St. Augustine, Orlando, SeaWorld, and the Nashville Floods of 2010

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Started doing a pre-trip report over on the Dis boards, ended up kind of doing a post-trip report on our first trip to Orlando, thought I'd cover it over here as well. I mostly read trip reports for places I hope to visit, but I read all the ones here even though I'm not into WWF and am never going to do the Redneck Tour. They're just generally more informative, seems to me; I hope mine will be the same.

When we bought into Bluegreen, I told the kids they could each pick a resort to visit, and my middle daughter immediately went for the Fountains, in Orlando. We've been planning to take my second son to see some orcas since he was about three, when his Orca Obsession got going (prior to that it was zebras), plus my youngest is absolutely terrified of costumed characters where she can't see the face of the person inside, so I figured we'd do SeaWorld and leave Walt Disney World for later. Which was fine with everyone, until middle daughter started telling her friends she was going to Orlando and they all wanted to know if she was going to WDW. I sat down and crunched the numbers with her and she agreed that SeaWorld made more sense, but she was kind of disappointed. Then Disney started advertising the Give A Day, Get a Day program, so then she could have a day at WDW after all. Yay!

Tried to talk her siblings into volunteering with us; not only did we get no takers, her oldest brother waited until all the Give a Day tickets were out, THEN he started coming in to work with us. *sigh*

Hubby took the Friday before our vacation week off, so we left Friday, April 23, 2010. I started having the kids keep "Vacation Memory Books" from EnchantedLearning when they were little; now we just do the "Trip Information, daily diary, Trip recap" kinda pages. Since we were driving down, not a whole lot happening. I note that the temp dropped 10 degrees before we stopped for lunch (even though we were driving pretty much straight South at that point), and that we saw the Photosaurus for Dinosaur World:



My parents lived in Tennessee when the kids were little, and one year dad gave me some cash and told me to take the kids to Dinosaur World on our way back, which we did -- when the kids were waaaay littler:



So hubby always points out the photosaurus, "Remember when we went there?" and the kids always say, "yeah, yeah, whatever." We also saw an idiot driver weaving in and out of traffic, which is a pretty common occurrence, however this time he went blasting by us, disappeared over a hill, then we crested the hill to see the car had run into a barrier along the outside of a long curve below us, apparently spun a bit, and was now parked at a crazy angle facing the barrier. When we got down there, the car was empty, the driver's door hanging open, and hubby speculated that the guy had stolen the car and run off after he wrecked it.

We stopped at a Chattanooga Ramada which had a much too soft mattress, got going early the next day, and got to St. Augustine before the sun was down. We drove out to the Regency Inn and Suites on Anastasia Island, which is right across from (the parking lot for) the beach. Looks to me like a renovated old motel, so the "suite" was just a big room with three double beds, but it was clean and we were only going to be there for a night, so we dumped everything and raced off to the beach. And technically the beach is just a narrow strip of sand up against a breakwater right there; you have to take stairs down to it and at high tide it's all under water, but happily it was low tide that night and we spent an hour or so under and around the pier there, chasing crabs and the like as it got dark.

The manager let us have a late check out the next day, so we got up early and paid to get on the pier across the street since there was no beach, and hubby took pictures of what was supposed to be the sunrise -- too cloudy for good sunrise pics but nice to be out anyhow:





Hubby took a few shots of the shore, but he was trying to get some effect of the waves so they're not terribly informative. Gives you an idea of why the beach there disappears, though:



It's just that tiny area with no beach, though -- a few blocks away in either direction, the beach is like this:



Nice wide stretch of sand. There's a fair bit of tiny sea life along the edges we watched for a while, then my four younger kids dug holes, hubby went swimming, and eldest daughter and I stood in the surf, sinking, while we critiqued waves. It was great.

