Amusement Parks

We decided to buy a pass for Sea World and Busch Gardens for the week (it was a really good deal). The first day we were there we went to Sea World and looked at all of the animals, saw all of the shows and rode some rides. We had wonderful weather and there were very few people there. Our favorite thing there was the Manatee Rescue Habitat. They are really neat animals and we just watched them swim for a long time. The most hated thing there (by me only of course) was the Wild Arctic ride. I like rides, but my stomach doesn't always. It was a simulator kind of ride in a helicopter during a snowstorm in the arctic. Liam was totally being thrown around his seat and that bothered me also. They all loved it of course. There aren't many rides there, but we managed to go on all of them. Lance was bummed that the water ride he wanted to go on was closed for the month for maintenance. Even Ryan went on all the little kid rides.

The next day we went to Busch Gardens to do some serious rides. We promised Lance that we would do all the water rides first since he was bummed at Sea World. Again we had sunny skies and very few people. We went on the log ride, a more serious flume ride and then we hit the river rapids. We were the first people of the day to go on the river rapids. We were doing okay on the wet factor (we aren't wimps that wear ponchos on the rides:) Then at the end of the rapids ride a huge waterfall fell directly on us for a long time and it was cold. We were all soaked to the bone. There was one "boat" after us and they were soaked also. They then closed the ride to "fix it". We did return to that ride the next time we went to the park, there wasn't even a waterfall at that place the second time. We were caught in some kind of ride malfunction (at least for winter operation). We were still smiling and enjoying our day going on rides and seeing things, then it got colder and started to rain. We lasted over 5 hours in our soaking (I could wring my clothes) wet clothes with smiles on our faces.

We decided to go back to Busch Gardens because we didn't get to see and do everything since we were so wet. On that day Ryan made it his goal to ride all of the roller coasters. We took a picture in front of each roller coaster of the people that rode it.

You will notice that Liam is in a couple of the pictures. He rode on every ride that he was tall enough to go on. You will also notice that Lance is not in any roller coaster pictures, that is because he hates the things. At the last roller coaster ride gift shop we bought some trinkets. We bought Ryan a shot glass (bad picture I know) to celebrate all 5 roller coasters, Liam got a necklace with his name on it, and we bought Lance the most fitting t-shirt (modeled by Liam because Lance isn't home) called "why I don't ride".

Lance thought every excuse on here was a good one and said he has used many of them.