She Said, Z Said: Families Flock to San Diego for Fun in the Sun

http://www.noozhawk.com/noozhawk/article/080810_she_said_z_said/

By Leslie Dinaberg and Zak Klobucher, Noozhawk Columnists

But beware the punk flamingos that prey on them, even after buying amusement park tickets

She: After spending the last week at every single amusement park in San Diego, what do you think?

Z: I think if I ever open up an amusement park in San Diego, that I’ll need to buy a herd of pink flamingos. Even LEGOLAND had pink flamingos made out of LEGOS.

She: It was definitely a recurring motif. There were seven different kinds of pink flamingos at the zoo, we almost got run down by a roving stand of pink flamingos at SeaWorld, and there were five women at our hotel with different versions of flamingo print T-shirts.

Z: And I did my punk flamingo joke every time we saw some. I even started to do punk lemonade jokes. I cracked me up.

She: Repetition. The height of high-larity.

Z: I was surprised that LEGOLAND was Koss’ favorite.

She: I know. I thought that he might be too old for that.

Z: When your kid is plugged into hyper-sophisticated video games and other electronic entertainment, you forget that he’s still only 11, and LEGOS are pretty dang cool.

She: That they are. But it drove me nuts when he wanted to spend time in the park building LEGO cars instead of riding the roller coasters. We have LEGOS at home for free!

Z: I wanted to scream at him, “We’re paying a ton of money for this! Stop playing! Stop having fun!”

She: Kids.

Z: What was your favorite park?

She: I loved the first 90 minutes of the San Diego Zoo.

Z: You mean before you got hungry and lost and hated it there.

She: Exactly. Now I know why everyone loves our cute little zoo in Santa Barbara. You never get lost in the jungle with no signage. You’re either facing the mountains or the ocean.

Z: And we have plenty of flamingos in Santa Barbara.

She: I wonder if that poor, elderly woman ever found her way out?

Z: She was eyeing those pandas awfully hungrily.

She: I loved those Chinese pandas. They were probably the highlight of the park experience for me.

Z: I liked SeaWorld the best, but then I’m a fan of dancing dolphins. There’s also always the slight hope that Shamu will go crazy again.

She: Except that the trainers don’t get in the water with them anymore.

Z: Cowards.

She: They probably got sick of waiting in line.

Z: You know what else drove me nuts? Having to pay for rides inside the park.

She: Biggest rip-off ever.

Z: LEGOLAND is the biggest abuser of that. “Sorry, bud, they charge for the climbing wall.” How can they seriously charge $80 for a ticket, and then charge for more rides inside the park?

She: Definitely dampens the experience. And it’s too bad, because LEGOLAND is really nicely themed, very clever, always clean and has some awesome original rides.

Z: Then you see them charging five bucks for miniature golf and you want to wrap a golf club around LEGO-Darth Vader.

She: Not to mention the LEGOLAND aquarium, which was definitely weak.  Although those cute little LEGO explorers discovering the lost city of Atlantis were pretty funny.

Z: But not nearly as funny as a punk flamingo.

She: Yes, dear.

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