Sad news folks! Today we have to pack all our stuff, clear out the villa and return to the airport. But we had one last surprise for Sophie and Dan (and as it turned out an unfortunate one for our Patriarch). As it was located very close to the airport, and it was included in the tickets we’d already purchased back in the UK we decided to visit Busch Gardens for a few hours.

We packed the villa up, cleared everything out into the van (read minibus) and headed around to guest services to checkout before waving goodbye to Emerald Island Resort. The road to Tampa was really busy, but with Sophie’s excellent navigation skills we arrived at Busch Gardens in good time, but by now the car park was pretty busy so we ended up a little way from the tram pickup point. After a short delay, we were heading through security (bag check) and into the park. When we visited in 2015 we took the animal safari which allows you to drive around the animal park in a small party and among other activities feed cos lettuce to the giraffes. Since 2015, the cost of taking part in the safari has risen to $50 per person, which for our party would have been $300 – and as we weren’t going to be at the park for very long we decided to skip it and look at the animals from the park train instead. 

Sophie, Daniel, and I rode one ride together with Charlotte and the next with Tim. After which Daniel retired his rollercoaster legs, leaving Sophie and I to sample some of the rides on behalf of the group. But by this point, our Patriarch was looking a tad fatigued and thoroughly fed up with a long face, probably due to the amount of walking we’d been doing and the heat. Luckily the park was pretty quiet, so most of the ride queues were pretty short at 5, 10 or 20 minutes – so he didn’t have to wait for us for too long. (And those times were very quick compared to the 40 – 90 minutes we were waiting in line at Disney or Universal.)

Sophie and I made a fab team and enjoyed all the rides we went on. 

Daniel, Sophie and I walked through the lorikeet enclosure and one landed on Daniel’s head, which was amazing but Dan was concerned that the bird didn’t mark his Arsenal shirt as it is a personal favourite for him.

At around 3pm, we left the park and drove half a mile down the road to Popeyes for lunch – if you’re thinking a fast-food chicken diner you’re on the right track. Once we’d eaten lunch we drove the remaining 30 minutes to the airport, returned the van and headed to bag check drop off. And I’m now typing this edition of our holiday blog while sitting at the gate with Sophie and Charlotte pacing past to close their exercise rings (on their fitness watches). Sophie “the legend” Brown, has now closed her rings and is now taking a post-walk rest. And in case you’re wondering your scribe already closed their fitness rings prior to getting to the airport, much to the other’s disgust.

Epilogue
Overall everyone seems to have had a great time, at least the feedback I’ve had from everyone I’ve asked has been overwhelmingly positive. Now we have to brave the marathon flight to the UK and drive back from Gatwick