SoCal - Post 4

The day after Christmas, we headed out to SeaWorld!  I have such good memories of going when I was younger (probably 13ish years old), that I was really excited to take the kids.  Needless to say, SeaWorld has changed a bit in the last decade and a half.  I'll explain what changed for the worst as we go:

We saw a turtle as soon as we walked in.

Danny and Steph insisted on pushing the strollers during the whole trip. It was SO nice for me!!

The first show we went to was a dog/cat show.

 SeaWorld gets pets from local shelters and trains them for this animal show.  It was a cute show, but we'd been prepping the kids to see whales and dolphins, then cats and dogs came out.  It was a bit of a let down and Shane doesn't recommend that show being the first one first timers should go see at SeaWorld.  :)

Yes, that's a pig doing the agility course.

 

Kangaroos!

It was past Ari's nap time.  :(

Look at Steph's face.  hahaha

This guy was spinning!

 Ok, so here's my complaint about the whale show:

The last time I was at SeaWorld, the trainers came out and we learned the orcas names and ages.  It was great!  This time, there was no talking.  The orcas were brought out for the opening number, then they left and, you see those screens above the water?, a "movie" was played about how it's our "One Ocean" and save the whales, blah, blah, blah.  It went on for at least ten minutes!  WHERE ARE THE WHALES?!  After the PSA, the orcas were brought back out and did some tricks (still no talking from the trainers), did a closing number, and that was it.

This was in the aquarium.

 

Ari still wouldn't fall asleep!

 Dolphins have been a favorite animal of mine for a long time.  Ever since I saw my first dolphin show at SeaWorld when I was 13ish.  I had very high expectations for the show.

 It started out well.  A "princess" wished she could go to a magical land of dolphins, so she did and then she swam with one.  Great, right?  Until the dolphin and girl left and a random bird lady came out.  It was all downhill (sorta) from there.

What the??

After bird lady came out, so did a whole bunch of aquatic acrobats.  It would have been cool on a normal day, but WHERE WERE THE DOLPHINS?!  The acrobats were there for TWENTY minutes!!  Shane said, "Why did we see more humans than dolphins in the dolphin show??"

Jump!

Then the girl came back out, flew around, and the dolphins were brought out for the closing number.

 

I was so, so disappointed in this show.  It made Shamu look fantastic, though.

We had a while to wait before the sea lion show, so we headed over to the (new!) kids play area.  This addition was actually a good one.

 

She finally fell asleep!!

True to form, Kaden was scared silly on this ride, while Lexi threw her hands up in the air and screamed, "WOO!!"

We headed over to the sea lions/seals.  (Seriously, what's the difference??)

I don't know why, but these are Kaden's favorite!

Now this show, I loved.  It was almost exactly the same, except Christmas themed.  They did a great job and the kids were laughing hysterically at the silly antics of the seals.

No matter what Shane or I thought, the kids had a great day.  Which is all that really matters.  :)