Unda da Sea Part I

A Quick Intro

It is easy to develop preconceived notions regarding basically anything. It's human nature to judge things with or without the facts. Sometimes, however, those quick appraisals can be proven completely wrong. I'm not waxing philosophical here, I'm talking about basic things like...the time I thought I was ordering chocolate chip ice cream at that strip mall in Honduras because that's what it looked like but then it turned out to be Rum Raisin which sounded disgusting but was actually gloriously delicious; or the time that I thought I would hate a space-age show with a Western feel to it--but then gave it a shot and ended up being terribly outraged that Firefly was cancelled because it was completely excellent! You know, things like that (and yes, sometimes it is necessary to use run-on sentences for enthusiasm's sake). In this case, it so happened that part of our family vacation plan sounded less than exciting to me: two days at a certain theme park. And so began the deconstruction of my previous ideas...

Guess where we went...

A Nautical Narrative: Discovering Sea World

The Who:

The Author (me), Elise (big sister), Zoe (niece), Noel (dad)

Same crew, with Kay  (mom) in front. 

The What: Vacation fun times.
The When: Late September.
The Where: Sea World in Orlando, Florida.
The Why: We had never been there (or some of us hadn't) and they had very reasonable prices!

Here's the deal--I love roller coasters. I want excitement. I want to run around. I do not want to sit back and watch a dozen shows. The thought of it is terrible...except it turns out that in reality, the shows can be awesome. However, I didn't find out about this fact until something else in the park completely changed my mind. I'll be honest: it all started with the flamingos.

Just look at 'em! They might as well have been saying: "Welcome to Sea World, HayBoo. You're gonna love it."

Something fantastic that Sea World does is give you a free second day's ticket after you've bought your first. So, knowing that we would come back later in the week, we decided to devote the first day to shows. I rolled my eyes as we searched for Shamu's stadium. On the way, lo and behold, we found the Dolphin Nursery. I know this part makes me sound like such a girl, but is there anything more adorable than a dolphin playfully trying to get your attention? I think not. They're big showboaters, those dolphins. At first they were just swimming around barely popping their heads out of the water, but as more people gathered, they began to do little tricks and came right up next to the short wall we leaned against. If I had really tried, I probably could've reached out and touched them. For example, this little guy:

I call him Splashy.

My dad and Zoe watching the dolphins.

Once we got my mom's face out of the map for two seconds, we had a great time watching them play around.

Tell me this wouldn't change your mind about everything.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Awww....okay, moving on. The first show we actually saw was only about 15-20 minutes long. It was called "Pets Ahoy" and featured all sorts of creatures that had been saved and adopted from animal shelters: dogs, cats, ducks, doves, mice, ferrets, geese, a pig--and I'm not even sure if that was all of them. They were trained to do all kinds of cool tricks and the whole routine was synced up with music. Their timing was so impressive and the scenery was cool, too: a cartoonish beachfront town. Not only was the show fun to watch, but it made me happy to know that talented and adorable animals like those are being saved every day with programs like that one. Unfortunately we didn't really get any pictures/film, but I was able to find a video with examples of what they did in the show! Check it!

Next came the Shamu show. While this is the main attraction, I must say I didn't think it was the most impressive one. I think because of troubles in the past with trainers getting injured, they're not allowed to do much with the killer whales anymore. It was cool to see them leaping around and wagging their tales, though. Another thing to like about this show is the One Ocean theme. While the whales do their manoeuvres, images of marine life and waters of the world are projected on huge screens. There's also a somewhat cheesy but still entertaining "One Ocean" song to go with it.

Watching them leap in packs was a highlight, definitely!

It's amazing how high they can flip out of the water.

My mom and Zoe in front of (you guessed it!) Shamu Stadium.

Well, after that show we had a bit of time to kill. And what better way to kill time than riding the carousel? If I'm being honest, though, this carousel was an odd mix of cute and terrifying. My niece liked it just fine, but just call me old fashioned--I prefer to sit on a pretty pony than a jagged-toothed monster fish. (I sat on a Walrus, actually. I named him Warren)

See? Cute...then scary...then cute again.

As you can see, Zoe chose the scary one. It was like the scary-glowy fish Marlin and Dory encounter in Finding Nemo.

 

 

All right, back to the shows. Next up? "Blue Horizons"--so great we saw it both days we were in the park. There's a basic plot to it which makes it sort of like an oceanic musical. There's a princess, and a sky spirit, and a king of the dolphins or something. Basically, it involves a lot of awesome tricks involving the trainers and animals, some intense acrobatics, and birds of paradise flying right over your head!

This was cute.

Sweet, right?

My words do nothing to describe the performers flying through the air. And I even tried to YouTube it, but it's really exciting live, so that doesn't do it justice either. I just generally hate seeing shows at amusement parks, but I'd see this one again and again.

The last show we saw was "Clive and Seamore Take Pirate Island" at the Sea Lion and Otter Stadium. I'll give you a hint--Clive and Seamore are sea lions.

The set.

A humorous part of the show.

I have to admit, though the animals were truly nifty, my favorite part was this pirate mime who basically just made fun of the entire audience as they filtered in before the show started. The rest was great, too.

Apparently there's one more show (which is a musical in an indoor auditorium), but we didn't see it. Everything+the heat wore us out! I realized that there was so much to offer, that it'll take two blogs to describe it all. Much more awesome information to come (including some mysterious creatures of the deep I had never before heard of)...so stay tuned!