On Tuesday, January 11th, I took my first trip to Cypress Gardens. My sons g/f Jen was here visiting and we were headed down the road at 9:30 a.m. for the park opening at 10. Cypress Gardens is located in Winter Haven and, from my house in Auburndale, its only 8 miles away!
I really didnt expect too much from this place. After all, its not Disney and what could it have that WDW doesnt? With that in mind, I only bought a single days admission, which was $29.95. While I would have qualified for the $29.95 price because Im 55+, that fee is available to everyone until Feb. 28th as a special. We were able to park only feet from the front gate. The park was deserted!
Our first attraction was the butterfly house. Upon entering, you are surrounded by the most beautiful plants and flowers. The butterflies are everywhere! I didnt see a lot of different types but what they had was plentiful.
Then we went on the Sunshine Sky Adventure. This observation deck lifts 160 feet in the air and then rotates 360 degrees giving you a magnificent view of the surrounding area. It is one of only 3 in the world.
When we left that, we began our Garden exploration and there is much to explore. The positives are the beautiful plants and flowers. The negatives are the amount of walking and the fact that nothing is labeled. Throughout the gardens is an abundance of bird life. These are the native birds, not ones theyve brought to the park. We saw osprey, heron, egrets and so many more. All told we spent over an hour just checking out the gardens.
Then it was time to head over to the ride area. While this would never be confused with the MK, it was really nice. There is a large part of Cypress Gardens with nothing but rides. From a nice selection of kiddie attractions to more adult fare, there should be something for everyone.
They had a two-story merry-go-round, which was unique, a small gauge train that traveled around the entire area (it is big enough for adults too!) and every type of vertigo creating attraction you can imagine.
My favorite turned out to be a wooden roller coaster and this is from a person who had never ridden an outside roller coaster in her life! Yeah, Ive done RnR and Space Mtn. If I cant see whats going to happen, Im willing to try it.
The wooden Triple Hurricane looked too good to pass up so on I went. Because there were absolutely no lines, we went on a total of 10 times!
We finally headed back to the front area, had some lunch and left to return home. This place is a work in progress and looks to be about ¾ s finished. Sometime in the early summer they will be opening a water park too. That was enough for me I purchased an AP. My single days admission was deducted from the AP cost so the final amount was only around $35. They dont include parking in that so I also opted to buy a parking AP for $25. Again they deducted the $7 we paid for the day.
Also included with the AP is admission to a great line up of shows. Trace Adkins was appearing on Saturday.
So yesterday we decided to take another ride over to CG. When we left the park on Tuesday, I got hopelessly lost! Instead of it taking about 25 minutes to get back to the house, we spent nearly an hour seeing parts of central Florida I had never seen before and dont care if I ever see again. Part of this trip was to figure out what went wrong.
The first thing we noticed was the crowds. The main paved parking lot was totally full so they had us parking in a large field across the street. Then I remembered that there was a concert. Still, as we walked over to the ride area, I figured that we wouldnt get on anything because of the large number of people.
Surprisingly the rides were almost line free with the longest wait only about 10 minutes. I did another ride Ive never done. Its called Thunderbolt and its one of those things that drops you from an amazing height. In this case, 120 feet! Holy cow, talk about air time!
We were only going to stay for an hour but before we knew it nearly 3 hours had passed so we headed out. By now it was only 15 minutes until the concert started and the large area in front of the stage was packed. I may come back next Saturday to see Chubby Checker!
We opted to have lunch across the street at Perkins. What a great restaurant, reasonable and the food is delicious! The ride home was a much improved version of what happened on Tuesday. We did not get lost!
I would give CG an 8 out of 10. There are rides to please almost everyone, several shows (the water skiing appears to be the best of these) enough gardens to knock your eyeballs out and, on the weekends, entertainment. If you do visit on the weekend just be prepared for a traffic mess. The main streets around the park were chaotic and that was WITH lots of extra police to deal with the extra volume.
Heres a link to their website:
http://cypressgardens.com/welcome.asp
And a link to some photos I took on Tuesday when we were there:
http://www.PictureTrail.com/gid6273223
If you have any questions, feel free to ask.
