Seaworld was a solid 1.5+ hours from where we were staying and opened at 10am. Jim was more familiar with the HOV lanes and even with heavy traffic in areas we were able to get there just as they were opening. We spent a little time at the touch tanks at the entrance and then Jim and Elliott checked out the Sesame Street play area while the rest of us went in search of rides. The map was not very detailed and the park was confusing to navigate.
We found the ride we were looking for but it didn't open until 11am. So we caught the tail end of a dolphin training and checked out the otters and bat rays. There seemed to be a lot of activities to pay extra for, like feeding the animals and extra interactions. At 11 we got in line for shipwreck rapids. The opening was delayed and when they finally let the line through everyone was confused where to go and it was a mess. Finally we got on and we got very wet. It looks really similar to Grizzly River Rapids at California Adventure, but is much wetter. We had to run to get to the Dolphin show on time. Jim had saved us seats, but we didn't get there in time and he was crowded out by people. We did make it to the show on time and got decent seats, just not all together. The show was really fun to watch.
After the show we went through the sea turtle aquarium area and then my mom took Elliott for a while and we rode another ride that Ezra was just barely tall enough for. We went through the shark area and then went to the sea lion show. There was a great performer that started before the sea lion show and Emmett was practically in tears watching him. He was pretty hilarious and entertaining and he continued to be part of the sea lion show.
After the sea lion show we walked through the freshwater aquarium and then went to get seats at the Orca Encounter show.
The orcas were really neat to see. We sat in the splash zone and Emmett was really hoping to get wet, but we didn't get wet at all. They are such beautiful animals and Seaworld seems to be doing their best to care for animals and educate people, but there is a lot of negative stuff out there and it is a little hard to see these creatures in captivity.
Right after the orca show I took Emmett and Ezra on Shipwreck Rapids again and we got even wetter than the first time! It was hot and so it felt really good, but it took a pretty long time to get dry. We went through some more aquariums and went on a gondola ride over the bay. We also went on the skytower for a great view and over to the Sesame Street area to play. We met Big Bird and Elmo, went on the swing ride and played on some fun playgrounds.
Seaworld closed at 6pm and we didn't have time to make it to the penguin area, wild arctic, and Journey to Atlantis. There were also a couple shows we missed, one that we had really hoped to see. I think if we had known our way around (or had a better map) we could have seen it all. It was hard to make it to the showtimes in between seeing all the aquariums and riding rides. We felt like Seaworld is trying to wear too many hats (aquarium and amusement park) and also that it was very crowded especially with foreigners. We felt like we saw many more foreign people at Seaworld than at any other theme park we visited. It was fun, but it definitely could have been better.
After we left we hit up a California Pizza Kitchen in La Jolla and had great service from a really fun waitress who connected with Elliott. The kids all fell asleep on the way back to the condo. We got them transported in strollers up to the room and prepared for one last day of theme park craziness.
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