Busch Gardens Food and Wine Festival

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Busch Gardens Tampa Bay

10165 McKinley Drive

Tampa, FL. 33612

(813) 884-4386

https://buschgardens.com/tampa/

Busch Gardens Food and Wine Festival, 2018

(Doing the Write-Up, 2024)

This day, on March 3, 2018, was a gift from Gordon’s employers to all of the employees and family members of the corporation. We had a lovely time, and greatly appreciated the gesture. We love food. We love wine. We love animals. It really was mostly a perfect day. However, our personal feelings of animals being kept in captivity leans more toward the well being of the animals. The future of “Zoo’s” really should be in helping those animals that can’t live and survive in the wild. Those animals that are handicapped, or endangered. And if they are to be kept in captivity, then at least give them so much land to roam around in where it doesn’t seem like captivity. A refuge of sorts. They do have that here at Busch Gardens, although we don’t feature that here in our account of our day. However, we do show that in our other visit to the park.

We did encounter some animals that seemed very happy, and other animals that weren’t. Namely, the elephants. It was obvious the elephants weren’t happy. I do have their photos down below where I will talk more about that.

We have lived in Florida 3 different times for a total of over 25 years at this writing. We have visited most every park in the state multiple times. I do have to say that whenever we are at Busch Gardens we encounter the nicest people. Strangers will just start talking to you while you are in line for a ride or event. They just seem to be so much nicer than the people that we encounter who visit the Disney or Universal theme parks. Why? It’s because of the animals. Animals and nature just make everyone feel so much better. Why do you think so many people have therapy animals? The animals absorb all the stress out of the environment so that the people feel better. But, I worry about the animals. Who keeps them stress free? Not humans.

We hope you will enjoy our account of our day at the food and wine festival, and our encounters with some of the animals there.

Julie and Gordon

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Also, Check Out Our Other Busch Gardens Visit:

Click Here For: Busch Gardens, Tampa, Florida

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March 3, 2018

Busch Gardens Food and Wine Festival

Concert Lineup Schedule

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Animals in Topiary Form

It’s Touches Like This That add to the Uniqueness of the Park

Even Hanging Baskets are a Touch of Beauty

Love the Orangutan with Bangs 🙂

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Map of the Park

Gordon, With Map in Hand, Ready to Maneuver the Park

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Brodie, Picking Up Lanyards

These are Lanyards. You need them in order to participate in the food and wine festival.

You pick them up at the Food and Wine Welcome Center.

They have different prices for different packages. Ours were provided to us by Gordon’s employers, we were happy with the ‘five item’ selections seeing as how they were also paying for our dinner that night.

Love The Wooden Spoon Garland

COKE

There are Many Food and Wine Festival Sponsers

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As with all the theme parks in Florida, there are always some lovely gardens to enjoy.

However, Busch Gardens seems to be able to provide the shade that the other parks can’t.

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Here is another interesting touch that I like.

A lovely fountain with an actress performing as a statue.

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The Corkyard

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Man Made Ponds and Springs

Which Always Attract Some Birds

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I Love The Bamboo

(We have a lovely row in our own backyard.)

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The Kangaroo Enclosure

Kanga and Joey

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Trying to Buy My Wax Kangaroo

The Machine Will Mold It For You

And, Here It Is!

Kangaroos, Wallabies, and Wallaroos

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It wasn’t a very large enclosure and they were mostly just laying around like you see in my photos.

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Our First Food Selections

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Gordon Got the Lamb Chops…

While I Got the Char Siu Duck

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It Was Really Good!

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Black Swan

She Is Looking At ME! 🙂

This was very recurring for me throughout the day. The animals I was taking pictures of would be looking at me. The thing is, I wasn’t just standing there alone. I had in many cases, lots of people standing around me, with most of them also taking photos. So, why me? Perhaps it was my red camera? Don’t know?

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Ostrich

I cannot tell what kind of birds these are, but I thought they looked cute perched on the tree.

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I Love the Ibis

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Where’s Waldo?

Gordon’s employers hired a woman to dress like Waldo and walk around the park waiting for the employees to approach her, and if they did she was to give them an extra Lanyard.

Gordon Zeroing In

Gordon spotted her right away and managed to snag the last Lanyard.

Must be all that former military training. 🙂

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Now, He Has TWO!

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An Aviary Enclosure

This Lorikeet was very cute and shy.

He does have his foot on Gordon’s finger.

A lot of the birds were actually perching themselves on people’s heads or shoulder’s.

I took their photos but I don’t feel that I should post them though. Some of them were of children.

These birds are very used to being around people and very comfortable with it.

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The Lorikeets Were The Friendliest

Perched On Top of the Door

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Aviary Guide

The Kookaburra’s Nest Enclosure

The Bird Guide of this Enclosure’s Inhabitants

Rosella (Australia)

Scarlett Ibis (South America)

I Love Their Pink Color

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I Believe This Is A Tawny Frogmouth

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More Scarlett Ibis

Demoiselle Crane (Asia and Africa)

Pretty Sure These Two Are Married 🙂

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Wine Tasting w/ Free Wine Glass

One of the Many Shops, This One Was My Favorite

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We Did Buy a Few Florida Wines to Take Home With Us

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Bar Accessories

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They Had Some Beautiful Wine Glasses

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I LOVE These Wine Glasses

I Love ROCKS!

