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Previously: A quiet evening at Grandpa Lindberg’s.
The second ‘big thing’ on Prairie’s list of places to take me was SeaWorld. Once again, we got up early, hopped in the car, and made it to the park right as the gates were starting to open. In a very kind (and successful) attempt to console me for the disturbing lack of penguins at the San Diego Zoo the day before, Prairie had mentioned that SeaWorld had a penguin or two in an exhibit that might be enough to keep me entertained. We grabbed a park map on our way through the gate, oriented ourselves, and went straight for the Penguin Encounter.
Okay, kidding aside (for a moment), that really is an impressive exhibit. What looks to be a couple hundred adélie, gentoo, macaroni, king, and emperor penguins in a huge room, hanging out on the ‘ice’ and zooming through the water, with a slow-moving conveyor belt shuffling the human viewers by and a raised stationary viewing area behind. We had a lot of fun watching all the penguins, and I took two trips along the conveyor, watching the penguins play and snapping pictures.
From there, we just started wandering around SeaWorld, checking out the many exhibits before and between hitting the four main daytime shows. I think Prairie’s favorites were the manatees and the beluga whales, while I’d probably choose the sharks as my favorite (after the penguins, of course).
Of the four shows we hit (The Shamu Show Believe, Dolphin Discovery, Sea Lions LIVE, and Pets Rule!), my pick for top marks is nearly a tie between Shamu and the dolphins…but I think for sheer “wow” spectacle, Shamu wins out. While I’ve certainly been aware that killer whales are by no means small animals, I never really had a clear real-world concept of their size. But wow, is it incredible to see one of these huge animals go rocketing up out of the water! Really impressive stuff.
We ended up spending the entire day at SeaWorld, longer even than we’d spent going through the San Diego Zoo (though being able to duck into the penguin exhibit again in the afternoon to guzzle water and soak up the air conditioning was a huge help), and we saw everything, save only the Sesame Street themed little kid’s play area and the Clydesdale horses (which just don’t make sense to me, even with Budweiser’s ownership of the parks…for some strange reason, beer and horses aren’t foremost in my mind when I think of an ocean wildlife theme park).
When planning for this trip, we’d gone back-and-forth as to whether SeaWorld or DisneyLand was going to be our big theme park for the trip…I gotta say, much as I think it’d be fun to go to DisneyLand, I’m totally a fan of SeaWorld. Definitely the right choice for us.
Once again, here’s a slideshow of my photos from SeaWorld, in semi-random order (actually ordered by whatever Flickr’s ‘interestingness’ algorithm chooses), or here’s a link to just the SeaWorld photos. Of course, you can always look at the full set of vacation photos, too!
Next: Exploring Balboa Park.