Our Visit to Sea World

Well, it was an interesting day, with lots of lessons learned, and a good day of fun thrown in!

First off, get your tickets online if you are a Florida resident. The reduced price for residents is only available online, even though they don't say that online! Go figure. At least Brian and family got in free, being active duty military, and that made up for a lot!

Second, although wheelchairs are allowed just about everywhere, strollers aren't. Go figure. They do have "lots" at each of the shows and displays for strollers, and we found out later that some of the shows have security to watch them--isn't that sad? But, the regular displays don't have security. Bring a lock for the stroller!

The seals are loud! They love fish--like we didn't already know that. Many people are willing to pay money to buy little fish to throw to the seals! Some of the seals just bark loudly, unendingly, waiting for a fish. One was a master, doing a loud and very long bark --- count that in minutes!---in his quest for fish. Here is a photo of one of the seals!




The manatee pool had an outdoor section, and an indoor part, where you could see the manatees swimming around, etc. Here is a manatee from outside. I knew that they were big, but seeing them lets one see just how very big they are. No strollers, of course, for the indoor part. We did things in shifts, with some going in while others watched the stroller, then the watchers went in.

A lot (if not all) of the manatees at Sea World are rescued animals, that have suffered injuries. This manatee is one that had lost a flipper to a motor boat.




Michelle seemed to enjoy seeing them!




We had barbeque for lunch, and it was pretty good. There isn't much variety at the different food places, that is one thing I think they could change a bit!

We saw the Shamu show, and it was good. Michelle looked like she was going to fall asleep, as we were getting ready to enter the show arena. Brian declared that the stroller would go in with us, as we would be in the handicapped area with Anne anyway. And what to our wondering eyes should appear, but a whole section of "sleeping baby in stroller" seating, right behind the wheelchair seating. Naturally, Michelle didn't go to sleep after all, but we had niches for the stroller and the wheelchair, and had a fairly decent view most of the time. Here is a side view of Brian, Christine, Michelle and Anne at the show.




Here is another shot, taken before we moved Anne next to Michelle, after an extremely large woman who didn't understand (or care?) that the seat in front of us that she took was for a wheelchair companion---and she totally blocked Anne's view.




We took the long way back from the Shamu arena, which is so far out that it surely has a different zip code? This took us past a great number of kiddie rides that we hadn't realized were there (next time, when Michelle is older!), and past the Anheiser-Busch wagon, with the requisite Clydesdales.




We then boogied back to the front of the park, where Mike returned Anne's wheelchair (well worth the rental, as she never would have made it on the crutches the whole time) and we walked back to the cars. We were lucky enough to have arrived early enough that the cars weren't far away at all. Thank goodness!

We had a safe trip home, stopped and had dinner at our nearest Chinese restaurant, and went home and collapsed. It was a good day!