Day 4-- SeaWorld!

I'd insisted that we spend a day at SeaWorld during this trip.  I hadn't gone since I was in high school and I really wanted to see the killer whale show and have my kids see it!  I was so excited!  I'd even paid all kinds of extra money* to do the VIP Orca Tour, and three of the kids had decided to spend their own money to do it, too.  Unfortunately, the day before, while I was standing in a line somewhere, I got a voicemail telling me that our excursion had been canceled, but I was welcome to either reschedule it for next week (impossible) or switch to a different tour (lame-- it's killer whales or nothing, as far as I'm concerned).  So that was a bummer.  But I was still excited!

True to form we got there before the park opened and as soon as we could get in, Camille and I hurried off to the dolphin nursery while Craig and the other kids went to ride all the roller coasters.  We watched the dolphins for a bit and then stopped by the shark aquarium, which was also very cool.  I wanted to see the killer whales, but that part of the park was still closed for another hour, so next we saw the sea lions and a bigger dolphin pool, and then we saved seats for everyone for the first dolphin show.  (We also stopped by the customer service desk to ask about my canceled tour-- I was worried that if I didn't check in or something, they would claim we didn't show up and keep our money.  But the lady at the desk assured me our money would be refunded, so that was a relief.)

They were throwing fish to the sea lions and this super creepy stork was hanging around trying to steal the fish.  The girl tossing fish had a pretty impressive throwing arm!

The sea lions were cute, but also extremely loud and smelly

I'm kind of proud of this picture of a hammerhead swimming over us!

Craig, meanwhile, had taken the other kids on most of the major rollercoasters at the park (there are five or six, I think?) and hurried through the shark aquarium, too, before joining us at the dolphin show.

(This is Ryder, but mostly I just love the scene behind him here!)

We didn't take any pictures of the dolphin show, but it was really fun-- just seeing those bottlenose dolphins leap out of the water and do flips is crazy impressive, and when they get six of them leaping perfectly in synch, it's just amazing!  If you're bored, you might want to watch the show on YouTube!

We tried something new this time around and got an all-day food pass.  We were hoping it would save us some money and make everything a little less stressful and more fun, but it didn't really work the way we wanted it to.  For one thing, the bracelets didn't work super reliably-- at the panini place, they couldn't get Bentley's to work at all and while they finally just let him have his food and told us to go to customer service to get a new one, it took forever while they tried to figure out what to do.  We also realized, too late, that there were a bunch of food booths that wouldn't take our passes, which was especially disappointing because they were doing a sort of food festival with international booths set up all over the park and it would have been fun to sample a bunch of them!  But we weren't going to pay more money for food after all that!  The other lame thing was that the places that did take our passes had insanely long lines.  At one point I just stood in line while Craig and the kids did some other stuff, and they joined me as I was getting inside the building, only to discover that there was still another hour wait to go.  It was ridiculous (although the food was pretty good!).  So I think we got our money's worth, but it didn't make us very happy or make eating any less stressful.  (Also, SeaWorld had a No Outside Food policy, unlike Universal, so we didn't bring snacks or lunch or anything.  But then they didn't even check our bags, so we totally could have just packed lunches!)  Anyway, I hate trying to play games like that, it's annoying.

The first orca show was at noon, and even getting there pretty early, the only decent seats I could find were in the splash zone.  I figured the odds were we wouldn't get wet anyway and plunked myself down where I had a nice view of the killer whales swimming around before the show started.  And Craig snapped this great shot right as it began:

I am enraptured

The show was super cool, but I have to say, it could be so much better.  They don't let the trainers get in the water with the whales any more, which I understand, but it means they can't do half the amazing tricks they used to do.  And even the stuff that they do have the whales do, they make a point of explaining that these are Very Natural Behaviors (or they're done for the whales' health) so don't worry, audience members, everything is fine here.  And I'm not gonna lie: that's dumb.  No one cares.  (Okay, that's not true, a few very loud protesters a few years ago cared.  But you know what?  Even those people would come watch the show as soon as they were done protesting, so I don't think they actually were bothered by it, either, they just wanted something to complain about!)  They also spent quite a bit of time showing a video about how great killer whales are, but it hardly told you anything about them, other than that they're apex predators and therefore we should not pollute.  It was fine, but I'm pretty sure it could be way better.

Because there wasn't as much for them to make the whales do, one of the things they did do was have a whale swim by just splashing everyone in the first ten or so rows.  We got drenched.  Everyone in the splash zone got drenched.  Craig was...  less than thrilled.  I thought it was pretty hilarious.  It was a beautiful warm day and we dried off pretty quickly!

These are our wet faces, I guess

People were getting hungry again, so that was when I held our place in line while Craig took everyone to some of the spots Camille and I had already visited:

Is that scuba diver is holding up a "Help me" note???

After we'd eaten, we went to the sea lion show, which is pretty stupid and slapsticky, and yet, still pretty fun.  Before it began, they had a very grumpy, sarcastic mime wandering around and he was honestly the funniest thing we saw all day.  Who knew?

Then we wandered around seeing all the animals we'd missed and riding a few more rollercoasters

The sting rays were a huge hit-- they really didn't mind being petted and they're just so soft and slimy-- who can resist?

(Not this girl!)

Kendra was especially excited about the manatees

I sent Craig and the kids to get dinner while I saved us seats for the final killer whale show, this time not in the splash zone!  I had EXCELLENT seats and had to keep fending people off.  So naturally, right as the show was starting, some lady in an electric scooter with a huge shade roof parked in the handicapped section, completely blocking our view of the shallow spot where the killer whales come out of the water in front of the audience.  Not only that, her husband stood for a chunk of the show, blocking even more of my view.  I couldn't believe it.  The show was still amazing (and it was nice not getting wet, especially at 8pm!) but it really was frustrating.  (Craig even asked her if the shade roof could be removed or put down or something, but it couldn't.)

And then the park was closing!  As we were heading out, Bentley managed to stomp on Camille's foot and make it bleed, so then she was very unhappy.  Fortunately we saw a few more dolphins at the nursery pool as we were leaving and that cheered her up very quickly.

*When I first looked up the price for this VIP tour, it was listed as $129.  So I asked the kids if they wanted to do it, and they all had to hem and haw for a bit before they made up their minds.  So it took me a couple days before I actually purchased the tickets.  And when I went to buy them, they'd shot up to $149!  I wanted to ask the kids if they were okay with this new price, but I didn't dare risk the price going up again, so I just bought them.  But I felt bad spending the kids' money without their express permission.  And then, as I was checking out, SeaWorld added taxes and "convenience fees" so now the tickets were $170!  Each!!!  And I felt even worse about the whole thing.

The good news in all this is when they did cancel, the kids didn't really care.  In fact, they were pretty happy to get their money back.

And then I got my refund a few days after we returned home and SeaWorld had kept $45 of it-- they weren't giving back all those convenience fees.  Even though everyone had assured me my money would be refunded.  Then I was seriously TICKED.  I tried calling about twenty times and the only time someone answered, she said she "wasn't authorized" to refund that money and the only people who could were all "in meetings."  You'll be shocked to hear that they never called me back.

I finally just called my credit card company and told them to reverse the charge.  I'm still so mad about that.

And I'm even more angry because I love SeaWorld but now I just feel like I'm in an abusive relationship with them and they're trying to make me hate them.  Why are they trying to ruin something that should be so great???

But still-- I just love those killer whales so much!!!!