Day 5 - Birthday at SeaWorld

We decided not to drag the kids out of bed this morning. Forcing the issue didn't seem to work on Disney day, and it left us all stressed until well after we arrived at the park, and we were late anyway. So this morning, we simply reminded the girls that it was SeaWorld day, it was Libby's birthday, and that the quicker they got up, the quicker the fun would begin. This logic failed to penetrate with the girls. We were still late (of course), but we all had a better attitude about it, at least.

Our AAA membership did afford us a small discount on tickets at SeaWorld. However, I still could have purchased a pretty nice guitar with the money that we spent on admission to the park. The girls and their mom stood back near the 'lighthouse' while I gave away the nest egg to Anheuser Busch.

Elzie wrote down everything that everyone was wearing, their approximate heights, tattoos, piercings and other distinguishing marks. She was not about to be unprepared for the next disappearance.

Once inside, we were immediately accosted by a park employee with a camera who snapped our picture and let us know where we could purchase it later in the day. Elzie had read that it was good idea to circle the park in a clockwise direction, so that's what we did.

After viewing the sea turtles ("I see a turtle!!!" - JB) and the flamingos, we encountered the Stingray Lagoon. These creatures are fascinating. They appear to fly through the water, with flapping wings, a long, spiny tail, and two opposing mouths on either side of their flat bottom surfaces. The rays circled the pool, waiting for the patrons to purchase small dead fish with which to feed them. Elzie did just that, and handed one to each of us. The feeding process is this: you roll your sleeves up, and hold your fish with the tips of your fingers so that it floats upward from the bottom of the tank. A ray then glides over your hand while sucking the fish from your grasp with one side if its mutated, center-hinged mouth. It immediately strips the fish of its flesh and spits the bones out into the water at your hand. The girls were very hesitant to perform this little dance, so I broke the ice. Mom followed suit. (Their mom and I had done this 15 years ago when we had visited SeaWorld once before, so it wasn't nearly as scary to us). The ten-year old was then able to successfully lure a ray toward her, feed it, and was actually bold enough to reach in with her other hand and stroke it's top surface. She reports that rays are "soft and a little bit fuzzy". The other two both wanted desperately to touch a ray, but were both a little bit too fearful. They both dropped their fishes and retreated from the water as the stingrays approached them.

After washing up (thanks, AB, for supplying soap and water next to the dead fish purchasing venue), we went to the Dolphin and Whale Show. The girls insisted on sitting in the "splash zone". Elzie, JB and I choose to take seats several rows up, where we could remain dry and still keep an eye on the other two girls. 15 years ago, this was a simple exhibit of dolphins and pilot whales, with a marginally interesting commentary from a single trainer. The animals did jumps and flips and so forth. This has all changed. Now it is like a Broadway musical, with costume changes and an elaborate set. There are about 20 trainers/actors/dancers involved in the show, and they are all fully costumed. There is a lot of diving and swimming and swinging from ropes and climbing and more diving. The animals still do their tricks, splash the audience, and push the trainers around the tank. There's just a lot more activity going on in the background now.

At one point, a cast member was hoisted out of the water by a crane, and she then "flew" over the heads of the audience members on some sort of overhead track. The dolphins, of course, jumped and flipped and waved and danced on their tails through this whole show. At one point, several parrots and macaws were released that swooped over the stage and over the heads of the audience members.

Then the "story" turned dark. The dolphins swam to the holding area behind the stage, and black, snub-nosed pilot whales replaced them. A vulture (or buzzard, or some other black, ugly, menacing looking creature) was released from the back of the stadium, and it flew onto the stage. The divers costumes changed to all black. (These folks were all muscle, by the way - you could see the six packs poking through their costumes - even the women looked like they could easily kick my butt in a bar fight). They continued to dive and swing on ropes and do a trapeze act and get pushed around by the whales, but now to a more menacing soundtrack. Then, something happened, and the rainbow divers were back. The dolphins came back out, the macaws and parrots flew again, and the music turned happy and triumphant. Splash, flip, dive, applause, and the show was over.

The girls were somewhat disappointed that they did not get drenched during the show. We assured them that the Orca Show would afford them plenty of opportunity to get splashed.

We then saw a short film about manatees and how they have become endangered. After the film, we moved to an underwater viewing area where we were able to see several live manatees. At least, I think they were alive. It's hard to tell, because they don't actually do anything, like swim, or move, or respirate as near as I could tell. They looked like huge floating... well, politeness precludes me from verbalizing that thought, but look at the photo and you tell me what they look like. The whole crowd came alive with excitement when one of them moved a flipper.

