Wednesday 6th December, 2006;
Day after the wedding, We had planned to head over to Seaworld today around midday to meet the rest of the Foster Family clan! So we got up and had a leisurely breakfast over at the Boardwalk bakery! Today was another gorgeous day with the sun shining.
We jumped into a taxi and headed off to Seaworld. We got there a little early so we had a wander through the gift shop….Oh ok then we headed to the Budweiser hospitality tent!
So we sat out in the sunshine having a nice cold drink it was almost time to meet the rest of the family. We had arranged to meet by the dolphin pool, now when we got over there I didn’t realise that unless you pay extra money now days you don’t get that close to the dolphins, you have to stand done one end of the pool whilst the people with food stand at the other end – the dolphins aren’t stupid – there like my family if theres food on offer – that’s where they go!! I was disappointed in this thought its another typical way to get more money out of yo but never mind. We spotted my family taking some photos at the other end of the Dolphin pool so we headed over. There was one set of my grandparents (My mums parents) and My Uncle(mums brother) and my aunt and the 2 kids, Andrew 9 and Robbie 3. As soon as we met up with them we headed straight over to do Kraken – now Andrew was actually tall enough to go on this and looked like he really wanted to but his mum is a little over protective and didn’t want him to go on. After some good old uncomfortable temper tantrums from Andrew he got his way and we started to walk through the queue. When the wait time said 10 minutes – they quite clearly meant the 10 minute walk to get to the queue! We got straight on the next coaster! I was fully expecting Andrew to hate this ride, and to be scared the whole way round – what I wasn’t expecting is my uncle – the 42 year old self confessed “tough londener” to be so green when he got off it that he could pass for Shrek!
(He has funny ears!!) Andrew loved the ride!
We got off and headed straight for Journey to Atlantis – My 74 year old Grandad LOVES this ride! I find it quite amusing that he keeps trying to talk my Nan into going on it and she keeps saying “act your age Alec”
When we were queueing up I managed to get a seat in the middle of the boat – My Uncle and Andrew volunteered to sit up front as they didn’t believe you would get wet….and it would have been rude of me to correct them.
After the big drop they turned round and said see we didn’t get wet…I just laughed and said its not over yet! For those of you that have been on it you’ll know it’s the little drop that getd you soaked…and they did get soaked – another boat came down the big drop and they got all the splash from that too!!
We looked at the time and noticed the Shamu show was on in 30 mins so we wandered over to the stadium and got pretty good seats. Everyone really loved the show… well those who hadn’t been before the rest of us were a little disappointed, we thought the previous one was better. As my Dad said “not enough Whale!”. I thought it was too much about the trainers etc.
We then wanted to get some lunch but as always no one could decide where we should eat so we went our separate ways and arranged to meet back at the Clyde and Seamore show. We went over to the Budweiser hospitality area (years of not being able to drink legally in Florida I was making up for lost time!) I had a sandwich which was huge but lovely! We went through and saw the Clydesdales before heading back to Clyde and Seamore. Now id seen this show before and knew there would be a mime in there taking the mick out of poor unsuspecting tourists…..so I did not want to be late getting in there. Id rather laugh at other people than have them laugh at me!!! But noooo people had to go find some restrooms yadda yadda yadda and so we were late! It was pretty full when we got there and I could see my family right at the other side at the top so I knew I would have to walk past the mime guy!
Thankfully I managed to run past and get up to my seat whilst he was pre occupied with someone else! Phew!
We watched the show which was pretty good – I find this kind of like the Jungle Cruise at MK if you get someone who’s good and got a good sense of humour its great! Otherwise its just average! Luckily we had really good people this time. After that we had a walk around, check out the stingrays, and the penguins. The rest of the family were fascinated to see the manatees as they had never seen them before. After this we headed off back to the hotel.
We had a reservation at Le Cellier tonight and i was really looking forward to eating here as id heard so many fab reviews! We all had the Cheddar Soup and i had the mushroom filet - it was yummy!! We were too full for dessert so we said no to that, 10 mins later our waitress came out with a chocolate dessert with congratulations written over the plate in chocolate and a "magical moments" card signed by the staff. It was yummy but very rich! We watched Illuminations - not quite as good a view as we had at the wedding lol but it will always have those great memories. After that we headed back to the hotel - we were exhausted!