Sea World

One of the things that I looked most forward to was Sea World.  I had never been there & was very excited to see the killer whale & dolphin shows.  Gabe also loves animals so I knew that he would have a great time.  We drove the hour & a half to Orlando & got to the park shortly after it opened.  Since it was off season, there were not as many people as you might expect (& a lot from Europe actually).  We were able to walk around quite easily, first seeing their cold exhibits with polar bears, a walrus & beluga whale.  Gabe was mesmerized by the walrus as he swam in one large circle, over & over & over, pausing in exactly the same spot.

We moved on to the killer whale show, & while I was amazed by their size, Gabe seemed uninterested.  He instead wanted to climb down the stairs, up onto the bench or hang through the side rails.  He spent several minutes trying on Grandma's sunglasses & showing off to the people around us.

We meandered around the park, visiting the seals, seal lions, manta rays, sting rays, dolphins, manatees, turtles, alligators, sharks & lots of fish.  Gabe seemed to like the big fish tanks, especially the sharks!  He was very excited when we went through the shark tube, & they swam over & around us.  He also like the manta ray pool where we got to stick our arms in & pet them.  (Gabe's arms were too short to touch anything so he just splashed, & I'm pretty sure he scared the rays away rather than attracted them.)

We ended up at the dolphin show in the early afternoon.  Gabe did better at this show, partly because there was more action & partly because the man next to us shared his popcorn.  He was also European & thought it was so fun to watch Gabe stick his arm way down into the bag.  The dolphin show also had exotic birds & human divers so the adults were entertained as well.

After a pretty busy day, Gabe finally passed out in his stroller.  We grabbed a couple souvenirs & a quick bite to eat then got to sit down when he took a quick nap.  He woke up & had chicken nuggets, & we headed back to the condo.  Gabe & I both took naps on the way home!!