I set the alarm for 6:45 a.m. because today is Busch Gardens day with my friend, Carol. I make a quick pot of coffee, scarf down an energy bar, and I head out the door a little after 7 a.m. toward Carol's house in North Fort Myers. We are on the road by 7:45 and make it into Busch Gardens about 10:00 a.m.
We park ($14) and ride the tram to the entrance. At one of the self-serve kiosks, Carol exchanges he e-ticket for a day pass ($80), and I buy my day pass along with an all-you-can-eat (AYCE) food pass for an additional $30. It's called the "All Day Dining Deal." With each pass through the food line, you can get one entree, one side item (or dessert) and one soft beverage (no beer, which is served as most food venues -- Anheuser-Busch products, of course!). You can go through the line as many times as you want, but each time you get 1/1/1 on the food items.
My Chase Visa card is rejected (more on this later), so I use my Union Bank and Trust debit card.
Once inside the park, our goal is to ride five roller coasters:
- Cheetah Hunt (the newest roller coaster at the park)
- Montu
- SheiKra
- Kumba
- Scorpion
- Gwazi (wood roller coaster)
After Cheetah Hunt, we are both hungry, so we go the Colony Cafe, one of the eateries, for lunch. I decide to buy Carol an AYCE pass, also. I try to buy it with my Chase Visa, and again the purchase is declined, so I know something is up. I use my debit card again. They put our wrist bands on us, and we are all set. I get a BBQ pork sandwich with fries, cheesecake, and a diet Coke. Carol gets a chicken Caesar salad and a water. I go to the food line and get a coffee to go with my cheesecake, and it's not too bad coffee, much better than the Nescafe crap they serve at Disney.
Next, we hit the Montu, because it is very close to the Cheetah run. This is a very fun coaster where the floor drops out once you are seated on the ride, known in the parlance as a suspended roller coaster. This is so fun, we decide to ride it again.
Next up is SheiKra, but I notice no cars are moving on the coaster, and as we approach we learn the coaster is down and they are trying to fix it. So we shift gears and head over to the Kumba roller coaster (very fun) and we walk the grounds for a while, which are very beautiful.
I am hungry again, so we wander into the nearest cafeteria, which is the Desert Grill. I have a corn beef and Swiss on rye with a side of potato salad, a slice of chocolate mousse cake, and diet Coke, and Carol as a taco salad with chicken, and a water. When we are finished with our email, I ask Carol if she will pardon me for a little while so I can call up Chase bank and find out what's up my credit card.
She helps me read the 800-number on the back of the card (it's so small I can see it!). I finally get a hold of a human being, and find out the card has been revoked. REVOKED! I ask who revoked it, and the guy transfers me to another guy, and he tell me that Chase revoked the card because they "were informed" on March 6 that Gwen -- in whose name the account is -- has passed away.
Gee, that only took them 2-1/2 years to figure out!
So first the guy says he's sorry about Gwen and all that. Next, he tells me they must do the application for this credit card over again, using MY credit report information rather than Gwen's. I think I am screwed. But the guy says he will life the revoke on the card for the next 30 days while they make their credit decision so that I can continue to use the card while I am on vacation. So this should be interesting.
Next, Carol and I catch a show at the Desert Grill, called "Burn the Floor" which starts at 4:30. They have a dozen or so live dancers (6 male, 6 female) from all over the world doing a variety of dances, from the 1920s Charleston to Flamenco, and everything in between. There are 2 live drummers on stage, but the rest of the musical background is a recorded soundtrack. It is a great little show, very high energy, and the dancers come out in front of the stage afterward to shake hands and take pictures with people. They are so sweaty, they are toweling themselves off with paper towels. Carol is so damned excited by the show, that she requests (and is granted) hugs from all the male dancers. I just shake their hands. The dancers leave, and now Carol will not have her chocolate chip cookie she was going to have because she feels self-conscious after seeing all those slender female dancers.
We go outside, and view an attraction called the "Cheetah Run" in which they have a live Cheetah demonstrate his speed by running a course chasing after a rabbit (or some kind of stuffed animal) that is mounted on a moving mechanism, similar to what they do at greyhound races. I kind of feel sorry for the Cheetah, reduced to performing 3 times a day for food, but damn the animal is certainly beautiful as it runs the course. I snag a guy to take a photo of Carol and I by the attraction:
We decided to pass on Scorpion (a minor roller coaster in comparison with the rest) and also Gwazi. Gwazi is cool, especially if you are into the old classic wooden roller coasters, but with the "old" technology, the ride has a lot of side-to-side jarring, and of course they can't do the inverted loops and rolls and so forth because of the limits of the old-fashioned tracks. So we decided our time would be better spent riding SheiKra multiple times.
By this time, it getting on 6:30, and the park closes at 7 p.m., so we start heading for the entrance. We make a quick stop at one of the gift shops, and I pick up a small gift for Dawn that I cannot resist. We drive the 2.5 hours back to Fort Myers. I drop Carol off, then head back to the condo. By this time, it is 10 p.m. There is a new episode of Pawn Stars on tonight, but I am too tired to watch. I take a nice hot shower to get the sweat and suncreen off me, and I head to bed.
A very enjoyable day all around, and the weather was gorgeous, too!
Expenses: park admission, food, parking, souvenir: $164
Bruce
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