The Great Florida Marathon!
Hello everyone! With the weather finally starting to warm up here in Virginia I finally have energy and motivation again! Much like roller coasters I also tend to hibernate through the winter season. Back before the weather warmed up though one of my best friends and I decided to get together in person for the first time in five years! They moved down to Florida, Miami specifically around that time and I never had the funds or the time to go visit until this year! We made our plan in late January when they brought up that they were thinking of moving back up north in the next couple years and I exclaimed that we had to do the theme parks there before they left for good! They excitedly agreed and we decided on early march since it wouldn't be prime tourist season and we picked the parks we'd go to.
For some reason I decided to drive all the way from Virginia to Florida in one day. Leaving as soon as I woke up the morning of, or I had HOPED that was going to be the plan as when I went to start my car that morning my car decided it would be the perfect time to demeand a new battery. I had to delay my 14 hour drive by a whole hour while I waited to get a new battery installed, thankfully that was the only car troubles I had the whole trip! (Aside from my AC breaking halfway through but thats wayyyy less scary than worrying that you're going to break down halfway through in bumfuck-no-where South Carolina.)
I had heard horror stories about Florida drivers so once I got in state I excpected to see examples of it everywhere, but honestly they weren't worse than the drivers around Baltimore, Maryland! Upon finally pulling into Miami I was struck by the familiarity of the surroundings, and I really agree with my friend who says its the "LA of the East Coast".
The next day we didn't actually have anything planned, it was Sunday and our theme park marathon wasn't slated to start until Monday to avoid the worst of the crowds, so my friend took me around Southern Florida showing me some absolutely BEAUTIFUL parks after we got brunch at an adorable tea room cafe. The first park we went to was one of the oldest Hardwood Hammocks in the state where we went on a short walk, but we foolishly didnt have any bug spray so we didn't stay too long. It was so wild seeing so many lizards just out and about! I used to work for a petstore so seeing so many lizards that I had personally helped take care of in the wild was so strange! Most of them were invasive unfortunetly but there were also a couple that were in-fact native as well! After that we drove down to the Everglades National Park which was just amazing, it rained just a little while we were there but the sun was still shining and the rain was so light all it did was take the bite from the heat off, honestly we couldn't have asked for more perfect weather. We got to see a bunch of birds and a few gators while we were there! I'd seen most of the animals in zoos before but it was really something else seeing so many animals in their natural habitat! If you ever get the chance I can't recommend going there yourself enough, there literally isn't another place like it on Earth.
Marathon Day 1: Busch Gardens
Alright, enough about all the nature, onto the real point of the trip: The theme parks!! We started our marathon very very early Monday morning, setting out from Miami to Tampa for our first park, Busch Gardens! We started with the park I was most excited to go to, Busch Gardens Williamsburg is my all time favorite park and I just HAD to see how its sister park stood up to in comparison. With nine coasters, at the time of writing this it has one more coaster than Williamsburg! (That'll soon change once they open up Darkoaster and they'll be equal once again!) I'd heard so much about all the coasters at BGT I had to know as soon as I could if they lived up to the hype. We got there pretty close to rope drop and beelined it for Iron Gwazi, perhaps a too eager starting point for my first coaster of the season! We road extreme back row and BOY does that baby have FORCE. I cannot believe there aren't any headrests on that coaster and thats really my only complaint about it as it whiped my head back on the first drop very hard and I woke up with neck pain the next day. Everything else about that coaster was amazing though, as expected from an RMC though.
Making our way around the park counter-clockwise we hit up Sheik'ra next, Griffon's slightly older sibling, I'd heard that some actually prefered this one over Griffon so I was really ready to be blown away by it! First ride was amazing, smooth like butter as we flew through the track. I DID end up catching some gross water in my mouth as we went through the short underground portion, I'm still not sure how I did that, but my friend and I got right back in line to do it again anyways! The second time was far more shakier and I'm not sure what was different, but I would hazard a guess that the train car we got on the second time needed some service. All in all it's an excellent ride, but my Griffon bias does place it slightly lower down in my rankings.
