I’m finally getting caught up on my pictures from our weekend in San Diego. We got to Sea World shortly after they opened on Friday, and it was a cool, overcast morning. They crowds of people were already starting to pour into the parking lot, and at $14 per car for parking, that place is raking in the dough! Speaking of expensive, how about $70 per adult and $62 per child over 3 to get in the gates? Man, yet another reason we are only having 2 children! Fortunately, there was a very nice lady walking up and down the lines of people at the ticket counter giving away coupons. The coupons were for $20 off each individual admission, so what would have cost us $202, only cost $142. That was a good start to our day!
We got in the gates and looked at the map, trying to plan our day. We headed over to the whales first, and went to watch them in the underground tank. I think this was one of Tyler’s favorite parts about his day!
The first show we saw was the Shamu show. It might be fun one day to sit in the “Splash Zone,” but for this time, we stayed up top to avoid being wet all day. The people in the bottom rows got drenched from these enormous belly flops!
Ava did great during the shows, although I’m not sure how much she actually watched. I wasn’t too sure how long she would last at the park, but she was a trooper!
After Shamu, we walked over to the dolphin area where some lucky people were having a one on one encounter with the friendly guy. Tyler didn’t understand why he didn’t get to feed the dolphins too. Maybe next time we’ll spring for that…
Ava kept herself busy by tangling herself in chains and slurping down frozen lemonade. This cup was fought over by the kids all day! I was even ready to throw a few punches to get a drink of it myself.
Next up was the Sea Lion and Otter show. This was a fun one, even though one of the main characters, Clyde the Sea Lion, didn’t feel like cooperating with his trainers and pretty much did what he wanted—which was not what they wanted. They made a joke out of it though, and kept on with the show.
Ava kept herself busy during the shows, even if she didn’t really watch them.
After that show, we battled the crowds to get some hot dogs for lunch, and found a curb to eat them on. They are a little short on seating! While eating, we kept hearing all the seals and seal lions barking near us and realized we were sitting behind the area where people could feed them. They really let you know when they want you to toss the fish their way! We bought an overpriced handful of minnows a few fish for the kids to feed them, and they got a kick out of that.
Tyler was excited to see the sharks, and even had to go back through this one again. He really liked the underground walkway through the shark tank. It was pretty cool!
When I was initially planning this trip, I was thinking we were going to go to LegoLand instead of Sea World. I had heard it was great for younger kids, with lots of not-so-scary rides for that age group. After thinking about it more, I decided that it wasn’t a good idea to go to a park like that not knowing how the kids would do on park rides. Tyler is hesitant about things like that, and I decided not to take the chance that we’d get there and he wouldn’t want to try anything. I think we made the right choice in going to Sea World, but now know that Tyler would have probably been fine. Sea World has a Sesame Street themed area with a couple of little rides, and both kids loved them! We went on one that was like the Teacup ride, and the other was little flying Elmo cars that soared up and down and around.
We did have to wait in line for a little while before each ride, which Ava had a hard time understanding why she had to wait! She wanted to go on the ride now!
Ok, these next pictures were taken with my phone since I couldn’t have my camera out on the rides. Here we are on the spinning ‘teacups’…
…and on the Elmo ride.
After the rides, it was time for the dolphin show, which was quite the extravaganza.
The dolphins were just part of the show. There were divers that dove off of trampolines on platforms, there was people dressed up like birds, bird men on bungie cords doing flips…oh, and a few dolphins too!
We were starting to wear down a bit towards the end of the day, but everyone was still happy. Can you see the exhaustion in Ava’s eyes? She was so tired!
One of the last stops was the 4D Elmo show. It was 4D because not only was the movie in 3D, but we’d get sprayed when someone sneezed, wind would blow through the theater, rain fell from the ceiling and the chairs vibrated. The kids weren’t too excited about that part of it, but I think they liked the 3D.
We snuck one more show into our day, the Pets Rule show, which was probably Ava’s favorite. They had dogs and cats (!) doing tricks, and all sorts of random animals (kangaroos, ostriches, ducks, you name it…).
We also went through the penguin exhibit and the sea turtles, and Tyler and I went back through the shark tunnel one more time.
Tyler had been asking all day to be able to get an Orca whale for himself and a dolphin for Ava. On the way out of the park, he got his Orca, and was so excited! He named him Corky. Corky the Orca.
I wish we had better expressions on the kids faces in this picture, but there aren’t a lot of re-dos when you ask a stranger to take your picture. You can’t exactly expect them to jump around and get the kids attention. It’s usually hard enough for them to figure out where the button is on my camera!
We had a great time on our first family adventure to a theme park, and look forward to Disneyland being our next stop, as soon as Ava gets just a little older and can enjoy it and remember it. We are lucky to live close enough to these theme parks that we can drive there for some weekend fun. Next time, Anaheim!
Here is the complete album, although, most of them are in this post!
