Photo TR: St Petersburg, Florida 8/7 - 8/14

dandaman

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
So my sister was all settled in at college, and we still had a day to kill before our flight.

I never thought my parents would go for it, considering my dad’s recent back surgery and all.

“Where do you want to go today?”

“How ‘bout Busch Gardens?”

“Sure.”

“Say WHAT?!”

If you didn’t grasp the dripping sarcasm from the second sentence of this TR, then here you go. Welcome to:

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I think I’ll do mostly animal pics first.

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Say it with me: Watoosi!

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Connor’s uncle seems a bit lazy this morning…

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…LMAO! He’s still here from my trip LAST August!

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dandaman

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
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ZOOBOOMAFOO!

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Watch out, the camels spit…

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I wonder if zebras neigh like horses.

Only one way to find out…

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…HERR BLUCHER!

…Nothin’.

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Somebody’s 40!

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…All right, who wants to go on rides now?

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dandaman

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
Kumba had literally no wait, so I headed straight for the front and got the whole first train of the day to myself!

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There used to be a coaster here, but it was torn down late last year… this is now the first coaster “credit” I have that no longer exists. Boo ya!

(‘Course you should know by now that construction pics are like the Holy Grail around theme park sites.)

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So my mom and I went on the log flume, which she claimed was the best ride of the day. Even I have to admit, for a log flume with no real themeing, it was pretty good! (I gave my dad “his” camera back… didn’t even know he took these!)

“Lower your head, and if you can’t, lower your voice; this is a family attraction!”

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Typical… while I’m on a ride, I’m looking at a different ride altogether longing to be on THAT one.

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OMG blurry splashdown!

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Great food to be had here.

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rawr

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This ride could be made better… somehow…

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…Well, I bet Dot knows how.

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dandaman

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
Rhino Rally is basically Kilimanjaro Safaris, but less jerky and more fun. Even has a surprise “river” portion, of which I’m still marvelling at the technology of this.

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Cheetah Chase is a typical Wild Mouse… so naturally, it’s pretty much the second of maybe 4 things my mom would be willing to ride here!

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…Ow! My head hit the ^%#$()!)% bar!

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…But it looks like I’ve forgotten about it already! (Possibly a direct result.)

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Katonga. Very much like Festival of the Lion King, but with more puppetry and humour. Go see it. Now.

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The Desert Grill is where my parents mostly hung out while I was on all the rides in the area. They have a montage of American stage songs pretty much every hour with impersonators (Cher was hilarious). Later in the day, they had a comedic juggler, who for some reason reminded me of Dane Cook. (Matched enthusiasm, not swearing every other sentence.) Even better than spoofing Cher!

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And now for something completely different. My favourite pic of the trip.

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Scorpion is like every other one of the manufacturer’s rides: Small, but unusually fun and surprisingly smooth for what it is.

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dandaman

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
Our final ride of the day is one of my top 5 favourite coasters: SheiKra!

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Basically, you sit in rows of 8 across, go up, turn a slow 180, get held above and plummet down a 200-foot completely vertical drop, and do a lot of other funky stuff. Only 3 of this type of ride in the world. Between my last visit and this one, they’ve taken out the floors on this sucker, so now your feet either dangle out the side of the track, or are threatened to be chewed up by it.

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Everybody SCREAM!

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*ZOOM*

…What I wouldn’t give for that empty seat on the end.

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Second drop

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There’s also a surprise element thrown in…

…RUUUUUUN!

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…If I’d known what would happen a couple hours from then, this wouldn‘t even have mattered.
 

dandaman

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
The park closed at 8:00 tonight, as opposed to the usual 5:00 in the off-season. I’d just gotten off of Montu, the one coaster that I naturally had no pics of. Suddenly, some typical, rather heavy Florida rain showers start moving through. “OK,” I thought, “we’ll just wait this out. Can’t be more than a half-hour.”

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…So all’s good looking west, right?

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…Until this one showed up. Taken about 10 seconds after the last pic, looking north… and as luck would have it, the winds are headed south.

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Folks, I’ll be honest: This thing even had me pretty nervous. Lightning every 5 seconds striking all around you, with little to no delay for the thunder to hit. We hid under the ticket booth canopy for an hour, and it was just getting worse, so we were just about to run for the parking tram. Bad idea. Lightning struck a rod (thankfully), literally 20 feet away. No pictures of the bolt, but taking video, I got various screen captures of the sky:

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I couldn’t hear myself think over all the rain.

