We arrived at Sea World right at opening and as soon as we entered the park, Kate grabbed a map so she could begin planning our day. She used her map all day long and wanted to carry it every time we started walking somewhere, even though I was using the Sea World app to get us where we needed to be. It was pretty cute to have her navigate.
The first show of the day began at 10:45 so we headed straight to the sea lion stadium to get some seats. I don't know that Kate quite understood the concept of the animal shows until we saw the first one, and then she was on board with seeing more.
After the sea lion show, Kate wanted to ride some of the rides in the Sesame Street themed kids area, so we hopped on the Shamu kiddie coaster and then the carousel. They have a really awesome kids area complete with a splash pad too, so we made plans to go back to that area when it got a little hotter.
The Killer Whales Up Close show was next, so we headed to Shamu Stadium and Kate got her first glimpse of the huge killer whales. I think she was pretty impressed with them. Every time I see them I can't help but wish a tiny bit that I had become a marine animal trainer or something. Honestly, I really just want to be able to play with them.
After the killer whales we didn't have much time to make it over to see the beluga whale and Pacific dolphin show, so we made our way around to another stadium for that. To be honest, it's quite difficult to fit every single show into a single day and still have time for rides and other things. Luckily for us, we have 2 day tickets.
We had lunch at Rosita's Pizza buffet and checked out the alligator pit before Kate decided she was ready for the splash park. I changed her into the swimsuit I packed for the day and off she went. While she was playing in the water, Nick wandered off to ride the big kid coasters, the Steel Eel and the Great White. I am not a fan of the super big or super fast roller coasters, and Kate didn't meet the height requirements for either of them. He quite enjoyed them though.
Kate played in the water for about an hour before it was time to dry off and change back into her clothes so we could make our way back to the beluga stadium for the Azul show. It's an awesome show with the beluga whales and dolphins as well as some divers and acrobatics. This turned out to be Kate's favorite show of the day.
For the last show of the day, we saw One Ocean, which is another killer whale show in Shamu Stadium. Rather than learn about the killer whales like we did in the earlier show, this is more just the whales showing off their jumping and audience splashing skills. We didn't sit in any of the splash zones though, so we stayed dry and watched. When the show was over, it was time to make our way out of the park for closing time.
We were all really hungry by the time we got out of Sea World, so we spotted a Cracker Barrel on the way back to our hotel and had dinner. It's not truly a vacation until you have had Cracker Barrel. After dinner we had to make a stop by Target to pick up some more bottled water and a few other supplies. That pretty much filled the day and we were more than ready for showers and bedtime by then.
No comments:
Post a Comment