Run With The Fishes

Go here for part 1.

The whole week we were there it was pretty much non-stop fun. Tuesday Kathy took us to Sea World. By us, I mean all of her children* and grandchildren. As soon as we got there it was time for the Shamu ‘Believe’ show to start. We grabbed our seats and got ready. Of course everyone wanted to be in the splash zone.

A few minutes before the show started, Allison and Zoey decided we were just too close so we moved back a few rows. Towards the middle everyone started to do a “Shamu Rocks!” chant while moving their hands like a big whale fin. Nick and Nathan opted to stay close to the bottom in the hopes of getting wet.

The first sets of splashes came by and they got a few drops of water. I think they were a little disappointed. Just when they had given up hope of getting wet, the whale swam over super fast and soaked their section. Nathan was so shocked that he jumped out of his seat and started running up to where I was sitting. He says, “to show me how wet he got”.

After Shamu, it was time to watch the dolphins. Nathan and Nick must have made getting wet look like fun because Christopher and Allison insisted on sitting in the front row. This show was more light-hearted than the Shamu show. You can tell that dolphins are mischievous and their trainers have fun working with them. This is the show that made me think maybe the trainers weren’t really marine biologists, but were just hired actors**. To do the same show several times a day, every day of the week and still smile and laugh takes something. These guys were able to make it all seem like it was their first show. We got splashed, the kiddos loved it.

So, you all have seen the movie Happy Feet, right? You know the part when he gets caught and shipped off to the Zoo and the audience is made to feel guilty for humans keeping animals in captivity? The penguin attraction at Sea World was exactly like that. It was creepy.

We did see some other pretty cool exhibits and shows. After we got home, there are two parts of the trip that Allison described to my mom and then my dad on the phone. They must have made an impression. The first was the shark exhibit. She thought standing on the moving sidewalk and going through the shark aquarium was amazing.

The second was R.L. Stine’s Haunted Lighthouse , a 4D movie (3d, with some water effects) that we watched. She told my mom, “First the swordfish was coming at us and Mom kept saying it was going to poke her! Then we got fish slobber all over us but we couldn’t take a shower so we wiped some off, but had to walk around with slobber on us the rest of the day.” She was slightly grossed out and thought it was cool at the same time.

We wrapped up the day with the rides, which of course drenched anyone close.

*Jon and Leah of course were missing, since they were getting married and all.
** They are totally marine biologists. Sea World doesn’t let just anyone work with the marine life.