martinzoo

Today we went to Sea World. One of the biggest surprises to me was how similar Sea World was to our own Busch Gardens in Williamsburg. I knew they were owned by the same company, but didn’t realize that they had so many similarities.

Some things that I liked a lot better at Sea World was their crowd management. There were still tons of people there, but it didn’t seem crowded at all. And for my lazy self, it was nice that the terrain was shady, but flat. The landscaping was still exquisite.

Sea World is very animal attraction friendly, whereas Busch Gardens is very ride-heavy. I LOVED our trip to Sea World!

GB is standing here with a GIANT Clydesdale horse. We have these in Virginia, too, but because of the crowds GB has never gotten a picture with them.

This was a really cool wall in the Polar bear exhibit. It’s all frozen ice with a few polar bear paw prints melted into it. All of our kids enjoyed sticking their hands inside the bear’s print.

This was a Beluga whale.

This is me, at the South Pole, in my shorts and bathing suit…….LOL!!!!!!!

Unfortunately for GB, the day we come from Virginia to see a polar bear, he spends the whole day sleeping. We went through the exhibit twice but he was sleeping both times.

GB is pretending to be an arctic explorer. This was a recreation of their arctic sub station.

This was a very crowd-friendly Walrus. It was kind of like WE were on display because he just kept popping up to the surface to get some air and then sinking down to stare at US….LOL!

Sea World would not be complete without a visit to see Shamu. We got a shortened show because the lady whales (who are large and in charge) went on strike during the show. And Sea World’s policy is that they only have the whales do what they WANT to do. No forcing. I like that, and I was perfectly happy with my shortened show. I thought it was kind of funny that the trainers had to think on the fly, you know?

It’s hard to see because it is so well camouflaged, but this is a Sea dragon. Not a Sea horse, but a Sea dragon. We thought that was really cool. It looks like floating seaweed.

Oooohhhhhh! Baracuda!!!!!

GB is chillin’ in front of the Puffin exhibit.

I was in love with this Sea Lion. He had SO much personality! He stayed right with us, begging for fish. I loved his barking which you can hear in my video above.

For the last couple of years GB has been content with the few roller coasters at Busch Gardens that he has tried. He did not want to try anything more intense. But since Sea World only has ONE roller coaster, he decided to give it a try. I was suspicious as we were waiting our turn, but during the ride I became convinced that this was the SAME roller coaster that we have in Virginia, the Alpengeist.  So after we rode the Kraken, I informed GB that he had just ridden the Alpengeist, and that he no longer had to fear it. He thought the ride was “Awesome!!”

This was a Manatee.

Here, GB is squirting unsuspecting passersby with a water machine gun. Some of them weren’t unsuspecting, but were so hot that they just stood there begging to be squirt. GB was happy to oblige!

This is a far away shot of the same boat as above. You can barely see GB at the machine gun post.

So that was our day at Sea World. We loved it very much. And I wish I lived close so that I could go often. It really is a great park!