Busch Gardens

Work, work, work and work, it's starting to get really really boring and it seems that all of us are counting down to the last day of our work, but for a good reason though, because I'm really sick of spending most of my time with buns, patties, lettuce.......

But after a makes-you-wanna-press-the-lifeline-button day of work on a busy Sunday, we were glad that our day off came again. On the first of our 2 break days, we had planned that we pay the SSN office another visit after last week's visit to change our mailing address, this time, it was for the same reason too, because we got the zip code wrong. This was our 4th visit to the office until that the attendant even recognised our faces and I can imagine him thinking "for what reasons are these guys here again". Anyways, we didn't got to change our address because our cards were already sent out and are being processed. Then, it was shopping and only shopping right after that. First, we were at Orlando's Premium Outlet till around 8, then we headed to the Hard Rock Cafe in Universal Orlando and got ourselves some Hard Rock memorabilia. It was already 11.30pm when we reached home and looking at the fact that we need to depart at 6.45am the next morning to Busch Gardens, I just hope that I get the sleep that I need so that the same thing that happened in Universal wouldn't happen again. A little bit on Busch Gardens: It is a African-ly themed park located in Tampa.

It felt like as if before I could get enough sleep, I could already hear my alarm calling at 5.45am and I reluctantly woke up to get ready for the most awaited day of the week. By 8am after a 35 minutes bus ride, we were already at the car rental outlet and were among their first customers of the day. And as usual, the paperwork and stuff set us back for another 20 minutes before we could get our car which was a Kia Spectra (an asian car finally :))


A picture of the car we rented.

After a journey which was roughly around 2 hours, we had finally arrived at our destination (which was around 10.30). But in truth, we were an hour late compared to the original plan that we had, and it matters because we managed to get 5 free tickets from a friend of Wendy and we were suppose to meet her (Wendy's pal) at the entrance of Busch Gardens about an hour ago. Well, I wouldn't want to continue on this :p, but in the end, we managed to get another 5 free tickets from Jessica's friend (by the name of Elaine) instead, and guess what, she even agreed to be our tour guide for the day until her work starts. Words can't explain how thankful we are, but it was just plain kindness and we were really grateful for all these favours.


A picture of the 5 foot way of the Busch Garden's entrance


Look at the queue at the entrance!

Once we were in at the entrance, all of us were so excited by the prospect of roller coaster rides for the rest of the day. And armed with the map that were given to us at the entrance and the advice of Elaine, we decided that the Montu roller coaster ride will be the first and warm-up ride for us. I'm really sorry for the lack of pictures, since we didn't had much time for them. In truth, the Montu ride was indeed a warm-up ride and we were just a tad dizzy after the ride, that's all :). And did i mentioned that Jessica has phobias for coaster rides? As after the Montu ride, she was already half dead..lol (ok, I was just joking). Since Jessica needed some time before the her next encounter with a coaster ride, we then opted for a musical theatrics by the name of Katonga which was about musical tales from the jungle.


On our way to the theater


Inside the theater


The performers

Well, honestly, musical theatrics was never my kind of 'thing' and it seems that it still stays the same as half way through the performance, I actually fell asleep :p (No disrespect for the performance though). But what I could say was it was a colourful performance with lots of pretty sights and sounds. Next up was the Gwazi coaster ride. What made this coaster so special is that it's wooden (a classic!) and is one of the main attraction of the theme park.


The Gwazi ride!


Look at the tracks, they are wooden!

The Gwazi attraction is made up of 2 coaster rides, one the Tiger and Lion the another. We took the Lion ride and in truth, I clearly underestimated the true colours of wooden coasters and I paid the price for it. Although there weren't any 360 turns or cockscrews, it was still a hell-of-a ride with it's speed and vibration of the coaster car, and that combination of both was enough for me (and maybe the rest too) to give the ride a 5-star rating! Well the weather wasn't really too good to us as it rained shortly before and after our Gwazi ride, but thankfully, both were just short downpours with no lightning. Below are more pictures of what's inside Busch Gardens.




