Sea World

Wednesday last week saw us at Sea World as the gates opened. Again, fairly easy parking and reasonable size crowds. As you enter you can't fail to miss the Skytower ride. In fact you can see it from Mexico (and vica versa). This is where they take you up to visit the mothership, so we had to do that. Great views of the park and San Diego.

There are lots of Stadiums and buildings containing different types of animals. Killer whales, dolphins, sea lions, otters and manatees. That sort of thing. There are two or three small to medium sized aquariums plus a tide pool area. There are exhibits for penguins and polar bears (that we didn't get to see), plus Cydesdale horses (guess which beer company sponsored that and had a hospitality centre close by?)

There are various shows during the day. Clyde and Seamore in Deep Deep Trouble containing a couple of sea lions and an otter was excellent fun. That's a sea lion in the middle on the balcony in the image above. Yes I know. I need to get a phone camera with higher resolution.

While Duncan was playing on a huge assault course adventure playground, I went and watched the rich kids having their close encounters with several dolphins. This was in water that was about 50 degrees. Even though they were all wearing wetsuits, they all got about 3 inches taller when they entered the water. They shivered away as they got to do tricks with the dolphins and pose for photo ops for Mum and Dad.

The star attraction at Sea World is Shamu the killer whale (plus family) who have their own show several times during the day. You can also sit pool side and have a meal with him, plus have the opportunity to be drenched by him. Certainly not appealing to me, but as you can see above, there were a lot of takers. There is also a "blue zone" where you can stand and watch, where you definitely will get drenched.

My favorite show was R. L. Stine's Haunted Lighthouse 4-D. Based on the famous childrens book it's a short (and very funny) 3D film. The fourth D is the tactile experience, where they throw in the special effects (usually involving water). We were hesitant about this with Duncan, because when we took him to the Bug's Life 4-D experience at Disney Land 2-3 years ago, he absolutely freaked. This one he loved. Water is obviously more appealing then what appears to be unseen insects.

In fact, Duncan wanted to get wet this day really bad (a theme that lasted for the rest of the week). As we didn't have a spare set of clothes with us, and it wasn't a quick-drying hot summers day, we agreed that he could do exactly that for the last ride of the day. Mum got to take him on the exceptional good Journey to Atlantis roller coaster ride (I'm a roller coaster wimp). They both had a great time.

There's lots more I haven't covered. We didn't get a chance to do the Bayside (cable car) Skyride (that runs alongside the park). That looked like fun. The park was only open from 10:00am to 5:00pm. We missed out on lunch trying to fit in as much as we can. That's not a good thing.

If we did it again, we'd definitely allow two whole days and take it easy.

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( Mar 02 2006, 08:46:17 AM PST ) [Listen] Permalink