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Toward noon we went back to the room and got cleaned up, packed the van, and headed for St. Augustine proper. The one "must do" I had was Castillo de San Marco, which will be 450 years old in 2015. Never been defeated and weathered cannon shot pretty well -- I think the most damage it's ever sustained was when some yahoo ran his truck into part of it this past spring. (link is to a news video)

http://www.firstcoastnews.com/video/...an-Marcos-Fort

He must have been going crazy fast, because even the retaining walls are well off the road, and it's uphill (although there is a tip that stretches down to the parking lot closer than this, which I'm guessing is where he hit).



Anyhow... we parked at the Visitor's Center downtown and looked over the displays there, then walked down to the Castillo. It doesn't cost much to tour, $7 for an adult (and an adult is 16 and above), but we didn't even have to pay that much because it was National Park week. Which I'm guessing is the last full week in April? Hubby loved that getting-in-for-free part.

When you enter the fort, this is over the door:



That’s actually a replica; the original was moved to a museum in 1958. And then somewhere a bit further in, you see this (I have totally cranked the contrast and things because it was in a deep recess and hard to see, so the colors are pretty quirky -- I don't remember that red off to the right, for sure!):



That older, more worn one is the royal Coat of Arms of Spain, best I can tell (some sections I haven't a clue what's really there!). The castles symbolize the kingdom of Castile, and the lions the kingdom of Leon. We tried to get a good picture of it because it’s so different from the one at the gate – the crown and shield parts are the same, but it doesn’t have the ring of what the Hermit called crabs around it, and it doesn’t have the sheep hanging from the bottom. So I went looking to find out why they’re different.

Since Charles II was king when construction of the coquina fort began in 1672, the shield over the gate is his shield; the decorative ring (the “collar”) and the hanging sheep indicate he was in “The Order of the Golden Fleece,” which is one of the oldest chivalric orders. It’s called a “collar” because it’s named after those big gold necklaces you see on a lot of pictures of guys from the middle ages, like the hunk of metal on this guy:


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Ch...%27Amboise.jpg

Those gold “collars” are knightly insignia. News to me! Both the gold chain and the collar on the coat of arms are supposed to be alternating “briquets” (aka “firesteels”) in the shape of a B (for Burgundy), linked by flints. So the things that look like crabs to the Hermit (and flowers to me) are really supposed to be flames, and those curvy interlocking c-shaped things were once b-shaped things. Obviously, the design of the briquets and flints can vary greatly, as can the shape of the sheep – look at the poor mutant sheep on this one:


http://www.wikigallery.org/wiki/pain...mo-de-Medici-I

A bit more research and it turns out that the skinny middle is supposed to show that it’s just an empty fleece; the one on the Castillo is an older style where it looks like a ram in a hoist who could stand on his own four feet if you’d just put him down. I suppose the empty fleece makes more sense but it just looks weird to me. I like the collar on the Castillo gate better than any of the other versions I’ve seen, but if you want to draw your own conclusions, here are a bunch more (jewelry sets, though, not carvings).

http://www.antiquesatoz.com/sgfleece/symbols.htm

Downstairs there are some tiny rooms to tour and a big plaza, but what the kids liked best were the cannons upstairs...



And the little turret rooms:



Is that little groove where they rested their guns?

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Here’s the gun turret from a bit further away:



That's kind of dark, but mostly I wanted to point out the "Bridge of Lions" to Anastasia Island in the back there. That's highway A1A, which goes pretty much the length of Florida along the Atlantic coastline. If I had three or four lifetimes to play with, driving the length of A1A would be on my bucket list.

And here is a shot of a couple of kids with a re-enactor:



In my experience, some re-enactors are really on top of things and have a lot to offer; others kind of have their little spiel on their uniform or gear, and they’re done. This guy could answer some of the kids’ questions on the cannons, so he gets points. :thumbsup2

Walking back, we took St. George Street in the Spanish Quarter, which was nice, and I really like the city gate that's still there. I tried to find a picture of the Old City Gates that looked like what I saw, but all I could find was ones like this:



-- which is much more stark than I remember -- or overly romanticized ones like this:



If you can imagine something about halfway between those, that's what I remember seeing.