We then visited the underwater viewing area at the dolphin tank. Elzie loves dolphins. The kids seemed to love them too. After watching them from below for a while, we visited the tank above ground. I purchased more dead fish for the family to feed to the dolphins. This was Elzie's favorite part of the day. She says, "A dolphin just always seem to have a happy look on its face." Unlike the dolphins in the show, these animals did not jump around so much.

We walked by something called the Lost Atlantis ride. It was a cross between a log flume and a roller coaster. Libby asked if we could ride it. This shocked Elzie, as Libby rarely expresses an interest in riding these types of rides (ever since Elzie took her on the "Waterboggan" ride at Silver Dollar City when she was about three years old). Elzie loves these things, so she agreed right away. JB was too small to ride, so I agreed to wait with her while the older girls rode. The wait was posted at the entrance as 30 minutes, but they waited no more than 10. While waiting, potential riders are warned that the ride will start out dark and scary, and then will proceed to get darker and scarier. Libby and Kaybee were getting nervous. Mom promised to ride next to Libby, but at the last minute, the positions switched (the girls wanted to be in lane 8, since it was Libby's 8th birthday), and the two sisters rode together, and mom was stuck in a seat by herself. The family in the first two seats of the "log" got soaked, but our girls, in the back of the "log", only got wet feet. The girls didn't enjoy the ride nearly as much as their mom did.

Next to the water ride was an aquarium with lots of different reef exhibits. There were clown fish, and jellyfish, lion and scorpion fish, and little yellow-headed gobies and so forth. One tank had a computer screen behind it, upon which danced the image of a mermaid. In one area there was a tank in the ceiling, like a circular skylight. Hammerhead sharks swam in circles in this tank. Spooky. The most amazing exhibit was the leaf dragon, which looked like a large, pale sea horse with leafy appendages all over it. It looked like a water plant that you might see floating among the seaweed. We all agreed that we had never seen anything quite like it.

We had lunch at a BBQ restaurant that was pretty good. The girls all ordered a "kids meal" that came in a plastic Shamu lunch box. It was a cute souvenir, but they were bulky and a real pain to carry around for the rest of the day. The outdoor tables at the restaurant attracted plenty of birds looking for food.

Elzie had the presence of mind to bring dry socks for the girls. After the Whale and Dolphin show and Lost Atlantis ride, it seemed like a good idea to take advantage of this bit of planning. The girls changed while I bought the food.

We crammed in a visit to the "Terrors of the Deep" exhibit between lunch and the Shamu show. Elzie and I remember this most vividly from our previous visit. It begins with a simple aquarium exhibit featuring "scary" fish like barracuda, spiny puffers, etc. We whooshed through this area, being short of time. Then came the real show - a people-mover (sort of a flat escalator) which takes you through a plexiglass tunnel through a huge aquarium filled with live sharks of all varieties. Elzie recalls having a fear of an ill-timed earthquake while in the tunnel. The girls, not having seen that movie, were less impressed with the whole thing.

We then trekked across much of the park to reach Shamu Stadium. This place is bigger than a lot of minor league ball parks. We arrived late (what a surprise!), and could only find dry seats at the edge of the park, near the top of the "splash zone". We had seen this show before, so we knew what we were in for. The girls ran down and got a seat in the second or third row. They wanted to get wet.

The show is pretty much the same as it was 15 years ago. First, they warn you that anyone seated in the first 14 rows (!) will get "very wet". Nobody moves. Then a small orca comes out, does some flips, jumps, mugs for the audience, pushes the trainer around the tank, etc. They reiterate "you guys up front are about to get wet!". Nobody moves. The orca swims around the front of the tank, using his tail to intentionally splash water over many of the folks seated in the first five rows. Our girls stayed dry.

Then they give a stern warning - "We really mean it this time - it's going to be wet up front in just a couple of minutes!" Nobody moves. Then the big boy, Shamu, comes out. This is one huge aquatic mammal. He's twice as big as the previous orca, as big as a city bus. He does all the tricks, flips, waves with his flipper, propels his trainer into the air, etc. Then they make an announcement: "Anyone sitting in the front 14 rows with video equipment, or expensive cameras - they will get ruined.". Then Shamu does the same thing as the smaller orca - swims around the front arc of the tank, using his tail to splash the audience. Only this time, EVERYONE gets soaked. Each swing of his tail dumps 200 gallons of water out of the tank, and it does reach folks seated probably as high as the 10th row. Most everyone jumps up at this time and finds seats higher in the stadium, on the steps, if necessary. When he came around to our side of the stadium, and that cold, salty seawater hit our two girls, they popped up like two corks and ran to sit next to us. We just cracked up.

