Seaworld (Day 1): Sun Dec 7th

Dave and I had visited Seaworld when Jake was very young and loved it. Jake is especially interested in animals and all the kids love the Shamu book we have so it was definitely a hope of ours to be able to take them all someday, I guess this trip brought 'someday' a lot closer.

It was worth taking a weekend day to visit, as quite a few different shows only happen then, until Christmas week comes around. We started our Seaworld day at 9am by having breakfast with Elmo and many of the Sesame Street characters. After which, we headed to The Polar Express Experience to ride a simulator train to visit Santa and the polar bears: very cool, great Santa.

We continued on to Shamu's Happy Harbor and the kids quickly went on: Ocean Commotion, Jazzy Jellies, Shamu Express, Flying Fiddler, Swishy Fishies and the Sea Carousel. Their favorite area though was the rope playground, a huge area of nets, tunnels and slides. Did I mention no lines anywhere? This is the kind of 'crowd' we like!

Our next stop was Shamu Stadium to watch 'Believe'. We weren't overly worried about our seat location, as we knew we'd be coming back to see Shamu again. We were all enthralled, it is an amazing show and is of course the main reason that people return to Seaworld again and again.

At the Nautilus Theater we watched A'Lure...The Call of the Ocean, the acrobats were awesome. Caitlin decided that this is what she'd like to do when she's older, Jake's decided that a Shamu trainer is what he needs to be and even asked the trainers what they studied at university and how they got their job!

We went through the tunnel at the Shark Encounter and were glad to read that the tunnel glass could take the combined weight of more than 350 elephants!

We stopped at the Pacific Point Preserve to see the seals and sea lions (the girls were most interested in the babies), before getting changed to tackle Journey to Atlantis. We were impressed that Nate was willing to give this a try, despite having watched a number of boats come down the huge drop. We did indeed get wet but it is such a fun ride, just when you think it's over, it turns into a rollercoaster and you get wetter! The older kids went on another 3 times but once was enough for Nate, bless him.

Once we had dried off, we watched Clyde and Seamore's Countdown to Christmas - you could tell this was not as well rehearsed as their regular show but it made it even more funny and proved that the animals have their own quirky personalities, we laughed a LOT.

En route to Bayside Stadium, we walked via the Penguin Encounter, Oyster's Secret Pearl diving and the Clydesdale stables, to watch Winter Wonderland on Ice. I knew this would be a huge hit with the kids and was one of the 'weekend only' shows. It was great, towards the end we were almost scared to watch as the male partner spun his girl around by her feet, her head inches from the ice. We had great seats thanks to Dave getting there an hour early while the kids played some more on their favorite playsystem.

Dave skipped out of the ice show as soon as it was done to beat the crowds to to Shamu's Christmas Miracles, we followed along behind with the masses of people and were relieved that he'd secured good seats. The show was brilliant, mama and baby came out first, the whole thing was heart-warming and so well done - we couldn't wait to watch again!