In an art store in Old Town I also saw a print of Thomas Kinkade's "A New Day at Cinderella's Castle," which is the one Kinkade that really tempts me:



I love the deer (supposedly Bambi and his mother - yeah, they totally lived near a European-ish castle!), and the rainbow, less enthused about Tinkerbell up there. I like Kinkade's lush landscapes and I think their fantasy feel is just right for Disney. His landscapes tend to all blend in the mind, though, but this one is so clearly Cinderella's Castle it stays put after I look at it. He did a painting of Biltmore, too, but that one's got people in it, and I do not like his people. Generic landscapes bug me a lot less than generic people, for whatever reason.

Anyhow. There's tons more to do in St. Augustine and I really want to get back there sometime, but this was "an Orlando trip," and the kids were antsy to get to Orlando. So we got back to our car and headed out!

[chriskre Super Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close chriskre]

Great TR. I love that Kindade as well.
Thanks for sharing.
Maybe I'll do a trip report too since you are inspiring me.

[Hobbitess Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Hobbitess]

Maybe I'll do a trip report too since you are inspiring me.

Give it a try! I always thought I was All About the Anticipation, rather than the trip itself, but I'm finding that remembering the trip is just as fun. Ran across a C.S. Lewis quote that really speaks to me now (and probably wouldn't have before): "A pleasure is full grown only when it is remembered."

And, thanks for the kind words. Glad you're enjoying it.

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To be honest, I felt a little trepidation about our resort in Orlando. We could only stay in the units in the older Oasis Lake buildings (because the regular units officially sleep six), which were in the process of being refurbished, meaning we would either have construction noise, end up in a unit due for refurbishment, or both! Plus, the unit was all white with blonde woods; I like bright colors when I'm vacationing, and preferably nothing that reminds me of the 1970s.

On the upside, the units that sleep 8 are big -- over 1300 square feet -- and we love our space, so that part is good. When we checked in, I could tell from the room number that we would be in the building that isn't being refurbished yet. So no construction noise, at any rate. This also means, in essence, that you can't get these units anymore -- you can, of course, but as part of the refurbishment they cut a new door from the master bedroom into the dining area, so they moved the table over to merge with that island thingie, meaning it's a smaller table that seats five. In a unit that sleeps eight! Yeah, that's helpful...

We drove over to our unit and unloaded the van by the unit, then hubby ran it over to the next building to park (this was an on-going issue -- I think people drive over to swim in the pool, so it's hard to find parking right by the building but we always found parking at our end of the parking for the next building over, so not a big deal). Then we rode the elevator up to the top floor, opened the door to the unit, and this is what we see -- sort of:







For me, at any rate, the view just pulled me right through the unit and out onto that big screened porch. I forgot all about the fact that I didn't expect to like the decor and just rejoiced in that big unit with a view. I guess some people find screened porches confining, but I love them, and the view was nice -- the lake below, and then you can see SeaWorld beyond it. Hubby apparently did not feel the same, because we have no pictures of that view. And come to think of it, I sat out on the porch with eldest son, not hubby. Hubby liked the unit just fine, but I guess the view didn't grab him.

The master bedroom had a ridiculous large dressing area:



The bed looked better before eldest son flung himself across it.





And there was a little unscreened balcony:





The second bedroom in the units that sleep eight has a queen bed and a fold out sofa. The smaller units in the older buildings, the second bedroom has two twin beds, but the regular units in most of the resort, which also officially sleep six, have two double beds in the second bedroom. Where's the logic in that?