After the Shamu show, we visited the best attraction at the park: Free Beer. The Hospitality Room is such a great idea, and is the main reason why I prefer Anheuser Busch theme parks to any other. Elzie and I got in separate lines, and the best thing I found in my line was the new Bud Select. It tasted pretty much like regular Bud, Bud Light, Bud Ice, etc. Elzie walked away from her line with an Amber Bock. Hey! I didn't know they had Amber Bock! So I threw mine away (down my throat, as there was no other receptacle convenient), and got in the "right" line to get one for me. You are supposed to limit yourself to two samples, but I figured that first one didn't count. After Elzie and I both finished our second Bock, she took the girls to the playground, and convinced me to sign up for "Beer School" at the Hospitality building. This turned out to be little more than a marketing opportunity, but the sting was lessened by (you guessed it) more free beer. Just two-swallow samples this time, all Bud - 6 different varieties, including one stale sample (which didn't taste much different, to be honest), and also including the new B-to-the-E beer spiked with ginseng, ecanachia, caffeine and raspberry flavor. Yuck! After "school", I was supposed to meet the girls outside, but they were running late. So, I ducked back inside and bought a pretzel from the Deli to wash away that nasty raspberry beer taste. And you can't really have a pretzel without an Amber Bock, right?

After the girls met me sitting outside the Hospitality Room, we went back to the play area (which is called Shamu's Happy Village or something like that). There was a large pyramid with a rope that JB loved to climb, slide down, climb up again. I forked over some quarters for the girls to drive the remote-controlled trucks and boats. There was an overhead climbing area, which Libby and Kaybee promptly disappeared into, and JB played in the sand. We tried to tell her that we would soon be on the beach, with sand as far as the eye could see, but she was happy, and we were relaxing, so all was well.


The park was thinning out by now, but we wanted to try the "Wild Arctic" attraction before calling it a day. There were two paths through the exhibit, one which had "rider restrictions" and one which did not. The big girls took the restricted path, and my 4-year-old buddy and I took the unrestricted path. We were herded into a smallish room with a movie screen, where we viewed an Imax-like film of an arctic helicopter ride. I say "Imax-like" because there was plenty of swooping and flying through cravasses and so forth. I was imagining that the rest of my family was being subjected to the same film, only occupying a room which shook and swooped and dipped along with the film. I was right. After the film, we visited a very interesting exhibit which included beluga whales, walruses, and a polar bear. We were able to view these animals first from above, then later from an underwater viewing area. The attraction's exit conveniently becomes the entrance of the Wild Arctic Souvenir shop. Little bit and I had to wait for the big girls, so we loitered a bit here. JB immediately found a plush polar bear (very soft), and fell in love with it. She carried it around the entire store. When the big girls arrived, Elzie and I decided it was time to buy them something to remember the day, so they each picked out a stuffed animal to take home. (Just what we need, more stuffed animals. We already have more varieties than live at the zoo!). JB kept the polar bear (which she named "Flippy"), Kaybee picked a beluga whale (also named "Flippy"), and Libby chose an orca (named "Shamu", a.k.a. "Flippy"). Elzie picked up a refrigerator magnet, and we were on our way home. On the way out, we picked up the very overpriced digital photo that was snapped by the SeaWorld employee as we entered the park.

We did a lot at SeaWorld, but we missed a lot too, as we discovered on the long walk to the park exit. Elzie wanted to ride the Kraken rollercoaster - we missed the penguin exhibit, Key West, the rainforest, sea lions, the Sea Lion and Otter show, the Pet show, and several other things. There's some deal where you can arrange to attend a second day on your single-day ticket (for an extra cost, is my guess), but we were starting the second leg of our trip, so we couldn't take advantage of that. But we all agree that we wouldn't mind returning to SeaWorld some day.

It was still reasonably early when we returned to the "Villa". Libby opened her birthday presents, and we all put on our suits and visited the pool complex behind the office. I ordered some pizzas from the "Pizza Hut Express" at the main complex. We swam, played, and ate pizza until late in the evening. Then we returned to the condo, got packed up, and rested up for the long drive ahead of us. Goodbye Grande Vista!

Onward to Day 6...