Off to SeaWorld today! Unusually this will be our only visit this trip as we were using our Disney tickets to the maximum usage we could. We normally come at least twice because you can usually get the second day for free if you visit the Guest Relations booth on your way out. But in any case we had been to Discovery Cove on the last 2 trips and that gives you access to SeaWorld in any case.
Rosemary wore a highly appropriate dress for the occasion.
Our first event for the day was the Blue Horizon show. We wanted to make sure we squeezed in all the shows we wanted to catch in the one day so were a bit careful about our times. Blue Horizon is a dolphin show, but there is a lot of acrobatics as well and the dolphin element is actually relatively small.
There is a video of the whole show which I shot on YouTube:
We briefly went to the Pacific Point Reserve to see the Sealions. They were remarkably quiet that day.
Next on our list of “must do” things was the One Ocean show, the killer whale show. This is going to be discontinued now, which is probably a good thing.
We stopped to get an ice cream and bite to eat and Rosemary had a weird thing which was little frozen balls called Dippin’ Dots. Kind of OK, tasted a bit weird though.
We then wanted to get in the last of the 3 shows so we could have the rest of the day free to see a few of the other things around the park. This was the new Seamore and Clyde show, Sealion High. We’d not seen this before so looking forward to it. The premise is quite fun but the animals were not really behaving that well on the day, with one of the sealions being sent for a time out during the show…
There is a video of the whole show which I shot on YouTube:
After this we could take our time a little more. And went to have a look around some of the shops and then to see the manatees. It’s always a bit quieter around them, not sure if it’s their relaxed movements which calm everyone down, but certainly less activity there.
Managed to get this amazing shot of Rosemary interacting with one of the manatees. We hung back when everyone went through into the Turtle Trek show and were the only people in the exhibit at the time. They had their nose pressed right up against the glass. Maybe it was the bright dress which was attractive.
In the next tank are some rescued turtles and with no one about managed to get some better shots of one of them.
We had hot dogs for tea from Captain Pete’s Hot Dogs. Rosemary had a plain dog and I had a chilli dog, and Julia had a veggie one.
Still plenty to do as it was right by the hot dog place we went to the stingray pool. I think this was the first time Rosemary had plucked up the courage to touch the stingrays and was surprised at how soft they are.
We also went to the aquarium which is slightly hidden away underneath the Manta ride. It’s an amazing one and well worth spending time in, with a large tank with rays and fish, as well as smaller display tanks.
We carried on with our (second) journey around the park, going through Antartica. The queues were crazy for the ride there and although we would have liked to have seen the penguins it wasn’t worth the +45 minute wait time.
We then went into the Shark Encounter and the great aquarium there. We once again repeated a picture we’ve done each time we’ve been. Here is the latest version:
And from December 2013:
And March 2012:
Quite fun to do the same one each time to see the changes.
We stopped by to say “Hi” to Shamu as we went past the Shamu Stadium (didn’t get to do this last time as it was all closed off).
And then obviously had to have a Shamu ice cream.
And finally for the day got to ride on Shamu himself.
That was pretty much us exhausted for the day by then. Just took this one on the way out of the park as it was the 50th anniversary of SeaWorld.
Finally I put together a video of our day at Seaworld which you can see on YouTube:
Rosemarys Travels 