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We decide to do a tour of the resort -- middle daughter wanted to see the big pool that I suspect is half the reason she picked the place. I didn't request any pics so hubby didn't take any (this is the trip I clued into the fact that I really needed to get a camera of my own). This, from BG's flickr collection, shows most of the big pool there:



That first lobe to the left is zero entry, and has various squirty things and stuff for kids to play with. The next lobe has this double slide (first pic from TripAdvisor, second from the BG flickr):





The kids liked the double slide because they could race each other. And even the loser wins, because it's a slide!

The big pool was practically empty, which surprised me. I knew it was unheated, but on checking it when we got there it was warm enough for my kids, so I figured other "northerners" would be happy with it, but apparently not. We wandered on to the indoor/outdoor pool, which is heated, and it was mobbed. I hadn't toured the Disney resorts at that point, but now that I have, that pool was right up there with them. There were people playing volleyball and everyone seemed to having a good ol' time, but I'd rather the cold and quiet one, myself.

Indoor/outdoor pool from inside:



The outside part of the indoor/outdoor pool is right off the lake, so you can sit there and look at either, which looks nice. Not that I ever got to do that -- we were only there five nights and there were a lot of things I didn't get to. There's also a kiddie pool and a big chess board and things, and of course you can get a canoe or a swan paddleboat to do Lake Eve. Lake Eve is really a pond, IMHO, but we enjoyed it for all that.

I bought a few pins for trading before we came out, but middle daughter and I wanted to get lanyards, and of course you can never have too many Disney pins, so we decided to head over to Disney's Character Warehouse in the Orlando Premium Outlet, which is right close to the Fountains. Second son and youngest daughter decided to come along, which seemed innocuous. The parking lot was packed, but there was plenty of parking -- shaded parking -- in the parking garage, which was free.

I'd forgotten my mall map, but I remembered the Disney store was near the food court, so we found it easily enough. Middle daughter and I headed over to the pins and promptly found a Pirates of the Caribbean pin we both liked for a buck a pop. We both picked out the same lanyard -- it was pink enough for her and purple enough for me -- and, since none of the other pins shown particularly excited us, we picked up a couple of mystery bags each. So we ended up with two of everything, which I didn't realize until the cashier was ringing us up. The cashier said, "Would you like two bags?" and middle daughter said, "Sure!"

So the cashier divided everything evenly and gave one bag to middle daughter and offered the other to my youngest. My youngest had decided that Disney=costumed characters, and since she hates costumed characters, that means she hated Disney. Plus she doesn't like Mickey Mouse, who was of course emblazoned across the bag. She she just crossed her arms and glared at the poor cashier.

Middle daughter, who is the soul of tact, cheerfully said, "I'll carry it for her." So I thought we'd gotten over that hurdle, but then the cashier offered the kids Mickey stickers, and this time my youngest didn't just glare but loudly announced, "I hate that guy" and stalked away, which prompted second son into a declaration that "Sea World is way better than Disney" and would have sent him off into a rant on the subject if I hadn't given him the Evil Eye.

Middle daughter, beaming over her loot and the unexpected gift of stickers, thanked the saleslady again and wished her good day, and I slunk out of the store with my middle daughter practically skipping at my side, telling me how great the Pirates pin was, second son muttering softly that "Sea World is still better, I dunno why Disney gets all the attention" and my youngest whispering, "Disney is evil" kinda stuff to herself. I expect the saleslady predicted a wonderful time at Disney World for us.

By the time we got back to the Fountains, a good storm was cranking up, so hubby went and sat on the bedroom porch (no screen) to take pics of the lightning.



Then, when it settled down to mostly just pouring, we went out to the front and watched the rain sheeting off the roof while hubby tried to get a picture of it, with less success.



That's the clubhouse down on the left; there's a restaurant in there and the indoor/outdoor pool toward the back. The big pool's the other side of the building across the parking lots.

Middle daughter and I had decided on the Magic Kingdom for our one park day, and I didn't want to hit the MK on a Monday, so we went to bed knowing that, the next day, it was SeaWorld. Or, if you're my second son, The Next Day, It was SEAWORLD!

