Sea World

After a lot of research I finally found the best deal on Sea World tickets. Lucky for us the passes are good for the rest of 2012 and into Busch Garden's too. We were really excited, neither of us had been to either park. We packed up our lunch and frozen water bottles, applied a little SPF, and we were on our way! We got about 20 mins down the road when we both realized we forgot the cameras. We were pretty bummed but luckily in today's day we have cell phone cameras. While they aren't top quality they aren't too shabby either. So this post is brought to you via cell phone pictures.

Our visit started out small, and it's a good thing. We weren't exactly sure where we were going or where anything was. Luckily we have this mentality (thanks to our fun passes) that we don't have to stress about seeing it ALL this time, we'll see it next time, or some other time after that!  We stopped by a little dolphin nursery and got excited seeing a few dolphins swim around. Even the flamingos seemed exciting.

That was until we decided to go to see the dolphin and acrobat show. It was so neat! There were birds flying over the audience and people skiing on dolphins. It was a good thing we started small with the dolphin nursery because we would have been disappointed after seeing this! Then it was off to a 3D movie about a sea turtle and to see the manatees.

After a little persuasion we went on one of the roller coasters called The Manta. I love roller coasters but even I was a little nervous. I had never been on one quite like this. You sit in your seat and pull a chest harness over yourself while an ankle harness comes to keep your legs in the "sitting" position. The next thing you know they are tilting you forward so your back is now parallel to the ground, face looking down at the cement! The whole ride you are in this position through loops and twists. We LOVED it. After the first stomach-wrenching loop I heard Keith start to laugh, and he laughed until it stopped. There was NO line so we decided to go for round two. We finished just in time to make it to see the Shamu Show (as I like to call it). It wasn't a let down, that's for sure!

We were wise enough to sit above the first 15 rows dubbed "The Soak Zone". It was fun to watch everyone else get soaked though!

Who knew this little tail...

could make a splash like this?

All in all we had a really fun time and can't wait to go back. We still have 2/3 of the park to see! And this time we'll remember to bring our real camera.