Started the day with the free hot breakfast at the hotel. As expected, it was pretty bad, a la the French diet, I didn't eat very much of it. Our hotel is only two exit from Busch Gardens. This was a relaxing morning, no rush. The plan was to use the AAA discount to visit Busch Gardens and then Sea World Tampa. We left the hotel around 10:30 and arrived at the Busch around 11:00 AM. It was already really hot. My shirt was soaked through before my third step out of the car. We took the tram from the parking lot to the entrance of the park, it was very nice not to have to walk the length of the parking lot like some other parks. We bought our tickets w/ the AAA discount ($5) which pretty much covered the sales tax.
It was steaming. The temperature was 98 degrees and 99% humidity. Busch Gardens is a combination of animal park and amusement park. Roller coasters roar over animal habitats. Our primary objective was to see the nanimal (animals), but we thought we would sneak into a few rides, until we saw many of the lines. We decided to see teh various animal habitats and maybe catch a few of the show and visit Sea World tomorrow.
One of the highlight of our visit was walking by the Sheikra roller coaster with its 90 degree drops, loops, and most spectacular the splash valley. That's right, I said a rollercoaster with splash. Others include giants sea turtles having loud old people sex, the bird show, and the sleeping lions.
Upon exiting, and attemping to use our AAA card to redeem our tickets for tickets for tomorrow at SeamWorld, However, it seem, the offer for a second day at Busch Gardens or Sea World, is only good at whichever park you spent the first day at, not an opportunity to see the other park. Ah, but it does simplify things for tomorrow, not having to squeeze in two parks (Sea World and the Kennedy Space Center).
We finally got in early one night for the first time (7:30 PM), giving us time to catch up on the travel blog and have some pizza.