Part III – Trip to San Antonio – Ordering Tickets

Now that I had an agenda, I started seeing what I could order ahead.  I was able to order our all-day pass trolly tickets online so that we could step out of the van at the free parking area and ride the trolly into downtown.  One of my parents tired easily, so this proved to be a good idea.  We were able to ride the trolly from the end of the riverwalk back to our vehicle without the long walk back to our starting point. 

We got our Sea World tickets from Tinker since my husband is in the Air National Guard.  That was a big savings!

I did go ahead and also order Sea World all-day meal pass wrist bands online.  We printed the voucher off of the internet and redeemed it inside Sea World.  Each one was $30.00.  This turned out to be a huge rip off.  It was supposed to cover meals, snacks, and drinks.  However, it could only be used in the major cafes where it took an hour to get through the lines.  And then, as the day wore on, they started running out of food items.  The only place I found that we could get into fairly quickly had only two items available (more were on the menu, but only 2 were stocked).  I know we did not use nearly $30.00 because we could not get to the food.  We ended up paying out of pocket on drinks and snacks.  The only good point was that I did not have to give girls money that they might use for other things.

The other item that I pre-purchased online was tickets to the Witte museum’s dinosaur exihibit.  Those were to be picked up at the museum ticket desk when we got there.  This proved to be a big mistake as well.  We left the Riverwalk to drive up to the Witte.  There was a policeman blocking the parking lot entrance and a line into the museum that stretched two blocks.  It was free Tuesdays and we couldn’t get in.

So in summary:  Pre-purchasing transportation tickets – good
Pre-purchasing Sea World Tickets – good
Purchasing Sea World meal vouchers – bad (I’ve been to Disney and I would purchase meal vouchers there. Never a Bush Garden location ever again)
Pre-purchasing museum tickets – bad (you don’t know what the local crowd may be like).

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