looks amazing, so glad you enjoyed your day there.

What a shame you both started feeling poorly. Perhaps too much sun and rich food or something. At least you still managed to get your WalMart shopping.

Garth sounds really sweet looking after you while you were poorly.

You write really well and I am really enjoying reading your report

[spencem]

Sounds like a lovely relaxing day at Discovery Cove, I think we'll skip the dolphin swim as well if we go back.

Sorry to hear you were so ill that evening, hope it cleared up quickly.

[Our Grumpy1]

No rain today!
Your first 'relaxing' day of the trip so far and it was a great day until you both felt unwell.
We love Discovery Cove; I stay well clear of the birds though due to phobia

[LostPrincess]

Originally Posted by Siff

Really great TR thus far, you write like a pro! Sorry the both of you ended the day on a sore note

See more...

That's very nice of you thank you! It helps having notes and pictures, on some days my notes aren't as thorough so it's a bit harder

3 weeks in Florida, someone was bound to be ill!

Thanks for reading!

Originally Posted by collybird

What a lovely day with a bummer of an ending, I hope you both recovered quickly, being ill on holiday is awful.

See more...

It was a shame, I really shouldn't have made Garth go on Kraken luckily within 24 hours we were both feeling fine again.

Thanks for reading!

Originally Posted by Cazzius

Discovery Cove looks amazing, so glad you enjoyed your day there.

What a shame you both started feeling poorly. Perhaps too much sun and rich food or something. At least you still managed to get your WalMart shopping.

Garth sounds really sweet looking after you while you were poorly.

You write really well and I am really enjoying reading your report

See more...

I loved our day at DC, it was the most relaxing day ever.

Yes, too much sun for sure! And like I said, too much forcing your boyfriend onto rollercoasters when he feels ill He treats me too well considering!

Thanks so much! Thank you for reading and commenting

Originally Posted by spencem

Sounds like a lovely relaxing day at Discovery Cove, I think we'll skip the dolphin swim as well if we go back.

Sorry to hear you were so ill that evening, hope it cleared up quickly.

See more...

I don't think you need the swim to get the most out of Discovery Cove to be honest. It's a lovely day anyway.

Thanks for reading

Originally Posted by Our Grumpy1

No rain today!
Your first 'relaxing' day of the trip so far and it was a great day until you both felt unwell.
We love Discovery Cove; I stay well clear of the birds though due to phobia

See more...

Yes, maybe relaxing isn't for us, it made us ill! We loved the birds, I have a friend who also has a bird phobia though so I totally understand. There are some pretty big birds in there!

Thanks for reading

[P&S]

Oh what a horrid end to the day I love DC and have had 2 lovely days there

[mouselover22]

Discovery Cove looks so idyllic, great choice for a chill out

What a bummer both being ill I hope it didn't spoil anymore of your holiday.