…The RAIN. Within the hour (around 9, just before we ran for the tram), the road flooded over the curb.

Anyway, we finally made a run for the tram, got right on, got dropped off… now came the matter of running to the car, waaaaaaaaay out in the middle of the lot. Most of the other cars had already left, so it felt like a gauntlet challenge trying to make it to the car without being struck down by God. FYI, the FLAT parking lot’s water level was past the top of my shoes by this time. Needless to say I was glad I had an extra pair of shoes for the return flight the next day.

So it took us about 45 minutes to get back to the hotel. The rain stopped instantly when we hit downtown Tampa, which was rather odd in itself, but that happens all the time in Florida. Now comes the fun part: It followed us straight across the causeway back to the hotel. It’s exactly 10:00. Literally 4 seconds after we got into our room (keep in mind it’s an open-air style hotel, which rather enhanced the lightning… again), the power went out.

Thankfully there was a roof over the walkway past our first-floor room, so now, since my mom’s nerves were totally shot, I had the brilliant idea to go get ice. (You can start yelling at me now.) 2 seconds after loading up the bucket, there was another bolt… and I sincerely believe it was directly over my head. Like I said, thank goodness for grounding wires. The force of the thunder caused me to slip on the water and fall over… THAT was fun. I can only compare it to the July 4th fireworks at Epcot… pretty much thundering you to the very core.

Before anyone asks, yes, I dropped the ice, but I went back for a refill. Hey, I was still 5 feet away from the machine!

Got back to the room for good. Power went out 10 minutes later, and 15 after that, the whole thing was over. Less than 3 hours had passed, but good Lord, it seemed longer.

So to end today’s surreal experience, I leave you with two videos of the mini-Apocalypse. Enjoy.



 

dandaman

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
Well, I hate to end the update like this, but that’s what I get for not taking enough pictures. (Kidding!)

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Going back home was a fair bit more turbulent than the flight down. Obviously I’m alive to tell you the story (and after last night, that‘s something to be celebrated), so it was fine. The oddest part was realizing that the small, long lake down below was Lake Erie! Regrettably I was on the left side of the plane, and Cedar Point was barely on the opposite side. Even weirder was making the wide circle just over Detroit for final approach, and I could actually see my house from the air.

And a quarter of an hour later, it’s over!

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Please gather all personal belongings before exiting the thread. On behalf on Dandaman Adventures Ltd., thank you for joining us for the experience. ‘Till next time!

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Uponastar

Well-Known Member
I had to kind of breeze through, due to time restraints, but I promise to come back and read in-depth. But so far. . .wow! Your trip reports just get better and better.
I love the yellow bike idea. Brilliant!
The dorm and campus look very nice.
Love the beach pic of your sister. Touching.
Yay to Dad for saying yes to Busch Gardens! What a sport!
Your pics from there are great as well!
I'll be coming back here to read it all again!
Thanks Danny!
 

dandaman

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
...That's why I could never put my sister and you in the same room. You'd just conspire against me and disprove everything I say about nature. :lookaroun

Thanks for the comments, guys!
 

Figment1986

Well-Known Member
Folks, I’ll be honest: This thing even had me pretty nervous. Lightning every 5 seconds striking all around you, with little to no delay for the thunder to hit. We hid under the ticket booth canopy for an hour, and it was just getting worse, so we were just about to run for the parking tram. Bad idea. Lightning struck a rod (thankfully), literally 20 feet away.

Hmm, BGT is fun in rain... usuaully hang around Zagora cafe. then see if gwazi gets hit yet again... or if sheikra gets hit.

its amazing.


Great trip... glad you had fun at BGT, and st. pete.
 

dandaman

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
^That's pretty much where we hung out. No coasters got hit... though I wouldn't mind seeing Gwazi get struck down by Zeus on high. :lol:

We'd been hanging out around there for a half-hour, before we realized the last trams left a half-hour after park closing. Luckily Busch Gardens accommodated for the slight setback of Apocalypse!
 

palmage

Member
and BTW, that red "seaweed" is your basic red tide!
I thought red tide was an algae bloom, not seaweed???
I know when its blooming it's hard to breath.
There would also be a ton of dead fish on the beach.

Red tide robs the water of oxygen and the fish suffocate.

But I do love to see people having a good time in our neighborhood.
 

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