SeaWorld San Diego (day 2)

Bright and early Monday morning we headed over to SeaWorld.  We knew that our main focus at SeaWorld was going to be the animal shows. We also figured it would be a good testing ground to see what types of rides Jared and Lydia would enjoy.  We planned our day around the shows a few days before and saw all the ones we wanted to.  When we were choosing shows to see Mark asked me about the Shamu/One Ocean show and I was pretty impartial even though its like what SeaWorld started with. (Technically some UCLA graduates came up with SeaWorld and they wanted it to be more of an underground restaurant/city) It was a good show but the least favorite of our family so if you go and don't have time to see it it is not the end of the world. I Liked the Shamu up close viewing underground much better. Mark and I liked Blue Horizons the most, with the dolphins,whales, birds, and acrobats.  Jared liked SLL, Sea Lions Live the most.  It was very clever and silly.

One Ocean/Shamu up close:

Blue Horizons Stage:

SLL:

Cirque de La Mar:
Jared and Lydia didn't really appreciate this show.  It was pretty hot and in direct sunshine but the things the performers did were amazing. I have never seen Cirque De Soleil but these performers were awesome and did it over water and jumping into the water.

Those long white things are trampolines and they would jump from the top down to them, do a trick then bounce back up to the top.  Then they jumped off the edges and did fun tricks into the bay. The trapeze performers would have to be so strong and so trusting. You can just see the big trampoline and huge plastic balls in the bottom left corner. It was amazing.

Watching Dolphins:

Rides: We went on a few others but these were the favorites.
Bay Side Skyride: This ride was nice and cool. We got to walk right on and it zipped us across the bay then brought us back. Jared and Lydia loved it. It was fun to be over the ocean and have a great view.

Shipwreck rapids:
Lydia was too short to go on this ride but we knew Jared would love it. He and Mark went on it and he loved getting all wet. Lydia and I waited to watch them go by and she was so patient, it was a long wait.

We went into the Wild Arctic exhibit and discovered that Jared really does not like going into dark tunnels.  This continued at Disneyland/CA Adventure too which really limited the rides he would go on. You go underground in this exhibit so you can see the animals in the water and Jared was pretty freaked out.  We saw polar bears, whales, and a walrus.  I had never seen a walrus in real life, they are massive! We hurried out of there and went to check out the turtles and penguins. Jared said he really wanted to see the penguins but we had to rush through there because it was so dark. It was really cool though. It is amazing how big some of those penguins were and cool to see them swimming around. Whenever we see them at the Colorado Springs zoo they are just standing around. This seemed much more natural.  It was hard to get him to go see the turtles because they were also in a dark room. But he did it.

To finish off the day we headed over to Sesame Street Bay of Play.  There are some little rides that Lydia could go on and some really fun play areas.  Jared loved this net climbing, bridge one.  It was really big and took you up pretty high. It was cool, he could have stayed there for hours. They also had a splash pad area and Lydia loved running around in it and getting soaking wet.  Thankfully we had brought extra clothes for each of them which they were happy to have on the drive back to the hotel.

We really had a great day.  SeaWorld is nice because it has different attractions then other places. It was fun to see the animals and it was good practice for Disneyland. We learned that Jared and Lydia (especially Lydia) really enjoy the shows and what things sort of scare them and what they could handle.