Sea World (Day 5)

We loved Sea World.  

I could post hours of video of Sea World, because I filmed quite a bit of it.  But I'll spare you all but my favorite moments.

We started out petting and feeding the sea rays, then moved on to feeding the dolphins.  I have adored dolphins for as long as I can remember, so this was just heaven for me.  What amazing creatures.  

Madeline named every moving thing we saw on this trip.  We eventually told her that the workers at Sea World get REALLY mad at little kids who name their animals.  (She only bought it for a second.)

(I had more than a few pangs of sadness about them living in captivity for our entertainment--something Madeline experienced when she first saw Shamu in his non-ocean-like habitat.  Good thing we haven't shown her "Free Willy" yet.)

We watched a few different shows--the dolphin, bird, and whale show,  the sea lion show, and Shamu, of course.  

One important lesson we learned:  when they say "soak zone," 

... they mean SOAK zone.

We did not have one single dry spot on us when Shamu was done with us.  Luckily we put all of our cameras and phones in a Ziploc before he got us.

We ate lunch in the Shark Grill, next to a huge floor-to-ceiling aquarium with sharks swimming by.  Not sure if the sharks or the air conditioning were my favorite part of the meal.  

None of the girls met the 54" height requirement for the two fantastic roller coasters that had been calling to us all week when we drove by, but Kolby and Jeff did ride one of them right before they shut it down due to a thunderstorm rolling in at the end of the day.   The puny Shamu roller coaster was  a bit of let-down after the girls had been eyeing those big coasters.  (That's one thing Disney has done right--fewer height restrictions.)  But the dolphins and whales made up for it, and Sea World was definitely one of our favorite days.