From there we went to Tigris, which was the standard sky rocket experience. Uncomfortable comfort collar, but short run time so it was over and done with very fast, another credit checked off the list. I somehow liked it more than Tempesto but I also suspect that I'm getting more used to the sky rockets. After getting slightly lost around that section of the park my friend and I eventually found our way to Kumba. Kumba was the coaster I had heard the most about aside from Iron Gwazi and Oh. My. God. Did it ever live up to its hype. Slightly head-bangy around the last few turns but I could've ridden this coaster all day and thats not even mentioning that its just so damn pretty, the teal track is SO beautiful against all the green foliage that surrounds the coaster. We ended up riding this in the front, 2nd row, and very back. From all those my friend, who's only 4'9", said that from then on we had to either get very front or very backseat as not being able to see anything was slightly dampening their expierence. I wish I had more simpathy but as a glasses wearing person I have very little LMAO. We did end up front seat on most coasters from then on though and it was a blast so I really can't complain about the slightly longer waits we had!
After that we finally looped around to the busier side of the park, not only was this section way more crowded than the other half of the park but it was also layed out in a very odd way. We kept getting lost and turned around here but eventually found our way to Sand Serpant and Scorpion, which unfortunetly are the two worst coasters in the park. Sand Serpant is fine, its your standard wild mouse coaster. The extra cool tidbit about this coaster was that it used to be housed at BGW where Darkoaster is now. Nothing much to say about this one. Scorpion on the other hand was the most uncomfortable ride I had all day, I dont know what happened but after the loop it felt like it tried to crunch me like an empty soda can. My friend and I were very excited to leave this section of the park.
We got VERY lost after this as we tried to find Cheetah Hunt. Usually when I'm at an unfamiliar theme park I'll walk towards the next towering rollercoaster I see to find my way around while somewhat referencing a map. You can't really do that with Cheetah Hunt because its SO long. It streaches from close to the enterance to what seems like the back of the park, very fun to ride but kinda awful to find if you've gone the long way around. We eventually found Montu instead, which for some reason had the longest wait in the park? I would have definetly liked this coaster more if I hadn't had to wait nearly an hour or so for it. ALpengeist, which I think is its sister coaster, is nearly always a walk-on which makes me forgive any hard jolts or pains that it might cause. Montu unfortunetly didn't get any of those luxuries, but all in all it was still very fun! I just wish our queuing experience had been a little better.
When we finally got off Montu we walked over to Cobra's Curse which we were informed had just broken down, so we diverted to finally finding Cheetah Hunt, which was the second worst wait of the day. We ended up riding in the very back of the train. Very fun launch coaster, and I just love how the train itself looks. As we got off we wandered back over to Montu since we had left our bags in its lockers and noticed that Cobra's Curse was back up! We quickly jumped into the queue and were very happy to learn it had just opened back up so there was nearly no wait! Cobra's Curse was definetly comparable themeing wise to Verbolten. Tons of effort in the queue space, I almost wish there had been a small line so we could have had more time to take it all in. The loading was VERY cool it was the first time I'd ever seen a coaster with a ski-lift type of loading system. Not to mention the elevator lift that moved you side to side like a snake! This was an extremely fun coaster and definetly a surprise favorite for the park.
By this point in the day I was EXHAUSTED, but there was one more coaster we had to ride again. Iron Gwazi. That morning when we first got on I had gotten off with no opinion or thoughts at all, so much had happened and I had had no warm up previously that I insisted we ride it again so I could actually form some sort of opinion on it. As we were waiting in line my friend pointed out a couple of people who were in front of us who had on some amazing kandi singles, I leaned over and complimented and one of them offered me one! They asked if I had been on Velocicoaster to which I informed them that I was going to in a few days and they gave me the most amazing Velocicoaster single ever before they headed to their row to get on Gwazi. Then as we were further up they rushed back and handed my friend a single for Ravine Flyer II, apologizing for not giving them one earlier! Honestly highlight of the day, theres literally nothing more that I love then making new friends in line at theme parks. When it was finally our turn we rode very front seat, which I think did help the head pulling a little bit but I still think they should have headrests but it was still very fun! After getting off we wandered over to the gift shop to see what kind of coaster goodies they had.
