We arrived a bit before 9am, and parts of the park were already opened. We rode all the tube slides, which tired us out, and a race down the toboggan run. And then we did the racing river for a while, rode a bit in the wave pool, and called it a day at around 11:30.
Aquatica is a really nice water park. It is very popular, which means it gets more crowded than I would like, but it wasn't like it was so packed you couldn't move. The people were nice, the rides were fun, the place was clean. Not the best water park I've been too, but one of the best. Better than BG's adventure island in Tampa.
We headed home, picking up a small lunch at McDonalds. Then my wife and I had to do a tour of a resort to pay for our vacation; it worked out because a storm system decided to park over Orlando for most of the afternoon.
In fact, when we finally went back to Seaworld for a last evening of adventure, it was STILL raining on us. But it stopped just before the 7:15pm show started.
We then hit Manta in the back of the ride, and my son ran off to do a couple of runs on the Atlantis water ride while the rest of us went over to see Beluga whales.
Which gave me a chance to "pop in" on the Shamu Rocking Show (I saw the whale. The whale jumped. The whale landed. Water splashed about. People screamed. And there was rock music.)
I also ran through the helicopter simulator ride where they cause global warming by breaking the glaciers, and then pretend like nothing happened.
We left the park 5 minutes before the start of the fireworks. We are tired of fireworks. We are tired of just about everything. We got home, and started pre-packing and packing, because we need to be out before 8am to catch one more quick morning at USF.
Two 8-hour days of driving remain, and one quick stop at Carowinds for the new Intimidator ride (I'm sure we will ride a couple other rides while we are there, but probably not more than a couple hours worth).
My only regret is that there is no way we could get into HP world tomorrow morning to get more butterbeer. Which seems like a REALLY STUPID WAY TO RUN A THEME PARK. Why can't they sell butterbeer up front? It's not like it is made of rare ingredients or anything. Sure, if you want to make me walk through your park, OK, but don't put the only supply of the stuff behind gates that you won't let people into for hours on end. That's just stupid.
Really enjoyed reading them.