Cypress Gardens is Floridas original theme park and certainly a place you should see once. You may like it so much youll want to return!
Roberta
I really didnt expect too much from this place. After all, its not Disney and what could it have that WDW doesnt? With that in mind, I only bought a single days admission, which was $29.95. While I would have qualified for the $29.95 price because Im 55+, that fee is available to everyone until Feb. 28th as a special. We were able to park only feet from the front gate. The park was deserted!
Our first attraction was the butterfly house. Upon entering, you are surrounded by the most beautiful plants and flowers. The butterflies are everywhere! I didnt see a lot of different types but what they had was plentiful.
Then we went on the Sunshine Sky Adventure. This observation deck lifts 160 feet in the air and then rotates 360 degrees giving you a magnificent view of the surrounding area. It is one of only 3 in the world.
When we left that, we began our Garden exploration and there is much to explore. The positives are the beautiful plants and flowers. The negatives are the amount of walking and the fact that nothing is labeled. Throughout the gardens is an abundance of bird life. These are the native birds, not ones theyve brought to the park. We saw osprey, heron, egrets and so many more. All told we spent over an hour just checking out the gardens.
Then it was time to head over to the ride area. While this would never be confused with the MK, it was really nice. There is a large part of Cypress Gardens with nothing but rides. From a nice selection of kiddie attractions to more adult fare, there should be something for everyone.
They had a two-story merry-go-round, which was unique, a small gauge train that traveled around the entire area (it is big enough for adults too!) and every type of vertigo creating attraction you can imagine.
My favorite turned out to be a wooden roller coaster and this is from a person who had never ridden an outside roller coaster in her life! Yeah, Ive done RnR and Space Mtn. If I cant see whats going to happen, Im willing to try it.
The wooden Triple Hurricane looked too good to pass up so on I went. Because there were absolutely no lines, we went on a total of 10 times!
We finally headed back to the front area, had some lunch and left to return home. This place is a work in progress and looks to be about ¾ s finished. Sometime in the early summer they will be opening a water park too. That was enough for me I purchased an AP. My single days admission was deducted from the AP cost so the final amount was only around $35. They dont include parking in that so I also opted to buy a parking AP for $25. Again they deducted the $7 we paid for the day.
Also included with the AP is admission to a great line up of shows. Trace Adkins was appearing on Saturday.
So yesterday we decided to take another ride over to CG. When we left the park on Tuesday, I got hopelessly lost! Instead of it taking about 25 minutes to get back to the house, we spent nearly an hour seeing parts of central Florida I had never seen before and dont care if I ever see again. Part of this trip was to figure out what went wrong.
The first thing we noticed was the crowds. The main paved parking lot was totally full so they had us parking in a large field across the street. Then I remembered that there was a concert. Still, as we walked over to the ride area, I figured that we wouldnt get on anything because of the large number of people.
Surprisingly the rides were almost line free with the longest wait only about 10 minutes. I did another ride Ive never done. Its called Thunderbolt and its one of those things that drops you from an amazing height. In this case, 120 feet! Holy cow, talk about air time!
We were only going to stay for an hour but before we knew it nearly 3 hours had passed so we headed out. By now it was only 15 minutes until the concert started and the large area in front of the stage was packed. I may come back next Saturday to see Chubby Checker!
We opted to have lunch across the street at Perkins. What a great restaurant, reasonable and the food is delicious! The ride home was a much improved version of what happened on Tuesday. We did not get lost!
I would give CG an 8 out of 10. There are rides to please almost everyone, several shows (the water skiing appears to be the best of these) enough gardens to knock your eyeballs out and, on the weekends, entertainment. If you do visit on the weekend just be prepared for a traffic mess. The main streets around the park were chaotic and that was WITH lots of extra police to deal with the extra volume.
Heres a link to their website:
http://cypressgardens.com/welcome.asp
And a link to some photos I took on Tuesday when we were there:
http://www.PictureTrail.com/gid6273223
If you have any questions, feel free to ask.
Cypress Gardens is Floridas original theme park and certainly a place you should see once. You may like it so much youll want to return!
Roberta