I am convinced that Busch Gardens has the best coaster merch out of all the theme parks, I've been to at least one park from each major chain I think now and the best merch has been from Busch Gardens. Personally, I'm a pin collector, even more specifically I collect these little dog tag pins that have the roller coasters on them I've been trying to complete my set for YEARS now and the only coaster I'm missing from BGW is Verbolten. This was my mission while I was at BGT, to see if they had and of these dog tag pins for the coasters at this park. You can find Kumba's online, or at least you could last summer I haven't actually checked this year, but thats literally the ONLY pin from this collection you can find online I have LOOKED. Not only are these not on the merch website but I can't find these pins online PERIOD. Earlier in the day I had found one of these pins for Tigris in a smaller gift shop I had checked out while I was waiting on my friend I hadn't gotten it because I hate buying merch halfway through the day and having to keep track of it and usually you can find all the merch a park has at their front gift shop anyway. This was not the case. Not only was Tigris the only one of that collection I could find but it was also the only LOCATION that had those pins that I saw! I ended up settling for an Iron Gwazi shirt and a couple bumper stickers.
We left very soon after that and we decided to see what kind of food was available nearby, my friend found a place called "Three Coin Diner" and I'm not kidding you should check this place out. I don't know if it was because we were starving and tired after a full day at BGT but that was some of the best diner food I've ever had and I highly recommend going especially after a long day at BGT. My friend got a delicious omlette and I got a patty melt that was to die for. From there we drove another hour over to Orlando and checked into our hotel and FINALLY called it quits on the first day of our theme park marathon.
Marathon Day 2: The Fun-Spots
The next morning my friend and I slept in, we had two parks to hit up today but being much smaller we had all the time in the world. Our first stop after getting breakfast was to Fun-Spot in Kissamee, Fun-Spot is a small chain, two of their locations are around Orlando and the other is in Atlanta, Georgia. (Which I hope to hit up in may when I travel down there for an event!) The Kissamee location is home to three roller coasters, two of which you would find right at home at a traveling faire and the last being their big show piece Mine Blower.
A huge reason that I was able to take this trip was my friend's job, being a tourist spot their job is partnered with a ton of places around Florida where we could get in for free or reduced price! Unfortunetly, the pass that would get us in for free was forgotten at the hotel that morning so I bit the bullet and bought us the wristbands, but with two different go-kart tracks, three coasters, and a few flat rides the 60$ wristbands for all day rides ended up being worth it!
Since it was a Tuesday, and only about 11:30 when we got there the park was very empty, I think there were only about three or four other groups that were in the park with us! We ended up riding Mine Blower first, the corkscrew right above the ride sign really got to me, I'd never ridden a wooden coaster with an inversion before! We got in the front row and ended up being the only people in our train, which I think actually worked against us. The first lift had me very excited, but then halfway down the first drop I could feel my brain rattling around in my skull and I knew I was getting off this coaster with a headache. I couldn't be more dissapointed about this ride, the layout is SUPER cool if it didnt feel like it was trying to turn my brain into a smoothie I thik it'd be an amazing ride. Later that day I heard from a ride-operator at the other Fun-Spot that many riders say that Mine Blower feels like it runs on square wheels and I can't say I disagree.
From there we took a breather to get some water and try to stave off the headache that Mine Blower tried to give us and then made our way to the only other coaster that we could see, Galaxy Spin. Galaxy Spin is a spinning coaster that's had a few homes over the years, in fact one of the ride cars on it still has the decal for its previous name Rockstar Coaster. Spinning coasters have never been my favorite since the spinning is so uncontrolled. I love the tea cups ride but you can control how fast you spin, not so on a coaster and last year when I took a ride on Ragin' Cajun I've been very hesitant about them. Galaxy Spin very happily surprised me though! The spinning wasnt as extreme as I thought it would be and it ended up being my favorite coaster in the park!
