Busch Gardens | All Day Dining | Hippo Experience |

Day 3 Busch Gardens, All Day Dining and Feeding Hippos!
#AUniversalIdiot
#AHatADayKeepsChapekAway
J&SAdventures In Orlando
💰 Daily Spends: £79.49
👟 Steps: 26,780 - 11.71 Miles
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Hey guys,
🧇 Breakfast today was courtesy of the Bayliner Diner. For a 7:10 start the dining area was quite busy, but the food court was empty so standing in front of each different section trying to decide what we wanted didn’t get in the way of too many people. Sam went for a waffle with strawberries and cream and I had a omelette wrap which was not what I was expected but tasty non the less.
🚕 Uber ordered to get over to Doubletree Orlando for the bus pick up to Busch. The Uber cost $12 and we tipped €3 cash. I would have paid more because the lost luxurious F150 was our Uber 😍.
🚌 The bus to Busch is a free service or included in the price of your ticket whichever way you want to look at it. I feel better if I say it’s free. Pick up time 8:30. As accurate as a Swiss Conductors watch 8:30 on the dot it arrived. The journey took 110 minutes after stopping at Icon Park on the way. The Icon Park stop was busy and after loading every seat was taken.
✅ Prior to arriving we made some purchases for our day at Busch in the Black Friday sales. We got reduced all day dining, quick queue and hippo feeding experience. Quick queue worked out at $10 each, dining around $67 combined and the hippo experience for $30 for the two of us. As we booked it a while ago the exchange rate was better so feels more of a bargain than at todays exchange rate. Paid with Starling from the UK in $ so no fees and a competitive exchange rate.
🥘 Ok, All Day Dining, is it value for money? Yes! Is it good to purchase? Not in our opinion. Too much food for anyone wanting to feel they got their monies worth. We ended up eating 3 times in 7 hours, didn’t work for us although in some cases the food was better than usual park grub. We won’t do All Day Dining again. Until next week, because we’ve already purchased it, but never again after that.
🎢 Rides were up and down all day (literally) with the weather events ongoing so we stood around waiting a lot, but the queue times were all really low. Gwasi was the biggest queue all day at 30 minutes. We had quick queue which we used but when Sam rode Montu it was closed because there was literally no one in line. The positive about Busch (for me) is on ride filming is permitted so we caught some footage of some of the attractions.
🦅 Sheikra was interesting, I’m quite obviously not the smallest male to walk the planet and I know there was evidently restrictions for ride harness, sizing and safety which I completely get therefore test seat before joining any queue line is the way it has to be for me. Sat down, snug, but fine. Got up to the ride and their was no way that restraint and buckle were meeting in the middle. This left me a little miffed and a conscious for the rest of the day. Over to 🐍 Cobras Curse, test seat ✅ ride one ✅ ride two ⛔️ after a bit of faffing ✅ strange.
🦛 On to the main event. Hippo experience, we were taken back stage to meet the hippos and the team looking after them, but before heading over we were all asked to wear face masks 😷, it’s been a while but ok, why? The hippos 🦛 have contacted Covid-19. I wasn’t expecting that. Anyway if we pop, we we’re told about hippos in general, who is currently residing in the park and what their training looks like. We where then asked to step forward and feed Moyo! He was a happy chappy, kind of like a big dog, although you probably wouldn’t want him on the sofa with you after his evening walk! Then, the bit I wasn’t expecting we got to stroke the hippo.
🦒 Busch has so many fantastic walk through exhibits it’s tough to name them all but the orangutans 🦧 taking refuge under the raised timber area was a great site, we stood under a sleeping 🐅 and the lion 🦁 asleep in the front of the Jeep was a fun site to see!
👍 👎 Busch Gardens was little bitter sweet for me, I’ve always wanted to go and we did. The big rides are too intense for us, even though we thought we were thrill seekers and there didn’t seem to be too many medium intensity stuff or dare I say, low to no intensity stuff. Towards the end of the day the park started to redeem itself for us with the animal walk throughs, talks and our experience with the hippo and also on the ride front with Cobras Curse, scorpion and Sams ride on Montu.
Will we do All Day Dining again? No. Will we go back to Busch Garden? That remains to be seen.
I do get that it is all subjective by the way. If you’re a thrill seeker it’s a definite must visit, if your not, I’d say plan your time there.
See you all on the next adventure 🌎