Sesame Street arrives in Tampa

There was a time when I got up early to go stand in line to get Dave Matthews tickets.

Just a few years later, I got up early to go stand in line at the Ikea opening in Orlandao.

Not even a few years later, I found myself waking up early to go stand in to see Elmo on opening day of the Sesame Street Safari of Fun at Busch Gardens. (Sadly, I was just as excited for this morning as the others.)

They kept us behind the line while we waited for the grand entrance.

Then we saw Elmo and Big Bird.

And Lily said "Emmo? Emmo? Emmo?"

After they let the crowd in, our first stop was the breakfast with Elmo and Friends. We had tickets that I bought several weeks earlier.

There was a buffet and the food was even pretty good. They served lots of fresh fruit, pastries and muffins, eggs, bacon, sausage, biscuits, cereal, all the stuff you'd expect.

My only complaints about the food were (1), I kinda forgot to eat it because I was busying trying to figure out how to take good pictures (and I never really figured that out), and (2) the orange juice came in those tiny little cups like you get at the hospital. WTF? This is Florida, get some real orange juice.

About 15 minutes after we started eating, Elmo, Big Bird, Bert, Ernie, and Cookie Monster made their grand entrance. They did a little song and dance, and then Big Bird and Elmo took their places at the front for pictures, and the other characters went around to the tables to greet the families.

What I really loved about this experience was that we had a lot of time to spend there, so there was time for Lily to warm up to these giant creatures.

Because, well, it wasn't love at first sight.

She was really fascinated by them, though. But she couldn't take her eyes off Elmo. She kept saying "Emmo? Emmo? Emmo?"

Finally, they called table 15 and it was our turn. It kinda looks like she's picking Emmo's nose here.

Unfortunately, I don't have any pictures to prove it, but I swear she did like Elmo. She smiled, gave him a high-five, but it did take us a little bit to get that far.

She actually liked Big Bird, too. I think she really liked his beak. Look at Elmo being all condescending, though. Elmo's used to being the star. Big Bird gets no love.

After our turn with the A-listers, we spent some more time with Cookie, Bert, and Ernie.

Lily liked their hats.

And high-fives.

And their noses.

More high-fives. All in all, it was really a pretty cool experience. We got lots of time to spend with the characters. After a while, we just left, I'm not sure if we would've gotten more time with Elmo and Big Bird or not. (But I'm pretty sure we'll have another chance to find out.)

But we were pretty anxious to see the rest of the attraction, and it was filling up fast.

The only ride we went on was Snuffy's Flying Something or Other. Khan swears that Lily had fun and smiled, but I couldn't see her very well because I was busy making our little plane go up and down, and up and down.

Then we went into Elmo's Treehouse Trek, which was basically just a gigantic place for kids to run and climb and be crazy.

I only went on this bridge because Lily made me. I'm not doing that again.

I wanted to go on Air Grover, which was a little kiddie coaster. But Lily has to grow 6 more inches first. Boo.

Before we left, we stopped by a couple of the other character meet and greets, too. We saw Abby Cadabby, Zoey, Grover, and the Count.

And then there was the strategically placed gift shops near all entrances. We were shamefully close to getting a gigantic big bird for Lily.
But seriously, where would I put that thing?