From there we did a few of the flat rides, and specifically while we were riding one we caught site of a very cute cat that apparently lives there as they leave out food and water for it. Then hit up one of the larger go-kart track! Very fun overall but I think it went on slightly to long for my tastes, I left the go-karts feeling absolutely exhausted. We wandered around trying to find Hurricane which was the last coaster of the park, which we hadn't been able to catch a glimpse of at all, and at this point we wandered around the old town which Fun-Sopt is attached too, theres a really cool looking year-round haunted house. I'm not really one for haunted houses so we skipped it, but my friend said that theyd heard good things about it! Eventually we had to give up on trying to find Hurricane as it was getting extremely hot and there wasn't much to say for shade here so we left one coaster short.
We took a few hours to collect ourselves, take a nap, and eat the best tacos EVER that was at what seemed like this listtle family owned shop only a couple minuets from our hotel. I unfortunetly can't remember what its called but if you're right next to Universal you can get the best tacos ever for only about 10$. We stopped back at our hotel one more time to drop our leftovers and then headed off to our next Fun-Spot! Located literally three minuets away from our hotel, I'm not sure if this was the original Fun-Spot but it seemed like a much bigger/better taken care of operation. This park only had two coasters but both were excellent.
The first coaster we road was Freedom Flyer, a inverted Vekoma coaster with the new trains. It's very short and we happened to catch them when they were training a new ride-op so loading times were long even though we were usually the only ones riding it. A little boring for a steel coaster in my opinion but it was still very fun! It strangly has a super sentai looking mascot that I think would have scared me as a child but very funny regardless. Certainly made me very excited to ride other Vekoma coasters that have these new trains!
Next up was their only other coaster at the park, White Lightning which was named after a Mountain Dew flavor of all things. Our second wooden roller coaster of the day had us feeling a little nervous after our experience with Mine Blower, but the fears were unfounded. This coaster is top teir, super comfortable, fun layout, one of my favorite wooden roller coasters of all time.
We spent the rest of our trip here reriding the coasters again and again, it was the perfect temperature and no humidity couldnt have asked for anything better. We also took our time to try out the other flat rides they had, including a double decker carousel! My mom had talked about those when I was a kid and I had always wanted to ride one, but if I ever saw one out and about it was always closed down for matinence. I had much better luck here and got to ride on the second level of the ride! We stayed for a couple hours before heading back to our hotel room to get some sleep. We had our biggest day of the trip tomorrow.
Marathon Day 3: Universal
Universal was the park I was the second most excited to go to during this trip. My family wasn't one to to take us to theme parks thousands of miles away from our home for a vacation so this was the first time I'd gotten to go to one of the "big" theme parks that everyone talks about when you bring up you like going to theme parks. The hotel my friend and I were staying in was actually only about three minuets away from Universal, literally a left turn and across the street was the gate, so our hotel actually had a Universal rep desk that you could book tickets from for the same price of getting them online. You could also board a tram that would take you over there, which had been our orginal plan but the first tram had filled by the time we went downstairs so we drove over (the guy at the desk also said we could walk but my disabled ass has a time limit for how long I can walk without needing a cane so I wasn't doin that shit).
Now the start to the day ended up being VERY stressful for me because as we're waiting for the gate person to take my friends card for parking they dropped their card in the window slot of my car, thankfully they had another card they could use but OHHH BOY not a great start, also during the chaos that happened because of that they put the reciept for parking on top of their park ticket and then forgot so when we got to the main gate we realized they didnt have their ticket. Thankfully since I bought the tickets we were able to get a replacment for them very easily from the ticket vendor. Thank god that ended up being the most stressful part of the day.
We started out on the Isles of Adventure side of Universal and beelined to straight for Velocicoaster. The line was actually not bad at all, or at least not bad for what I expected I think we still waited for just under an hour or an hour. So so so so worth it oh my god, people are not over-hyping this coaster. The launches feel so good, the theming the the paddock is so pretty, if I didn't have more rides I had wanted to go on I would have ridden Velocicoaster all day. The only thing that I wasn't that into was Chris Pratt in the intro video before the loading zone but thats more on me and the beef I have with him.
