Another Weekend in Florida
Allegiant Air was running another promo for flights to Florida and there was a Thursday flight down to Orlando for $29 and returning flight on Sunday for $69. That indeed was the perfect excuse so I rounded up a couple of my friends and off we went. We got there late Thursday night and went to Daytona Beach to stay with my friend Aleksey at a house across the road from the beach.
On Friday we went to the beach for a bit and then I took my friends on a grand tour of Daytona and my school. Afterwards we got back together with Aleksey and his roommate to go down to Ponce Inlet for some grilling, swimming, and volleyball action. As usual, I got eaten alive by the bugs down there and next morning was covered in red bite marks all over. Talking about next morning, we walk up early on Saturday and drove down to Orlando to visit Aquatica and SeaWorld.
Aquatica turned out to be somewhat of a disapointment. It is hyped up to be a great park, built by none else but SeaWorld; however, there are very few rides and some of the park design is seriously flawed. The road leading to the entry gates splits at one point and even though the signs say that all lanes are open for all cars, most people get confused and go to the right of the split creating a traffic jam while the three or four lanes to the left of the split are completely empty. Another cool idea turned into a horrible experience is the entrance to the funnel slides (Tassie’s Twisters). To get in line, one must first get into the lazy river, get the tube, and then float down to the ride entrance. By the time we got there, the queue was overflowing into the lazy river and there was such a scramble for tubes at the entrance to the lazy river that we just turned around and left. We did ride the rest of the rides and there were not that impressive either. I guess the most fun one was the Wahanau Way. It also helped that there were four slides there so the queue was moving along quite fast.
Afterwards we went to Seaworld and were able to catch most of the shows starting with the new A’lure, then Believe, Clyde and Seamore, and Sea lions Tonight. In-between the shows we explored the Shark Encounter, Wild Arctic, Penguin Encounter, and the Pacific Pointe Reserve with sea lions and harbor seals. We finished up by riding the Kraken, getting wet at the Journey to Atlantis ride and followed it up by the new Mantra ride. Even though it took us an hour to get on Mantra, it was awesome. The twists and turns felt like we were flying in a jet fighter. And to top it off, the fireworks started going off just when we were going through the last loops. It was an amazing sight!
Afterwards we stopped by at the Margaritaville at Universal City Walk for some dinner and drinks. Next day we did not have much time before our flight back so we just hit up the beach for the last time and then Aleksey’s roommate Kenny drove us back to the airport. Another good weekend in Florida! Unfortunately, none of us remembered to bring our cameras so no cool pictures this time around…