[jackio Gold Contributor Find all posts View Profile Close jackio]

Georgeous pictures - thanks for sharing!!

[shaggy Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close shaggy]

Thank you so much for doing this trip report!! I loved the pics also. I wish more people would do them. I love remembering my trips. Naw, I don't expect anybody but me to go to wrestling conventions & red neck tours but everyone has fun in their own way and providing family memories that will last a lifetime.

shaggy

PS ok Christie, your turn to do a trip report. I'd love to read it.

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Thanks for reading, jackio!

but everyone has fun in their own way and providing family memories that will last a lifetime.

Exactly! I wouldn't enjoy myself in a lot of things that are rowdy or that you have to hike for hours to get to or whatever, but I love reading about them. I wish more would do them, too, and I'm glad you're as faithful at reporting your trips as you are.

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While planning this trip, I rapidly discovered that, if you’re into the “little things,” SeaWorld is a lot tougher to research than Disney. I asked a number of places (including the Dis, memory serves) whether there were live performers wandering around or anything like that, got responses ranging from, “Of course not! It’s SeaWorld, not Disney World” to “Maybe? I think? No idea when or where, though.” *sigh* For the record, yes, there are live performers, although I personally haven’t seen them all.

I did find out enough to rough out schedules for everyone. I told hubby he needed to do any rides that interested him first thing, which is all the schedule he’ll tolerate. Second son planned to spend his morning staring at the orcas – turns out you can’t get over to that side of the park that early, so first he shopped and *then* he spent the rest of the morning staring at the orcas, until he joined his dad and the rest to get in line for the show. Eldest son’s plan was to ditch everyone as soon as possible, which he did. My plan was to take my youngest to feed the dolphins – “they’re carnivores, you know. Predators. Meaning they’re cool!” That’s the one thing that really gets a line where you have to wait, so I planned to get there at opening and do it first thing.

So, like a fool, instead I let hubby talk me into sleeping in a bit next morning. So instead of getting there at opening, we got there about a half hour later. And then hubby wanted to take everyone else’s picture.



Now doesn’t THAT look like a family all ready for a fun day?

So of course once we got there we had to buy tickets and debate about getting lockers and purchase the all day dining deal. My younger kids love, love, love the Seaworld All Day Dining Deal – that’s one of the things they have against Disney; they don’t like the Disney Dining Plan at all, because you have to eat two real meals and can’t snack all day. With the Seaworld deal, you get a wristband and then you can get as much food as you want. There are five or so assigned restaurants, all of them cafeteria-style, and although you can technically only get three things each run through (main dish, side dish, and drink), you can go through the line as many times as you want.

Which is just my kids’ style. My middle daughter had multiple pieces of cake, multiple servings of chocolate milk and regular milk and soda and watermelon and chocolate pudding and strawberries and macaroni and cheese, and one serving of pizza (the mac and cheese was better, apparently). Second son liked the pizza and had a lot of that and of soda – he is a soda fiend, and we don’t have it at home, so anything that offers unlimited soda is great in his book. I am totally introducing him to Beverly when we do Epcot. He will probably like it – because it is soda and because he is Just That Annoying.


Middle Daughter's favorite! (pic from here: http://kirbiecravings.com/2009/12/di...san-diego.html )

Ton of SeaWorld food pics here – the kid’s meal thingie is different, but the rest looks like what we could have;

http://www.foodspotting.com/people/s...splace?page=15

At any rate, we missed the first dolphin feeding, so we spent a long time waiting in line for the second one, the only line any of us really dealt with the whole day (I'm not counting waiting time in the stadiums as a line, but as a matter of fact, eldest daughter and I came in within the last five minutes of all the shows we saw that day and got okay seats). My youngest was more patient about it than I was. Once we got in there, I tried to show her how you need to offer them food with one hand and pet them with the other, but that wasn’t part of her plan – I don’t know if I forgot to talk to her about it or if she just hadn’t been listening, but she was there to feed the dolphins and wasn’t at all sure about this petting thing, and it never really did work out.