From there we actually didnt bee-line it for another ride immediately, I had heard about the meet and greet with a Velociraptor and the next showtime was only about 20 minuets out so I made us get in line for that. Being both a dino nerd and a furry I very much wanted to check out the costume they had, we were also treated with a baby velociraptor puppet that I thought was just adorable, and an amazing detail of a fake glove on the baby velociraptors chest so the puppetier could work the mouth while not giving away thats what was happening. The full size costume was amazing, a little stiff in the arms but thats me nit-picking it was so cool to see. After that very breif stop we moved onto our next ride, The Hulk Coaster.
Since we had gotten park hopper passes we figured we'd take the train from one park to ther other after riding everything we wanted to in Islands of Adventure, so instead of going to the much closer Harry Potter land first we made our way over to Hulk, on our way we saw the Spiderman ride and hopped in line.....right as it broke down dissapointing since Spiderman is my favorite superhero but we figured we could hit this after Hulk so we put our stuff in a locker and got in line for Hulk. The queue in there is very bizzare, a big circular room with a big gamma reacotor in the middle and many screens around the room where you can see the same five people get turned into their own hulk creature over and over again. The ride itself was fun! The lift hill was a drive-tire lift just like Freedom Flyer from the previous night, the only difference was that it kicked it into overdrive 3/4ths of the way up. Definetly a little head-bangy, but nothing that ruined the ride for me. We ended up sitting down for a little bit under the lift hill of hulk right next to the exit. Its a great place for some shade and getting some really cool photos of the coaster. We got our stuff back and hopped back in line for the Spiderman ride since it was back up. The queue has a custom animated cartoon running through the queue and lots of tie in easter eggs as you walk around the daily bugle. Ride itself was pretty fun darkride and a great break from the heat outside. Getting off the ride we decided it was time for lunch so we walked back to Jurrassic Park where we went to their sit down resturant and ordered food and I got an amazing (and overpriced) souvaniere cup in the shape of a T-rex. I have named him Daryl.
So heres something about me, I hate Harry Potter, so I was not actually that thrilled to go to Harry Potter world. My friend was in the same boat as me, but we sucked it up and went since it had a coaster there. Finding Hagrid's Magical Creatures Motercycle Adventure was not as simple as I thought it was going to be, there were so many people walking through that it wasn't as simple as following the crowd but we eventually got pointed in the correct direction and got in line. The themeing throughout the castel was very nicely done and honestly I was just impressed with the fact that with so many props being within arms reach that it was in such good condition as usually if theres a prop someone can touch I see it just destroyed within a season or so. While the magic of being in hogwarts wasn't that much of a big deal to me the most exciting thing was spotting the dueling club logo on the wall that was put in as a tribute to Deuling Dragons. After what actually ended up being a pretty short wait we got to the front and actually got lucky enough to get the front row car! The loading system was the same as Cobra's Curse at Busch Gardens, Universal actually used this system on a few rides in the park which really surprised me since I hadn't seen anything like it until this trip. I got on the motercycle and my friend took the sidecar, thankfully we didnt even have to fight over who got what seat. While I hate to admit this about a Harry Potter attraction, this ride is GOOD. The multi launches, the backwards section, A DROP TRACK? WOO OH MY GOD. Plus leaning forward to grip the handle bars of the motercycle actually is VERY comfortable which I was not confident if it was actually going to be like that or not since launch coasters usually fling you back into your seat and if you lean forward you end up with a bad neck ache later. Amazing ride would have loved to ride it again if we didnt have a few more rides to get to. Most notably near by was the little family coaster Flight of the Hippogriffs, now I still a month later don't know how we did this but somehow my friend and I got confused while trying to find the enterence for the coaster and instead got in line for the Hogwarts darkride. I still actually dont know what that ride is called. It took us an embarressingly long time to realize our mistake, and by that I mean we got up to the loading zone, saw the conveyor belt and turned to eachother and went "What are we in line for?. Actually was a very fun darkride with lots of cool animatronics, the dementors were actually scary so I do have to reccomend the ride. After we got off we DID find the right enterence to Flight of the Hippogriff, but the line ended up being so long that we bailed on it so we could still get on the train and go ride Rip Ride Rocket.