And, They Had Some Lovely Ones

(I prefer these rocks to any expensive ones that you wear in a ring. 🙂

Probably from my Georgia upbringing of ‘Panning for Gold,’ ‘Spelunking,’ and just finding beautiful rocks in creeks and streams.)

Oh, and speaking of rings…. I bought a lovely cheap frog ring while I was here. I wear it often.

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The Family Joining In With The Wine Tasting

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I LOVED This!

It’s just a bunch of old records melted together to outline a mirror.

Totally creative!

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Which Way To Go?

THE LOG FLUME!!!

I was a Flumey at Carowinds Amusement Park in Charlotte, N.C.

It was one of the most fun jobs I ever had. It’s also where I met Gordon. He was Yogi Bear.

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Like a Butterfly…

Brian and Veronica Holding Hands 🙂

The Flamingo Wax Figure Machine!!! 🙂

(We’ll get one before we leave the park tonight.)

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The Flamingo’s

I will say that all of these birds seemed to be very happy.

Not just the Flamingo’s, but also the other birds as well.

I Adore This Shot of the Seagulls Perfectly Lined up with the Shade From the Palm Fronds

I’m having trouble identifying these ducks but they do seem happy in their little shady pond.

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Palawan Peacock-Pheasant

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I Was Able To Get Some Lovely Shots Of The Flamingos

A Napping Flamingo

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They Are Beautiful and Graceful

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I Think We’ve Walked Off Our First Food and Wine Selection…

Now For Our Second

Gordon, Stopping To Speak To Some Trees

(Yes, there are people walking around the park as trees.)

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Gordon Taking Photos

Gordon, Veronica and Brodie Deciding Their Selections

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I Got TWO!

The Shrimp Po’Boy, and the Fried Frog Legs

I Love Frog Legs

(I used to go Frog Giggin’ when I was young with my little brother’s.)

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Taking a Nice Mid-Day Break

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Alexandria Gogolin

(Otherwise known as Gogo.)

Gordon Standing In Front Of One Of Her Paintings

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Gogo Painting a Vintage Tampa Postcard

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I love that Busch Gardens hires local artists for events like this.

They add that creative color and flair.

The Template

Later on that night. Almost finished.

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Back To More Sampling…

Where’s Me?

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Time to Decide What We Want to Try

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Duck Taco!

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Met Up With Brodie Again

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Mango Shrimp Ceviche

Found a Table

Delicious!

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Orangutan Mother and Baby

I don’t think the mother was happy at all. So many people, including us, were clamoring to see her baby. I did manage to get a few photos of the baby, and the mother.

I Believe The Father Is In The Back

But again, I don’t believe this Ape Family is very happy to be there in captivity.

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The Elephants

The Elephant Enclosure that can be viewed as we walk by is large by a “Zoo” standard. However, you could see very plainly that the elephants weren’t happy. They looked so sad and pathetic. Pathetic as in need of help.

This Elephant Would Never Turn Around

It’s as if it just didn’t want to look at one more human, and was refusing to.

Seeing the Elephants so unhappy made me so sad. That’s really all I have to say about it. It is for reasons like this that I am opposed to this “Zoo” type atmosphere. These wonderful and beautiful creatures need more freedom to move around, and to roam around.

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Vintage Busch Gardens

Me and My Grandmother, 1966 Busch Gardens

To Enter The Park Back Then You Took An Escalator

My Grandfather Setting Me On An Elephant

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In 1966 my Grandfather bought me one of these wax elephants.

I’ve since lost it through the years, but here Gordon is buying me another one.

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Thanks Gordon 🙂

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The Alligators

They do keep them fat, dumb, and happy so that they don’t get agitated and attack the tourists.

I have no idea whether these Alligator’s are actually happy or not. They are obviously fed very well. And, when I have seen Alligators in the wild throughout my life they do seem to just be lying around sunning themselves. But, there really isn’t much activity for them here. Other than floating around in that pond.

The Nice Pond to Swim and Cool Off In

Amazing They Are So Well Camouflaged

This Guy Was Looking Right At Me Too!

An Alligator and a Turtle (Best Friends?)

ME, After The Food and Wine Festival 🙂

My summation of the Alligator Enclosure is that they are too fat and bored to have much of a life.

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Julie and the Photogs

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I Like All These Kinds of Artistic Touches Throughout The Park

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With Our Sampler Cards All Checked Off…

Last Glass of Wine for the Day for Me!

Or in the guys case, One Last Beer.

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Zambia Smokehouse

This is where we will be having dinner tonight. It is also a gift from Gordon’s employers to all of us.

SHEIKRA

We Rode That Thing!

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The SHEIKRA Roller Coaster Runs Right Beside the Zambia Smokehouse Restaurant

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Oh, the SCREAMS!!!!

And, Everyone Gets SPLASHED!

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Zambia Smokehouse Restaurant

Time To EAT

I would like to give a critique of this food that we ate here.

First of all, this is our kind of food. We love Pulled Pork Sandwiches, Baked Beans, French Fries….

However, the servers applied so much sauce to our already saucy Pulled Pork that my sandwich fell apart quickly. It was just too soggy for the bread to handle all of that sauce.