Next morning (Thursday) we had til around 6pm to drop off the car, so we headed off to Aquatica.
Obviously as this was a new park we were quite excited. We started off badly though by somehow getting into the wrong lane and heading down the staff and vip lane (damn those, enter on the other side lanes
were brits, they should have a big sign to say oy, youre driving on the other side of the road so you enter here

. Anyway, after trying and failing to sheepishly make our way across to the normal line, we went all the way out and re-entered the park again *blush*.
Finally parking we headed to the entrance. We knew we didnt have that long there but we had tickets as part of our discovery cove package, so we figured we might as well get there early and do as much as poss. Anyway, this is where I complained about Aquaticas hideous organisation. We went throught the bag check, then were told our tickets didnt work and we had to go to one line, then we were told to go to another, then another we asked 4 different members of staff. Anyway, long story short, we queued for nearly an hour to be told we could have more-or-less walked straight in (through the vip bit). I had asked this and been told no
TWICE!!! GRRRRR
Inside, and very unimpressed by this point (despite the pretty layout), we decided to change and then find a deck chair. By now the park was very busy and there were already huge queues for the rides partic the dolphin one which had been my point of getting there early. Well, we found nice chairs and went straight for one of the rides across the park. It was fun and had great views from the top
On the way back to the chairs we walked around, trying to get our bearings. Dunno if it was just us but I found it quite difficult to get a good idea of where everything was. Everything looked the same.
Although, by this point, Id realised I wasnt gonna get to go on the dolphin slide because of time commitments, I took some photos from the observation area:
Back at our deckchair area, we went on this ride:
Its our favourite. We just had so much fun, despite the fact that Karen somehow managed to catapult me off on one landing, so much so that I went flying about 6ft ahead of her in the water

. Still, it was fun, and I didn't drown

.
We spent the rest of our time either on this ride, relaxing in the chairs or in the wave pool:
That is, all afternoon except for when I went into some things I love the two lazy rivers. One is a nice simple one where you go round in a tube (like typoon) and can go past an aquarium, under waterfalls etc:
It's hard to control the tubes but a nice relaxing ride.
The other, and more fun one, was a fast-flowing river which you can wear jackets in if you want too. We did it once with and once without.
SOOOO much fun.
Anyway, after hanging out there for a while it was time to leave, so we changed at the park and I said a reluctant, sad farewell to my baby as we drove back to the airport to drop him off