The Hogwarts Express is NOT worth it. You can walk from park to park in about 10 minuets, trying to take the train eats up about an hour and a half, and since we were riding from Hogwarts to Diagon Alley the magical little video they show you had us pulling into the bleakest looking England ever which only served to be kinda funny. We still had a little time left so we took a detour into Diagon Alley, which was BEAUTIFULLY themed I didnt expect that level of immersion going into it. We headed over to Escape from Gringots which was another ride I kept hearing about since it opened up years ago. The animatronics they have in there are very impressive looking but I can't see the goblins anymore without just seeing antisemetic caricatures. Unfortunetly we got placed in the back car of a train, which means that my blind ass could barely see anything going on, in fact I completely missed that Voldemort and Bellatrix were in the first scene all together. The best part of it was when we got back to the station the ride ops asked if we wanted to ride again and let us hop into the front row of our car, which I had a slightly easier time seeing the second go through, which really saved this ride. I think all in all this was an imppressive ride a few years ago but now with the Hogwarts dark ride in the other park I'd say this is a skip from me if I ever go back.
From there we hopped over to the Simpsons land which I had heard was getting closed soon, weather or not this is true is yet to be seen, but I wanted to check out the ride before it was gone for good just incase. The queue for that ride is insane, its like three stories of switchbacks which nowadays is absolutely not needed, as we literally walked onto the ride. Very simple simulator darkride, I'm glad I went on! The graphics are reminecent of the game Simpsons Hit-and-Run which was a favorite of mine as a kid, and honestly the intro to the ride when your taken up a wooden coaster actually was still pretty impressive and immersive. After we got off we beelined it to Rip Ride Rocket, we were really cutting it close since after this we were going to attempt to run BACK over to Jurrassic Park to ride Velocicoaster one more time. I was happy to hear that this ride was actually open since I had also heard that this one was down for matienence only a few weeks before my trip. The gimmick of being able to pick a song to listen to was pretty fun ! My friend and I agreed to listen to "I Will Survive" by Gloria Gaynor which I thought was the funniest option to listen to on a roller coaster. The coaster itself was pretty good, unfortunetly my least favorite of the day but it was still a good coaster! After we got off we ran back to Jurrassic Park, foregoing the Hogwarts Express back, we got on the coaster just in time for the sunset, it was absolutely beautiful and the best way to end the day. We ended up getting dinner at the Margarittaville on property before heading back to our hotel to get some sleep before we ended our theme park marathon with SeaWorld.
Marathon Day 4: Sea-World and a Surprise Revisit
The next day we woke up and checked out of our hotel then immediately headed over to SeaWorld, unfortunetly we didn't beat the initial rush at the parking gate so we had to sit in that line for like half and hour before we actually got into the park. I had never been toa SeaWorld before which was actually quite a shock to me because I was so sure I had been to one when I was extremely young, like 3 or 4, turns out that had been MarineLand in Niagra Falls... Anyway after we got into the park we headed right over to Manta. And I gotta hand it it was so smart to make the aquarium available during the queue. Nothing is better than being in a cool enviornment looking at fish while waiting in line. I just hope the noise isn't to bad for the critters. We got up to the loading zone and I gasped in shock when I realized that this was a flying coaster. I had figured it was just an invert, I had only been on one other flying coaster before this trip and that was Batwing from Six Flags America, a fine ride that I did actually like, but I did find a little uncomfortable as you went up the lift hill (my head was just at the right height to rest on a crease in the seat that was pretty awful). Manta on the other hand you loaded into like an invert and then were put into the flying position before leaving the station. The restraints they used also made it much more comfortable to rest belly down. I had an amazing time on this coaster that first loop was incredible. My friend also very much enjyed it but being 4'10" found that the wind would get knocked out of them during the first loop so something to keep in mind if you're on the shorter side.