(This is from 2011, but she’s in almost exactly the same spot!)

Not that it mattered – she thought feeding the dolphins was the coolest thing ever. So, after spending maybe an hour watching the dolphins from above, before getting in line, and then feeding them, we went and watched them from underwater. Where there was a penny squashing machine, and of course my youngest wanted a squashed penny. And of course I’d forgotten the prettified pennies or given them to her dad or something, but fortunately a passing stranger took pity on us and traded some change so we got a shiny penny to dolphinize and life was good again. I was about dolphined out, but I did want to go see the Blue Horizons show, which I figured I’d like and I totally did.

It’s a story about this lady:



Who is pictured there with a parrot, but there’s also a condor, and she meets people dressed like birds:



And of course dolphins pushing people around (my favorite part – who wouldn’t want to go spinning through the water like that? – it'd be like flying! however this isn’t the best picture):



And dolphins throwing people around:



And there are acrobats and stuff. Plus, the music is good enough that I still like it, despite eldest son buying the sound track and playing it incessantly until some other obsession overcame him.

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Then we went and met everyone at the restaurant by the Shamu stadium, I foisted my youngest off on her dad, and eldest daughter and I went for a quiet lunch before the crowds hit while the rest of the crew went to watch the orca show. I got this ridiculous huge chicken wrap (I should have had someone shift half over to an individual plate for me, since I knew I wasn’t going to finish it, but I was hungry so I didn’t), that had a lot of rice and fresh veggies and apparently so little chicken I forgot any was there, but despite not a lot of chicken was fine, if nothing to write home about. Tried to convince the Hermit to share that with me, but they had fried shrimp, so it was never going to happen. I can’t remember the last time she didn’t order a shrimp dish when she had the opportunity.

We shared our dining “room” (a partially screened porch kind of area by the lake) with some ducks:



I do not like ducks at my dinner and sternly told them to go away, which they eventually did. Much to the disappointment of second son once he got there -- ducks, like orcas, are on his favorites list.

Eldest and I were just finishing our main dish servings when the ambient music suddenly swelled and we were treated to a fountain show out on the lake. I love those! Half the reason I wanted to go to Epcot was to see the Fountain of Nations! Well, okay, not really half the reason, but fountain show! At SeaWorld! Who knew? We don’t have any pics of it, but here’s one from the internet:


http://photo.accuweather.com/photoga...n+at+Sea+World

SEAWORLD TIP – supposedly, they do the fountain show every hour on the hour from about 10:00 a.m. to close. I didn’t have a watch to check but that seems about right. The best viewing spot, IMHO, is down at the base of the Sky Tower, facing kinda south east, but we had a pretty good view from the part of Mango Joe’s that’s kind of raised up above the lake.

About the same time – SEAWORLD TIP – there was a little live show out by the front of the restaurant, a bunch of drummers and guys on those pogo-stick stilt sort of things. I think they do one after every orca show. One of those things that are about equally fun and beautiful and terrifying, like watching people on a high wire – these guys are doing flips WAAAAY up in the air, over cement, and I’m thinking, “Someone got creamed during the Pirate Tutorial, and you’re doing THAT?” Hubby totally missed it, but this guy has a terrific picture if you follow the link:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/dangler...n/photostream/


Some of the “soloists” get even higher.

So the rest of the crew joined us at Mango Joes, and we told them they had to go see Blue Horizons a.s.a.p. while they told us we had to do the second orca show with them.

