Capital Hill - Day 5

Day 5 - Busch Gardens

We left our place at about 8 and arrived at BG at just after 10. After sternly-delivered directions to not get lost or be late, and a review of the meal coupons we were handed, we were set loose. It was Ape, Younger, K & K, and A in our group. Thankfully, all members of our group wanted to ride rides, so there wasn't a lot of "sitting out". Except for me on water rides. I'm not fond of water rides, /especially/ flume-style rides with no seatbelts.

SO, I'll skip a lot of the walking around bits and cut to the fun. First up was the Loch Ness Monster. It was a pretty neat ride except for one thing - as with Space Mountain and a number of older coasters, the headrests are too low for my head, locating closer to my neck just above my back. And on one of the quick drop/climb sections, I got whiplashed and my neck actually *snapped* - chiropractor snapped. It hurt, it was unpleasant, and I was afraid I'd pass out. And this was the first ride!

After that I wasn't so sure about the rest of the day's activities. I was *already* hurting from load/unload duty and not enough sleep. So it was with unease and a growing headache that I approached the next ride, the Griffon. You may remember that I've mentioned my dislike for "negative-G" rides, right? Guess what Griffon is? Not only does it feature a LOT of negative-Gs, it also starts with a literal straight-down drop. A lot of people describe drops on some coasters as "straight down" but unless it's 90', it isn't. This one is. And it goes on from there!
The ride itself was very smooth and other than the loopy stomach, I enjoyed it. Enough to go again with the whole crew. I kept myself calm by playing the "Zi'Tah" music in my head. I noted that some of the "drop towers" resembled Rock-It's towers, and figure maybe I can handle that one now...

Did we have lunch here? The food coupon covered pretty sizable meal options, and we chose the Canadian BBQ joint to use the first one. I picked the hot-dog kid's meal and added a large slice of lemon cake for dessert. It was surprisingly good. Everyone else grabbed big BBQ platters and I wound up with some leftovers ^^ I also got a "thing" which I want to send to LK for a housewarming present when he moves in a month.

Next up was Alpengeist. It looks a lot like Ice. It rode a lot like Ice too, but it was rougher than Griffon. Honestly, I gave it a ~meh~. I think the gang went on some water stuff at this time.

Then, the highlight and disappointment of the day. Apollo's Chariot. A ride that pretty much answers the question, "How much negative-G can we expose riders to?" It's a deceptively simple layout with two long "vomit comet" sections with a fast twisty bit in between. It's also two minutes long!

In keeping with the G-force application, AC uses "thigh t-bars", meaning a thick padded bar comes between your legs resting on your upper thighs. Pulled tight, you can get it almost to your hips, locking you in tightly. Ape tried the "test seat" and made it, but when we got on board, she was bumped because her bar wouldn't click three times. The test seat didn't say anything about minimum clicks ><:

I wound up riding three times with the rest of the group. I even threw my arms up at one point, which is really out of character for me. But I did feel horrible for Ape. She would have loved it I think!

Most of the rest of the day was spent on simpler pursuits, some basketball for A, and an attempt on their "4D" ride a'la Spiderman. We got on line despite the ride being down. We waited but I saw that time was nearly out if I was to make it to Celtic Fyre. So I bolted and hustled to Ireland and walked into the theater with literally like 2 minutes to spare.

CF was pretty good, and the lead sure did look like Seth McFarlane. From there, I went shopping in the Irish store, and found a neat cross to use with my cosplay. I walked out of that store just as the rest of the gang caught up with me. They reported that the 4D ride was pretty lame, with too many gratuitous 3D scenes. I reported I had a great time at the show q:

We all looked in the "magic" shop and there were some pretty interesting witchy/goth statuettes and they were reasonably priced too. From there, we dashed to England to eat. And found a monstrous line. I waited for probably 30 minutes and wound up snapping at several kids who seemed to be cutting in. I later apologized to two of the group moms (not from our group) but dang...

Anyways, our food wait was seemingly lengthened by the fact the buffet pipeline would snag or fill at bad places, especially the salad pick-up, causing the cashiers to be either flooded or idle... But we got the food. And it was really good! We had to take ours with us because we were too close to deadline. Ape didn't get to eat at the park at all - she went to a souvenir shop to grab a shirt.

On the ride back, I finished Cast in Secret, book 3 of Michelle Sagara's Elantra series. I had read #2 on the way up and look forward to the next volumes. Also on the way back, we got word that they were ordering pizzas for our last night. By the time we got in, packed and settled, it was pretty late for pizza, but I partook anyway. It was good, too!