Sea World

We left our house a few days early so we would have time to go to Sea World.  Originally, we had planned on going to the aquarium at Clearwater to see Winter, the dolphin with a prosthetic tail.  Unfortunately, since the movie she has grown so popular that they are not letting people see her anymore, so they don't stress her out.  Since William can't see through glass, aquariums present a problem for him and we really wanted him to be able to "see" a live dolphin, since he (and the other boys) talkd about them all the time!  When my brother graduated from basic training and we went to visit him in San Antonio, we had visited the Sea World there, so we were fairly certain they would have some kind of a "touch pool" like the other one. And we were NOT disappointed, but I'll get to that special story in a moment...

The first day we got there in the afternoon, so we tried to hit most of the shows on this day.  Our first show was a multi-pet show, with specially trained dogs, cats, a rat, a pot-bellied pig, and even a skunk! They did all kinds of neat tricks! Here is a short sample:

Although William couldn't see the any of the show, he did enjoy petting the dogs afterward!

Of course, we went to the dolphin show, which was really neat! The dolphins did all kinds of neat flips and tricks! They are amazing animals!

We visited the sting ray and shark touch pool.  We didn't make it into the shark exhibit, but we did get to see the little sharks in the touch area.  We also went to Dolphin Cove, which was a lot of fun!  

We had a lot of fun watching the dolphins play and swim, but William couldn't see them because they were so fast! Since it was near feeding time we let William go in to feed the dolphins with Daddy (and me because I had the camera!) while the rest of the children visited other places.  William had a BLAST!  Now, for my special story...

One of the dolphin trainers came by to ask if William had been able to feed and pet a dolphin.  When she found out that he couldn't because they were too fast for him to reach out to, she called a few of them up to the ledge and had them sit out of the water for a moment so William could take his time and pet/feel them.  She pointed out the dolphin's back and dorsel fin and William was delighted!  His huge smile made the whole trip worthwhile!  Of course, Daddy thought it was so much fun that he wanted all the children to enjoy it, so the next day he paid for our whole family to go in and we had a GREAT time!  The same trainer was there and not only did she call the dolphins up again, but she had them do tricks for us!  We found out later that they do not do that at feeding time, but only in the "Dolphin Experience" which costs $99 per person! We were overwhelmed at God's graciousness to our family! The boys, especially William have been talking about Oscar and Scooter ever since!

And, of course, we HAD to go see Shamu, the killer whale show!  Daddy and most of the children sat in the splash zone and, yes, they were soaked by the end of the show!  Calvin was not very happy about being completely drenched by the whales...I don't think he realized that he wasn't just going to get wet, but have lots of water dumped on him over and over! Actually, it was just once because after the first time, he headed up the stairs with Mommy, me, Wallace, and Knox!  William loved it, though, and kept saying, "Shamu got me!" After the show he was saying, "I want Shamu do it AGAIN!"

At Wild Arctic we got to ride in a helicopter simulator that took us on a tour of the Arctic.  It was a lot of fun, but VERY realistic!  During one part there was an avalance and it felt like the rocks were falling out from under us!  Sydnee and I both ended up covering our faces!  I guess we won't be so nonchalant about a simulator next time!

We were able to watch the Beluga whales do a training session, which was very interesting!  We also climbed inside this Polar Bear's den that they found in the arctic and preserved.  Very fun! The walruses were HUGE and very fat! :)

We walked inside some of the aquariums, which were very neat!  Most of them had tunnels so that you could watch the animals swim overhead.  

There was even one with a hole in the middle so you could get inside and see fish all around!

We did also visit the "rides" at Sea World.  It was so much fun watching the little children in the play area! Knox really enjoyed his first carousel ride (so did everyone else)!

There were several little roller coasters and boats and it was so much fun to hear all the giggles and laughter from the little ones!

This boat was a particular hit with the younger ones!

Abby, Sydnee, Sherrod, and I got to ride two of the big roller coasters: the Manta and the Kracken.  They were both a lot of fun, but scary, too!

Other fun times at Sea World:

Family photos by the waterfall:

We are so thankful that we were able to go!  We had a really good time!

posted by the blessed sister of 12 and aunt to 2 - Sarah