I was just finishing my drink (which was bottled water from SeaWorld and flavoring packets I brought), got to eyeing hubby’s carrot cake and eventually conned him out of it (he’s a soft touch). I think I got some milk to do with it – decadent desserts always go better with milk. Unless they’re the kind that are good with cream or ice cream, of course, which this was not, IMHO.


http://kirbiecravings.com/2009/12/di...san-diego.html

That’s someone else’s photo – mine did not have the orange frosting smeared at the tip like that. It was fine, for storebought. I am not a big frosting fan, so I always cut the powdered sugar in my own cream cheese frostings, then I complain when I get cake at a restaurant because the frosting’s too sweet. Someday I’ll learn. Or at this point, maybe the odds are pretty strongly against that.

All the milk we had at SeaWorld (we’re a big milk-drinking family) was really fresh, btw – I have gotten wary about ordering milk while eating out because I’ve gotten some pretty nasty offerings over the years.

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Eldest and I wandering around looking at aquarium stuff, while the rest of the crew went and watched a Blue Horizons show. Except eldest son, who had already seen it. They liked it.



Marine Biologists get to wear much fancier clothes on the job than other Biologists.



Most of us got together after the show willingly, then we tracked down eldest son and dragged him into the one air-conditioned, inside show in the park. I liked the air conditioning, less enthused about the show. It's an acrobatic show, about a fisherman who falls in the ocean and meets a girl (the Princess) and her mom (the Queen, of course) doesn't like him and throws a fit. Being magical, this future MIL can throw a pretty big hissy fit! But the Magic Of True Love wins out.

None of the pictures hubby took of the show really turned out, but afterwards he took pics of some of the the performers. The show didn't do much for me, but I really like Evil Future MIL's costume.





After the picture taking, youngest daughter realized she'd forgotten her backpack, so the two of us (trailed by eldest daughter) raced back looking for it, to no avail. So I told her we'd leave a note with the lost and found and we moved on -- the only things in it were her water bottle and the special cup and plate she got because she had a "Children's" meal deal. She didn't care about the water bottle but she wanted the dishes.

Hubby has taken some beautiful pics of aquarium pics before and since, but the fates were against him this trip. I guess I'll share just one pic of a shark:



We all got together at the end of the day to see the orca show, but we didn't sit together because middle daughter was the only one who wanted to sit in the splash zone. We were there shortly after the trainer died, :sad1: and the show was sort of a shorn-back version of one written for a lot more orca/trainer interaction, and it was kind of sad. Although that impression may be more because I like lots of pretty colors and the orca show is more impressive and weighty than pretty, I suppose.




The kids had a great time however, while Geek dad somehow managed to get orca pics and also pics of his daughter in the splash zone. The first big splash:







I love the guys jumping out of their seats. "What? You mean this is the splash zone?" Middle daughter, OTOH, didn't think that was too exciting, and so she "generously" offered to trade with people who wanted to move back and moved down a couple of rows.



That worked!

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The orca show where middle daughter got drenched was the end of our day, but I'll go back and add some stuff i forgot...

SEAWORLD TIP Hubby got an AP because it would totally pay off since it includes free parking and a discount at the SeaWorld shops. And we knew we'd be hitting the shops. But if you're going two days, paying the parking was about the difference between the two kinds of tickets anyhow, so even if you aren't much of a shopper it was worth it. Plus I think we got in with just the voucher, which I wasn't sure about. And obviously I'm still not, but if we paid for parking at the gate then he got the money back when he traded the voucher in for his pass.

SEAWORLD TIP They’ve been running the second day free offer at SeaWorld since I’ve been paying attention, however not everyone realizes it only works if you take your ticket to guest services and get it punched or something before the end of your first day.

While eldest and I were doing aquariums, hubby took the younger three to feed the stingrays, sharks, and seals. Feeding the critters costs extra, and the kids are supposed to pay for their own critter food, but I have my doubts that really happened. Hubby is a soft touch. Also, he forgets to write it down.

