Sea the World

We spent 2 days at Sea World, and I am fairly sure we would’ve been fine with just 1. However, we all know how I hate to be rushed, so the two was just fine. We were able to see several of the shows twice as well as go back for dolphin feeding that we’d missed the day before.
If you go to Seaworld this summer you MUST go see Sea Lions tonight. It’s a spoof about the park, pop culture and life in general but it was a good thing that our pants were already wet from the Shamu show because it was THAT funny, if you know what I’m talking about. I guess if you don’t like spoofs you won’t like it… but who doesn’t like a good spoof? It was most definitely the highlight of our trip for both Drew and I.
As far as the other shows, they’re great. They obviously put a lot of emphasis on the shows. We sat near the top of the soak zone in most of the shows and we rarely got drenched. However, it was mostly a fluke that we didn’t get drenched at the Shamu show, for some reason he didn’t flick his tail at us… anyway, so if your kids wan to be in the soak zone it’s a happy medium. Most of the shows have really nice seating so that both kids were able to see fairly well no matter where we sat (unless it was behind someone extraordinarily tall).
Drew and I were not impressed with the aquarium exhibits. Many of them were leaking (ewww) and the exhibits were SO small. You could tell most of their money goes to the shows… and being that we’ve been to the Monterey Bay Aquarium we are probably spoiled. So, if you only have one day and you don’t make it to all of those, I would say no loss. We really liked the Wild Arctic exhibit (if not the ride before it), and the penguins. Spencer wasn’t able to go on any of the rides due to height restrictions and Conner only was willing to go on their shipwreck rapids ride so I don’t have much to say about the rides.
I should probably also mention that I brought snacks along every day so that we weren’t having to buy from vendors in the park. We did buy dinner one night at Sea World, at the Shipwreck rapids cafe. It was OK. Drew’s vegetables were pretty gross, but I got a sandwich and it was decent. Anyway, I highly recommend the snacks in the diaper bag route (and I brought a LOT of snacks).
One of the nights we stayed for the fireworks show. It was a big mistake. Drew and I were hauling out two very cranky kids, and the fireworks just weren’t worth that. I would say to stay through Sea Lions Tonight, and then the Shamu rocks show and then go home. We took our stroller out to the car before the Shamu Rocks show which was very smart because it gets SO crowded after Shamu shows… crazy crowded. Sea World could definitely work on that part of their shows. Also, I didn’t feel like I learned a lot about the animals at the shows. It seemed like they used to have a lot more emphasis on education in their shows (and this year’s Shamu show is mostly about kids wanting to become trainers, which Drew and I thought was weird, but it must’ve worked because we were asking Conner what he wanted to do when he grew-up and he said be a killer whale trainer… that was one evening at dinner after we’d been to Sea World).
But, we totally loved Sea World. Highly recommend a day spent there. The shows are totally worth the price of admission (btw, we bought our tickets from TSA — a teacher credit union type place, they were the cheapest for the 2 days — email me if you want more info).