Relaxing at Busch Gardens

 One last bunch of pictures from our summer trip to Busch Gardens!

We were in the mood for some relaxing, so we waited for the boat tour! The boat just left when we got there, so we had to wait for it to go out, and come back in... and then go out with us on it. So the time we spent relaxing here was technically two boat-rides worth. That's a lot of relaxing!

They hid the track of the new ride Pantheon pretty good, but you can see a peek of it past them trees. I see you!

The boat goes up the river and back, not to any particular destination. There's no story or narration involved, so just sit back and enjoy nature, and daydream about maybe camping over there.

This is where the boat turns around. Don't turn around! There's so much farther we could go down that way!

We go down about as far as the tracks for Apollo go. It's likely the edge of the property they own, so that's why we have to turn around so soon.

There was a pokeball-looking bouy in the water there. I guess they missed whatever pokemon they were trying to catch. You can't see them clearly on any of these pictures, but the Xmas lights were in those trees, not lit-up of course.

We did just do a ton of relaxing, but it was so hot outside that we all got some Dippin' Dots ice cream. The science around these tiny balls of ice cream involves extra-cold temperatures, so it's extra-extra refreshing!

There are solid rumors that the DarKastle um... castle, is going to get a new ride in it soon. We all are hoping for some Big Bad Werewolves of some kind.

Arcade time! We got a card worth $25 of points. I don't feel like doing math to figure out how much points are worth. Does anybody? That's the whole reason they use "points" because nobody cares enough to do math to figure out if it's too expensive or not. Now I'm sure it's too expensive, but let's play anyway.

Most of it was claw machines. We blew almost the whole card trying to get one of these reversable plushies. We didn't win one, but I have to give credit to whoever engineered this thing. Every time the claw would reach down, get a totally "solid" grab, lift it up, and then at some point it would slip out. So every time, you were sure you got it, and then mad enough to believe you'll get it "next time for sure!" and it never did. We were smart enough to realize it, and resisted the urge to buy more points on the card.

After our points were all gone, we watched as everybody else consistently failed at the well-engineered claw fails. I thought taking a picture would reverse-jynx a win, but the claws were relentlessly evil. Look at that unicorn, what a solid grab! But nope! Minty's advise would be to take the $25 you'd spend on the points, and simply purchase a plushie from the gift shop instead. Bypass those evils claws all together.

We saw people walking around with the giant Shy Guy plushies, so tossing rings onto bottles seemed like it was possible. They give you a whole bucket of them! At least it was fun tossing rings for several minutes, but nobody won. My friend was hoping to win a Daisy, so he could say he picked up a girl at Busch Gardens. Yeah, it's a lame joke, but we also wanted to say "Hi! I'm Daisy!" over and over again.

A quick note about how much of a struggle it was to find a RECYCLE garbage bin. We're all goodie-goodies and walked around like idiots with our empty bottles forever until we'd finally find one. This time I ran all the way inside the Festhaus to get one.

The show at the opera house place was about to start. Everybody wanted to watch, including me, but nobody else wanted to ride the new Pantheon, so I took this opportunity to run over while they spent time at the show.

Pantheon! The line for this thing was 3 hours long last time we were here. But right now... it was a virtual ghost town! The sign says 20 minutes!!! AHHH!!

You can peek at the start of the track. See the white stripe above it there? It's got magnets and stuff that shoot the ride forward. Technology has replaced the big clink-clink-clink slope. It booms up to speed instantly!

We only waited 14 minutes... for the front seat! We probably could have walked around and rode this thing three times already in any other seat. Where's all the people at today?

Is it fair to say BEST RIDE EVER after having only gone on it once? It was soooo smooth, and fast, and amazing. It did things that I've never experienced on a coaster before. The zoom tech was from the future! Can I think of any more words to describe how great this ride is? The golden track might not be made of actual solid gold, but it should be.

After the Pantheon, we met back up with everybody else and jumped over to Apollo's Chariot. They've been on this ride before, so no worries or fears. I think this is still faster than the Pantheon, for what it's worth. I've taken tons of pictures of this before, so I was trying to get a new angle with this line queue railing, haha.

After the ride, we spot this pet carrier on the exit side. It's empty, did the pet go on the Chariot?! WOOF! "...I NEED my support animal for this!!!"

I've not yet been on the Tempesto, and as we walked past the guy removed the wait time number completely. No wait? Let's GO!

Wowza? We were going to be on the next car, the one just filled up and bolted away. As my friend pointed to the magnet stripe above the track, the cars zoomed backwards... right where he was pointing! BOOM in the other direction! Hahaha! Did my friend almost loose his hand? I don't think it was close enough, but it was a moment of terror and then... funny? I guess.

This ride was nowhere near as smooth as Pantheon. It spun us around and around and kind of zonked us out, to be honest. It used the same magnet-zooming tech, but I was happy I experienced that on Pantheon before I rode this one, and I'd suggest you do the same if you've not been on either of them. I mean, I guess I'm glad I rode this thing, but it was a little too intense for it's own good. We were kind of woozy when we got off of it, and not the "good kind" of woozy.

When we got on the Tempesto, we heard the guy say "last ride of the day!" and only after, and we saw the park deserted, did we start to realize... wait, are they closing the park at 7pm?! We still didn't eat dinner yet! I thought we had convinced my other friend to ride Pantheon, but I guess it's already closed...

We were hoping to get on Escape From Pompei, too. But what are you going to do? We saw the tiny volcano in the remote-controlled boat area and laughed. That little thing is what everone in Pompei is worried about! Hahaha! And then BOOM! Lava everywhere! Hahahaha!

Bye space cows! Or wherever you are from. Might as well be space. Ah... they can't see me over here.

Not-Big-Ben tells us it's almost 7:30. Get out! I don't think I've ever seen the park close this early before, ever.

Caught off-guard by the early closing time, we were excited that we snuck into the gift shop right before they closed the doors. As we entered, they shouted "5 minutes before we close the registers!" I took this picture for my friend who shall remain anonymous.

Big Bad Wolf t-shirt?! YES! How are they still making merch for a ride that was closed down years ago? Because people still have fond memories of it, including myself, and they sure sold me one of these shirts. I just noticed on that Loch Ness Monster shirt... is Loch Ness two words? Is that a typo, or have I been spelling it wrong this whole time?

That's it! It's fun to say that we planned on eating an expensive dinner in the park, so we instead went to Outback Steakhouse and got expensive dinners there! That logic tracks, right? With the heat of the day, we were all plenty exhausted during dinner, and it took a whole day to shake off whatever happened on Tempesto out of my head. But overall another excellent day at Busch Gardens!