A flop of pink Flamingos


A picture of the girls which I took while we were waiting for the rain to stop in a gift shop. From left: Jessica, Wendy and Elaine.

After the rain stopped, we immediately headed to the Shiekra ride, and it was around this time that Elaine had to go and prepare for her work. For your information, what made this Shiekra ride so special is that it has 2 very close to 90 degrees fall!


The Shiekra ride


One of the 2 close to 90 degrees fall

What could you expect of a coaster ride with 90 degrees falls? Adrenaline pumping action of course! During the falls, the feeling was just out of the world, and at both falls, we were suspended in mid air before we were released down both falls, what suspense!

Since Elaine had left, we were required to store our belongings and loose articles in lockers provided which weren't free! So for the following rides, I didn't had any pictures of them (apologies). Next we had was the Kumba coaster ride, which was pretty decent, since it was all about speed. Then, we had a pirate ship kind of ride, where they start swinging the ships till it goes 360, nothing special but still fun nevertheless. Again, we headed back to Gwazi and this time, we took the Tiger ride instead and Jessica came along with us this time around since she skipped the Lion one. Both rides were as crazy as each other with the only difference were the tracks each ride had. And it turn our that the Gwazi Tiger ride will be last of our dry attractions as the 2 following rides that we had next were water attractions (Tidal Wave and Congo River Rapids). After the rides, we were all soaking wet and I was shivering like nobody's business (fine fine, I'm afraid of cold :( ).

Well, as you might know, we’re not going to continue with our soaking clothes, so we got ourselves changed and were ready to roll again. Lol, but in truth, we were all exhausted already after 9 rides of action. So we decided that we should take a more relaxing ride instead and so it was the sky ride that we had next (remember Genting highlands? :) ). While waiting at the queue for the sky ride, we met 3 Korean girls which happened to be from Walden Circle too, and what coincidence it was. We struck up a chat and soon it was our turn to board the sky ride, the long queue of the sky ride seems not be so long after all. Below are a few pictures which were taken before and during the sky ride.


A group picture of us while waiting at the line for the sky ride.


A view from the sky ride


The Montu roller coaster


Shiekra and the Pirate ship (or whatever you want to call it)


Shiekra close up (look at the fall again :p )


A view of the animal park

The end of the sky ride brought us to the animal park of Busch Gardens. Well, there weren’t nothing much to talk about here, besides that there were elephants, tigers, fishes and bla bla bla (usual stuff that you get to see in a zoo). But here, there were a few pictures of interest :)


A hippo in water behind the glass


A Lion chilling under a tree (it really knows how to relax)

It was already around 7.30pm when we were done with the animal park, so it was time to say goodbye to Busch Garden as we headed for the exit. Along the way, we passed by the Marakesh street (does that remind you guys of Sunway Pyramid? ) which has rows of shops selling souveniers. But well, we weren’t in a mood for souvenirs as all of our stomachs were already calling for food.


A picture of the Marakesh street


A group picture of us at the Exit (or rather Entrance too)

Of course, we left the theme park with heavy hearts, because we just had so much fun and excitement there. Well, it was time for food and we drove along the street outside the park and in the end (after a few stops and discussions), we decided that we pay an American Pizza Hut a visit.


A picture of the Pizza Hut restaurant where we dined in

After a satisfying meal (we even had extras to be packed back for our breakfast the next morning), we then had GPS set to return to Walden Circle. It was really an exhausting day for everyone as not long we were on the road, most of them were already asleep. It was already half past eleven when we arrived at Walden Circle. We bid the girls good night as we dropped them at their place while we headed back ours.

What an experience we had at Busch Gardens, and the best part was, we got to enter the park with free tickets. It was indeed just great to have the Chinese connection :). Again great thanks to the girls and their friends for all the troubles they had.