Day 1 - Sea World

Up early!  Not good.  Keith and I were awake by 4.15am, quickly followed by both kids!  Sat for a while chatting, then decided to try and get some more sleep.  Keith and Sarah managed a bit more, I sat playing Candy Crush and reading the online news, and Stephen was apparently chatting online to his friend, Ed, and showing him round the villa on his iphone!!!
Gave up about 7 and headed back out for a swim. Lovely! Watched some hot air balloons floating over the villa.
We were planning an early breakfast if we woke early and get to seaworld for opening, 9am, but the water in the pool kept us longer than we had anticipated so !  Had breakfast at Ponderosa, bit of a tradition now!  Food and buffet area seems to have had a bit of a revamp and it was much nicer than we had expected but also slightly more expensive than we remembered.  Being a help yourself buffet we all over ate!

Keith - Eggs benedict, breakfast pizza and corned beef hash amongst other stuff"

Feeling bloated we eventually headed to SeaWorld and arrived about 10.  It was already feeling very warm.  After completing the sun cream applications we decided to try and get Manta (flying rollercoaster) done before the crowds started to arrive.  Despite the sign saying 10 min queue, after walking through the queue line, past the ray exhibits, we arrived at the station to find no queue.  We were sent to the back row.  Now this is not one of my favourite coasters, I like the concept, but find the g forces make me a bit dizzy and I was a bit worried that I had just eaten a huge breakfast!  But it was fine, once is definately enough for me tho, I enjoyed it but the others loved it.  Coming back out of the Manta buildings the sun felt really strong so we decided to head for a show.  The 11 o'clock show of Clyde and Seamore was due to start shortly so we went there to watch the pre show mime artist that always makes us laugh as he takes the mickey out of later arrivals who are totally oblivious to what is going on behind their backs.  Show itself was great.  I do always enjoy the Seaworld shows and despite knowing what the story line was it still made me laugh out loud.

Another ride was the next choice, so we headed in the direction of Kraken, altho we did stop on route to see how long the queue was for Journey to Atlantis - the thought of a quick soaking on the ride was quite appealing, however we decided that with a wait time of 30 mins we would do Kraken first.  Again a very short queue (10 mins) so we decided to wait a few extra minutes for the back row.  By now we were really feeling the heat of the day - expected to be around 33/34 degrees - and made use of the fans along the queue line to cool off.  This ride was much more my thing!

A quick stop for ice creams/Slushy  before we went to Pets Ahoy an indoor, air conditioned show!! with dogs, cats, rat, skunk etc showing off learned behaviours.  I love this show, it always makes me smile. 

On leaving, we were all beginning to tire with the heat and they early start so we decided to walk through/by some animal attractions on our way out.  We stopped at the Manatees, the Dolphin underwater viewing area, and the ray pool before a quick stop in the shops.  We were back at the car by 1.30 and decided to change the plan again and head straight back to the villa for a swim.  We did stop at Target first to stock the villa with drinks, and also got a polystyrene box for storing cold drinks iñ the car.  

We had a lovely relaxed afternoon swimming in the pool. There were a lot a storms in the area and we had spent most of the afternoon watching the lightning in the distance.  It eventually got to us at about 5pm with torrential rain and terrific thunder and lightning.

When the weather cleared up we set of for our shopping trip to the Nike outlet on US192.  Stephen said he had spotted one of the office staff from school in there.  Sure enough a few minutes later while Keith was trying on some t-shirts we spotted this lady again - she smiled and said she thought it was my son she had seen and how bizarre it was meeting people you knew out here!

Dinner tonight was Denny's.  We weren't all that hungry so we order two sharing appetisers, one with mozzarella sticks, onion rings and chicken strips and one a big plate of chilli nachos.  Keith and I shared a Philly Melt with seasoned fries. Yummy!!

Back to the villa where the kids fell asleep in front of the TV.

Will add some pool pictures later.

Busch Gardens tomorrow (weather permitting - there are thunderstorms forecast!)