Sea World

Last weekend we went to Gainesville/central Florida for a visit with grandma and grandpop and Aunt Laura's family. We spent the first two days in Gainesville where we enjoyed spending a relaxing time together. We enjoyed several beautiful mornings in the park with Amelia, John, and Jack, as well as cheering on the Gator volleyball players in a match. It was a relaxing few days where we all had a good time.

Then Saturday morning all the families traveled south to Orlando where we spent the day together at Sea World. This was a huge event for the Wilsons, as it marked our first visit to a big, authentic, touristy theme park. Scott has been lamenting (whining) for years that it is cruel and unusual punishment that we have yet to take our children to Disney World (on my!), so this was our first compromise in seeing how well we would all do in a big theme park environment (without having to make the Disney $$ investment). Plus I was still reeling over how much I dislike/like going to the overpriced and overcrowded Texas state fair (see entry a few posts ago), so spending the day at a well-maintained and professionally-run theme park sounded like a good thing to do.

To sum it up, we all had a nice time at Sea World. Amelia and John reluctantly posed with Shamu.
Oh, notice that Shamu is wearing a santa hat and is standing in front of a big sleigh filled with presents. Well, that is because apparently Christmas comes early to central Florida - mid-November!! I couldn't believe it - the whole park was completely decorated in head-to-toe Christmas decorations. And you know how there are music speakers all over nice theme parks, so that you can feel the mood music no matter where you are within the park? At Sea World, this was all CHRISTMAS MUSIC! Remind you, it was mid-November (weeks away from Thanksgiving still) and still we were forced to endure a day of Christmas decor and music. This drove me batty, but did not detract from the overall good time.

A fun thing about Sea World which I did not anticipate in advance was the good number of rides in the park, both for children and adults. John and Jack enjoyed the aquatic-themed carousel. Aren't the boys too cute?

For the adults, Scott and grandma were the only two crazies to ride the monstrous roller coasters they have in the park. However, Scott, myself, grandpop and Amelia (brave girl!) all went on the Atlantis ride together. This was a steep drop downhill!

In addition to the rides, we also saw lots of marine animals. One of my favorite exhibits was the manatee sanctuary. I never realized how gracefully the manatees float in the water until I saw them up close in this setting. What was even better was that Amelia had learned about manatees in school so she was really interested in reading the signs and watching the manatees up close.

And of course we saw Shamu! The shows were quite well-done, probably one of my favorite parts of our visit to Sea World. We attended three shows: Shamu, the sea lion show, and the animal tricks show. There were seven killer whales in our Shamu show!

Though I thought we all enjoyed the Shamu show, look how excited Scott was by the event. Checking the blackberry (I mean crackberry) all day long. The college football scores were too important, so I was told.

Alas, a good time was had by everyone during our visit to Sea World. And of course, everyone was super-pleased to have to take one last photo on the way out of the park, but I insisted anyway. Love it! Notice the awkward/annoying Christmas tree in the background?!?