From there we made our way over to Mako, a hyper coaster that was all in all very similar to Apollo's Chariot ! Very fun ride, I very much reccomend wearing a shirt that is NOT a crop top, I foolishly wore one to the park and spent the entire ride holding it down so the coaster wouldn't steal it from me. Would have loved to ride that one again but agian.... the shirt choice.... We got some lunch after that, we didnt really see any actual sit down resturants to we made do with some of the around the world options they had set up for the event they had going on. While we were eating I took a look at the map and realized we had missed out on Kraken which had been tucked away in a corner away from the main circle of the park, so we decided to make our way to Icebreaker and circle around to that one on the way back. Of course when we got to Icebreaker we ran into the ONLY coaster that was shut down for matience of our entire trip. Slightly dissapointed in realizing that I wasn't going to be able to experience it we started walking the long way around towards Kraken.
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Why would we take the long way around? Well while Pipeline wasn't (and still isn't as of writing this section) open yet, it IS fully constructed so I just had to get some pictures of it. Fully worth having to break out my cane for the rest of our stay here.
We finally got around to Kraken which is just a gorgeous coaster with some really cool monster tentacle props around the ride. I had an excellent time on the floorless coaster but my friend said that it was very head-bangy once again keep in mind if you're on the shorter side I guess. We ended up riding twice, I would have ridden more but my friend had had enough. We had ridden all the available coasters at that point so we made a quick stop at their manatee exibhit where they house baby manatees that will be released back in the wild once they reach 600lbs. I'm not a fan of SeaWorld's animal shows, but in this quite part of the park it was really nice and the animals all looked very well taken care of. We headed back to the front and road Manta again before getting back in the car, but we weren't going to Miami quite yet.
While we were at Fun Spot Orlando we had lamented to a ride op and a fellow enthusiest, who was going to Fun Spot Kissamee the next day, that we had been unable to find Hurricane duing our trip there earlier in the day. Only to have the guy literally pull out his phone and find it on google maps. So after SeaWorld we headed back over to Kissamee and redeemed that forgotten pass from the other day to finally tackle Hurricane. No wonder we hadn't found it a couple days ago, unlike Fun-Spot Orlando where all the rides are in the same area, Kissamee is split up into two or maybe even three different spots (there was a ferris wheel in another different area that we didn't even go towards) by the olde town. Walking through the little strip we found a crystal shop that my friend had wanted to go to when we first came but hadn't been able to find we ducked in. Standard little crystal shop but I ended up finding Moldivite which is a small little green gemstone that is only found in one spot in the world becuase it was contained in a meteor that crashed to earth. My roomate has wanted some for AGES and finding some for as cheap as they were selling it was so rare that I instantly snatched up a piece. My friend had selected two bracelets that had little fish vertibre in it for us to have as friendship braclets. Once we checked out we headed over to the coaster, which is a Hi-Miler model, something you'd generally see at a state faire.
So going back to the moldevite for a second, the reason my roomate had wanted some so bad was about a year or so ago they saw someone on tiktok with moldevite earrings and they had blamed getting them for their life falling apart. My roomie thought that was crazy and wanted to see what moldevite would do for them, so thats sitting in the back of my head with the little rock sitting in my pocket. The ride operater tells us that we can sit anywhere on the cart just not the middle seats because the seat belt was broken (of which he remarked "oh they must have fixed it" upon looking at the seats but I digress.) We sit in the very front and right as we get going the song "Hotel California" by the Eagles comes on over the radio crystal clear. I'm not gonna lie, kinda thought those were all signs and that I was gonna die on this little coaster Final Destination style. Thankfully it was fine! Servicable little coaster but I dont think I'll ever ride that particular ride again simply because of the anxiety I had.
From there we went back to the main park and rode Galaxy Spin one last time before bidding goodbye to our theme park trip. Part of me wished that it could have been longer but the other part was so relieved that I was done walking around all day in the hot Florida heat. We spent a few days recovering, we got lunch at a boardwalk and went on an airboat tour that weekend and I left to go back home on Tuesday! Florida was such a beautiful state and I'm so happy I got to spend like the perfect vacation with one of my best friends ever. I don't think I could have asked for anything better!