Six of the Best - Day 13 Seaworld and Millers

[Runforthehills]

Previous Day 12 HERE

Really strugling for new photos today, I always forget to take many photos later on in the holidays but today was almost zero. One of the Grandkids outside the apartment at Vista Cay to start with though!

It was a nice sunny day again today, we really have had decent weather for the two weeks we have been here. It has not been “really” hot like when we have usually been in late August/early September but hot enough for the water parks on most days and always plenty warm enough for the theme parks. So far we had only seen a couple of light showers that passed before they bothered us at all, or wet ground after overnight rain.

When we had been to seaworld earlier in the holiday we had not managed to get on the Mako coaster, not due to queues it was just that somehow we had missed it, and it was the only coaster in all the US parks, Including Busch Gardens, that we had not done so this morning I set off with DSIL and DGS1 to put that right. We got to the park just after opening, at 10:00, and there were just a couple of cars in front of us but that meant I stopped before the booth and saw the sign I had not noticed before stating that annual passholders had to show ID to get free parking.

Because we were coming specifically just to go on one coaster I had just put our annual passes in my pocket, I didn't have my wallet with ID in it and none of us had brought any money at all!

Luckily the lady on the parking booth just smiled when I showed my pass, printed out the complementary receipt, and we were in - what a relief.

Once we got into the park we had it in mind that the Mako was round to the right of the park so we stomped off with a purpose - and walked most of the way round the park to get back to the coaster which was on the opposite side! It was worth the walk, though. Mako is a fast “up and down” coaster, not slow and loopy, and you just get a waist restraint which means you can look around a lot more but also gives a bit more of a thrill when your backside comes slightly off the seat and there is no shoulder restraint holding you back down.

Mako done we strolled back past Manta but it was a 40 min. wait so we just headed back to the apartment. One of the great things about staying at the bottom of Universal Boulevard and going at a quieter time of year is that the parks are close, and fairly equidistant so it was possible to pop and just have half an hour at the park without it taking up half a day.

We joined DW,DD and DGS2 at the pool back at the apartment and settled down there for the day, just popping back to the apartment for a couple of snacks at lunchtime.

We had planned to head over to Islands of Adventure in the early evening to see the light show at Hogwarts so we were going to Millers Ale House about 4:00pm for an early dinner. About 2:30 the sky started to look a bit ominous and cloud covered the sun and once the sun disappeared it turned quite cool very quickly so we headed back to the apartment to get changed and headed out.

The food was excellent at Millers but for the first time this holiday I overfaced myself with the Chicken and Steak Fajitas.

We had got used to having a big breakfast, nibbling on a few snacks at lunch and then eating around 7:00pm but today, having been sat around most of the day and then coming out early, I definitely had the “eyes bigger than belly” syndrome. I still really enjoyed it though, and ate all of the steak and chicken but only half of the Fajita wraps and potato.

Halfway through the meal we noticed that it had started raining outside and within a couple of minutes it was a real Florida downpour, the first we had seen this trip. Luckily by the time we were ready to leave the rain had stopped but it still looked like it could start again at any time. I logged onto Accuweather and it said that there would be periods of heavy rain for at least the next two hours. We all decided that the lights at IOA could wait till we came again, we have already booked to come back next August, so we headed back to the apartment.

Having thought about next years holiday DW and I decided we would take a quick drive down to Windsor Hills where we have booked a villa so we dropped the kids off and headed towards the I4 but soon realised we were heading off at a bad time with rush hour traffic which seemed to have slowed down even more due to the rain so we abandoned this idea and called to Walmart for some last supplies (ie IPA for me) and a Hooded Jumper for DW that she had spotted on a previous visit.

As usual it was then back to the apartment, a couple of beers, and bed. Last Full day tomorrow!