Spring Break Day 8: Aquatica

Friday! Our last full day in Florida, and we made the best of it, let me tell ya! We were early birds and hit the road running.....bathing suits, shades, hats and plenty of sunscreen.....Aquatica, here we come!

Look, it's Chomp!

The first thing we did was get in line for Walhalla Wave, a family ride on a round raft where we zoomed and swirled through a 6 story maze of twists, turns and tunnels before finally surging back to daylight when we landed in a water pool at the bottom. Anabella didn't like it. Too fast (hurt her belly). But the rest of us enjoyed it.

Next stop: Roa's Rapids (aka lazy river- a family favorite!)

Next, we checked out Walkabout Waters, the kids' play area with slides galore.

The big kid went down first so that he could be there to help the littles when they came barreling down. 

Anabella liked this one better. More her speed.

This boy's never met a water slide he didn't like!

Definitely a Busch Gardens park: beautiful tropical foliage

We'd worked up an appetite with all that floating and sliding, so we ate an early lunch at Waterstone Grill. And, good thing we ate when we did. While we waited in line for a good 10-15 minutes when we went at a little after noon; when we were leaving, the line was three times as long! It was the slowest moving line we encountered our entire vacation. They must have been short staffed or something because the water park wasn't really that busy and there were plenty of empty tables.

After lunch, we floated down Loggerhead Lane, another family ride; but only two people to a raft, so we each took a kid.

This was a lazy river or sorts, too; only instead of just letting the current move you along and relying on your life vest to stay afloat, this one had rafts. And, depending on which route you took, you either got a view of tropical fish or dolphins. We floated through several times, but never managed to see any dolphins. The tropical fish were cool, though. 

 Our next destination was Katta's Kookaburra Cove. This was another kid area with lots of slides.

I tried to ride this one down myself, but the guard wouldn't let me. Hey, Daddy rode a kiddy slide earlier in another section of the park and they didn't say anything to him! But, not this one. The guard laughed and another grown up chucked, "nice try." Poor mommy, as she turns to head back down the stairs. :( 

After Kookaburra Cove, we went to Big Surf Shores, a sandy area where they had a wave pool similar to the one they have at Water Country, only this one had sand!

Look at that boy dunking! 

They loved playing in the sand. It was nice to get the perks from the beach- sand and waves- but not the mess that comes with packing for it! We didn't have any sand toys or anything but they made do. 

Re-fueling with an Icee and some popcorn.

 Despite the big day we had, we really weren't too worn out that night. All week we'd talked about going back to Sea World to see the one exhibit we were excited to see (the one that had the technical difficulty our first day there and then on our second trip the line was too long).

Three sillies!

Antarctica! 

Before embarking onto the ride that would take us to Antartica: the Empire of the Penguins, we watched a short video clip introducing the ride.

Afterwards, we got to view some real penguins!
I've never seen penguins before so this was really exciting. 

The park was about to close when we walked by this water coaster, the Atlantis, and Daniel asked if he could ride it. Why not?

I guess because it was so late, there was no line at all, and we walked right on!
Talk about a fun ride. It was dark inside and the fact that it was dark outside (and a full moon) made it even spookier and more fun! 

Daniel and I sat in the back and hardly got wet at all, but Daddy and Dan sat in front and got soaked. We were going home anyway, so it wasn't a big deal and well worth the fun!
Daniel told us several times afterwards that this was one of his favorite things about our trip.
Mine too! 

What a great day!