KickTheSky's Florida Coaster Pilgramage Pt 1 -SWO

Well, I returned yesterday from the sunny, well rainy, state of Florida and have just now gotten through my thousands of emails and I can now share my experiences of my now yearly coaster trip to Florida.  My non coaster riding wife and I flew down on the Friday before the Daytona 500.  First mistake.  The weekend was considered by most Floridians as the most busy weekend in Florida because of Daytona and Presidents Day weekend and all the east coast schools being on break.  Luckily for us, just about everyone started going home around Tuesday and it didnt ruin our whole trip. 

We decided to do a time share package to make things cheaper for our trip this year.  If any of you are offered a timeshare visit package to do Orlando DONT DO IT!!!  There were so many hidden charges, not to mention that we wasted an entire day viewing the timeshare because they could only get us in at noon to view it after being promised over the phone before we left a morning viewing. 

Anyways, we met up with my brother in law and his girlfriend who flew down the day before and on Saturday did our first park, Seaworld Orlando.

We were originally supposed to do our timeshare on this morning but we ended up being scheduled for a Tuesday afternoon instead.  Seaworld was planned in the anticipation of a short day because of the viewing.  Instead we spent the entire day there. 

Seaworld is a great park if you are into sealife like I am.  My second hobby is scuba so seeing fishes and such was really neat.  I especailly love coming here to do the stingray pool and feeding the rays.

One other thing I love here is Kraken.  I rode this one for the first time last year but only got two laps on it.  Now remember I was talking about the crowds around Orlando this weekend.  It seems that none of them wanted to visit SeaWorld.  Good for me!  My wife waited patiently as me, my brother in law and his girlfriend put in about 10 laps on this puppy, all walk on, two from the front, six from the back and the rest from the middle.  This thing was running smoother than I ever remember it running.  The camelback inversion was so much better than I had remembered and is now my favorite B&M inversion.  This ride is all good, no bad. 

We only took one lap on Journey to Atlantis because it was cold out but the look of suprise on my brother in law's face was worth getting wet and freezing.   He was suprised by the little drop after the main drop and also the roller coaster ending.  This is still my favorite water ride in the world, even after riding Dudley this trip.

Anyways, I will be wrting more about this trip in the days to come.  Still to come, IOA, Universal, & Busch Tampa!

BTW for you Florida Coaster Club members out there, you may be getting another member soon.  The last two days we were there it rained all day, making Theme Parks impossible.  We spent the day instead looking at new homes!!!

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Bob Hansen

"Excuse me while I kick the sky!"
kickthesky@hotmail.com

We would be glad to have you down here! I spent those two rainy days doing IOA but gave up each day around 2:00.
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Joey Ciborek, Florida Coaster Club, Member
www.FloridaCoasterClub.com
"WE RIDE ALL YEAR!"