We arrived around 8:30 am, and I went and bought tickets while Shweetie parked the car, and we wandered into the park shortly before 9:00 am. I didn't really feel like checking out the broadcast, but we soon discovered that the other areas of the park were all blocked off still, and that the only ride open was the Tony Hawk ride. Because it was the only ride open, the line was super long, so by default we ended up watching the end of the broadcast. We got to snap a picture with Sarah from the morning show afterwards. To be honest, I hardly ever listen to the Radioalice morning show, because the way No Name always makes random, obnoxious outbursts really gets on my nerves, but luckily Sarah didn't ask us our opinion of the show. Shweetie still listens to them, though, I think.
The broadcast ended around 9:30 am, and the rest of the park didn't open until 10:30 am, so we had a lot of time to kill. I was admittedly a pill most of the morning because I was tired from waking up early (on my day off from work) and I was still feeling a bit under the weather. Shweetie, like always, was very patient with me. I think this man deserves a medal.
We ended up just sitting around in the plaza, right inside the front gates, waiting around with all of the other early parkgoers. Right before they opened the rest of the park, all of the characters (Bugs Bunny, Sylvester, Tweety, etc.) and employees came out and danced, trying to get us all fired up. They proceeded to play a bunch of songs that were straight off of our wedding Do-Not-Play list - "Celebration," "Y.M.C.A.," "Macarena," and "Electric Slide."
After the park opened, we went on "Medusa," a floorless roller coaster with 3,500 feet of track and seven inversions, and "V2: Vertical Velocity," a suspended roller coaster that launches you forward through a 45-degree inclined tower and then backwards down a 90-degree vertical tower at speeds of up to 70 miles per hour. After that, the line for the Tony Hawk ride was still really long, so we wandered through the marine animal areas.
We saw penguins (one was molting and seemed really embarrassed about it), sting rays (which were tiny compared to the ones we swam with in Bora Bora), dolphins (which were performing tricks at their trainers' commands), and sea lions (which were barking and gaping at people who had bought fish to feed to them). By far, though, my favorite sea animal exhibit was the Walrus Experience. I kid you not. What I loved best about these giant creatures that would dwarf my couch, was the fact that they seemed to really like kids, as they would come up to the window and peer through the glass whenever there were short people standing in front of it. Furthermore, the biggest walrus of the three would come up to the window, press his whole face to the glass, and start spontaneously clapping his front flippers together. He could seriously clap them so forcefully that it was loud and clear through the four-inch-thick glass. The little kids were so excited by this and would clap back to him, while all of the adults stood around and said, "How does he do that? How can he clap so loudly?"
After that, we finally decided to go check out "Tony Hawk's Big Spin." This ride looked sort of like a roller coaster, in that it was on tracks and had banked turns and drops, but each car only sat four people, and could spin freely in circles, simulating skateboarding tricks and maneuvers. I was worried because it honestly reminded me of the spinning teacups at Disneyland, which I always avoid, because it makes me so sick. However, Shweetie really wanted to check it out and didn't want to go by himself. Right after we got into line, I noticed that there were two teenagers standing directly next to us. I let them go ahead because I hadn't been paying attention when we first got into line and didn't know if they'd been ahead or behind us in line. Shweetie told me later that they had cut in front of us, but he hadn't said anything because I'd let them go ahead. Karma reared its head when we were about two-thirds of the way through the line. The ride attendants started yelling down the line, "Anybody have a party of two?" Luckily Shweetie was paying attention and put his hand up, and the attendants motioned for us to move ahead and join the party of two that was ready to board the next car. As we pushed forward, one of the teenagers said to his friend, "What the f__? Why are they going ahead?" I was seriously laughing all the way up to the front when Shweetie told me that they had cut.
The ride was sort of fun, but I was feeling nauseated by the time it ended, so I was very glad to get off. Even better than disembarking and keeping my breakfast down was the fact that the two teenagers were still in line and the man who'd been in line behind us (he was a single rider) was boarding the next car. Apparently the ride attendants must have called for a single rider, so the teenagers had seen not only us go past them in line, but also the guy behind us. Ha!
Afterwards, we went and grabbed a healthy (yeah right!) lunch of chili cheese fries, a butter-laden ear of corn-on-the-cob, and a Coca-Cola. Shweetie also had a corn dog. I really felt like I needed to walk around after that, so we went to see the land animals at the other end of the park. We saw cougars (they looked really bored), lions (they looked even more bored), a cheetah (it looked the most bored), camels (one was turning his head all the way sideways trying to strip a tree of all of its leaves - so funny!), and elephants (Shweetie was fascinated by the way they were able to pick up about four cups worth of peanuts with their trunks and shovel them into their mouths without dropping a single one). Of course, my favorite exhibit was the giraffes. In fact, Discovery Kingdom is where I first saw giraffes up close and decided they were my favorite animal.
Because we'd gotten there so early, we were done with the park pretty early, and we left at about 3:00 pm. We felt like we'd definitely gotten our $9.73 worth!
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