Cheetah Hunt

It's been two weeks since we've been back from our first year honeymoon. Although we're back to reality in the working world, we don't mind recalling more stories about our Florida trip.  Since we went North earlier in the week, we decided to travel South to Tampa and visit Busch Gardens for the day. We couldn't resist with all of the billboards on the side of the road tempting us to get our butts down there.

The weather wasn't looking too good for us that day. There was an 80% chance of rain ALL day but we figured a little water wouldn't hurt. We luckily had not one, but TWO poncho's in the trunk of our car so we packed those and hit the road!

It poured rain the entire drive down. Things weren't looking very good at all.

The on and off rain, plus lightening and thunder making the occasional appearance throughout the day, caused many of the coasters to temporarily shut down (and by "temporarily" I actually mean "all day"). However, we weren't going to let that stop us from having a great time at the park. There's no telling how many miles we walked that day, but we trekked throughout the entire park multiple times looking at all of the rides we couldn't go on and spotting every animal we could throughout the park.

Speaking of animals, we saw a TON despite the rain and ended up getting some great pictures. The animals seemed to enjoy the rain as it did seem to cool off a bit.

We did manage to ride the ONE coaster we had been eying the entire vacation; the Cheetah Hunt. This is Busch Garden's newest coaster and lemme tell ya, it was awesome! It wasn't exactly the scariest, craziest thrill ride we've ever ridden, but it was probably the most enjoyable ride we've taken since going to Disney two years ago. The Cheetah Hunt is also the longest coaster at Busch Gardens and now the second longest coaster in the United States (it was mentioned quite a few times) AND it took us from 0-60 mph THREE TIMES throughout the ride! One thing we were surprised with was how smooth of a ride it was. There weren't any herky-jerky movements, nor were there any "climbing" portions. It was a fluid 90-second ride with 1 big drop and a couple of loops and twists. We'd say they did a pretty good job emulating a cheetah on the hunt.

We did end up purchasing one of those over-priced pictures that they take of you once you first enter the park. We couldn't resist since A. it was the only picture of us together that we had taken at the park and B. it was the best we had looked the entire day.

After a day full of walking in the rain, we were more than ready to head back to our little home for the week. Hopefully next time we'll make it to Busch Gardens on a sunny day!