Eldest and I missed the pets show when, on our way there, my glasses popped apart on one side because the screw fell out. And of course we then couldn't find the screw, even though my eldest is a total Eagle Eye. I am legally blind without my glasses, so we had to find a way to fix them in order for me to see a show… or much of anything else! We were near a little shopping kiosk but the clerk was off getting things to restock the shelves or something so we had to track her down; I was hoping she might have a paper clip that I could stick through the hole the screw fell out of for a temporary fix. She looked and didn’t have any, finally sent us off to the shop by Arctic Adventure.

They didn’t have any paper clips there, either, so I was trying to think of another approach when the lady behind the counter suddenly grabbed the stapler, stapled two pieces of scrap paper with it and handed it to me, saying, “Use the staple!” I had my doubts – staples are pretty thin, and it had to hold the two metal pieces pretty tightly around the lens – but it worked great! Yay for unnamed SeaWorld employee! Totally should have stopped in and given her kudos at customer relations (or whatever it’s called) on our way out, but of course we were late for meeting the troops and ran off before I even thought to get her name. FAIL.

Eldest son (and his dad, I think-?) went up in the sky tower, and Eldest said I could post some of his pictures.



He was all excited back then to be able to see the Fountains from the park, but when I asked him to point out its general area in the pictures he’s all, “Mom, that was two years ago.” This is not him being all teenager – his dad is the same way when I ask him what he had when he went out for dinner the night before. “You expect me to remember? That was yesterday.”

The roller coaster in this next one is Kraken.



Unless you count the carousel, that building with the gold dome there is the only ride anyone went on – “Journey to Atlantis.” It’s a flume ride, about on par with Splash Mountain I’m told, and hubby, eldest son, and middle daughter did it first thing in the day. Hubby enjoyed it, eldest son claimed to enjoy it but wasn’t really enthused about another go round, and middle daughter thought it was TERRIFYING.



Journey to Atlantis had one of my favorite aquariums, “the Jewel of the Sea.” It’s a teeny tiny thing back behind the gift shop; that grey dome, below and to the right of the gold one. None of the Jewel ones are my pictures, but I’ll still defend this first photographer by saying I expect it’s only blurry because it’s kind of dark in there.


Orlando Vacations Now

The really cool part is that there is an aquarium in the ceiling:


http://www.flickr.com/photos/shyzaboy/2778154741/

And one in the floor:


Have Fun in the USA

I have no idea how that guy got that ceiling pic with the sharks in it, because I could barely make out anything up there with my eyes, let alone a camera! But I liked the light effects it creates in the room, so I'm all for it. The floor one is way cool, and it’s fun to watch infants and toddlers discover and try to interact with the fish down there.

I said earlier that the only airconditioned show is A’lure, but most of the aquarium areas are cool, particularly the one down below Manta, which was another fave. Much of it is underground so it was bigger than I expected. Also, I really like the waterfall you walk by to get there; admittedly, I have yet to meet a waterfall I didn't like. SeaWorld has lots of waterfalls. The Magic Kingdom had some I didn't know about (what! My research was incomplete? ), but the main reason I'm way excited about the Fantasyland expansion is the new water features.

So anyhow, we saw most of SeaWorld in one day, hubby got our tickets set up for out second day while I filled out the paperwork on the lost backpack, and we headed back to the condo. I crashed, but hubby and the younger three (four?) went swimming. I was right that the unheated pool was warm enough for them and they loved the slide, however they weren't much for the area with the cups tipping over with water and stuff because, while I would assume that it was technically the same temperature, "that water there was too cold."

Although we had enough for next day's breakfast, we were running out of food in the condo, plus that staple wasn’t going to last long in my glasses, so Tuesday was going to be shopping day. WalMart in the morning , but Downtown Disney and the Lego Store in the afternoon!

[shaggy Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close shaggy]

You made me laugh. When we did the Orca show or Shamu Kelli would go right down to the wall to get soaked. At least I got her to wait until the last show. The ride with the floom, she rode about 6 times so she would be really, really wet. shaggy