Florida Day 4: SeaWorld

 The next day we went to SeaWorld.  Our condo was only about 5 minutes away from the SeaWorld parks, which was awesome.

I have been to SeaWorld in California, but not Florida.  I feel like the California one has more sea animals.  I didn't think there were a ton of aquariums in the park.  But we also were completely unfamiliar with the park, so we wasted a lot of time walking back and forth across the park to different things.

SeaWorld had some really fun roller coasters, like the Manta and Mako.  But you had to be over 52 inches to ride them, so Sophie and Charley were the only kids big enough to ride most of them.  That really bummed out Aspen and Brynn.  But it also lead to a lot of dividing and conquering because some of the adults would take the big kids on the rides while the others stayed with the little kids.  Then we'd switch so all the adults could ride.  Fortunately it seemed that mostly families with little kids go to SeaWorld, so there weren't many people over 52 inches to ride, so the lines were usually short.  When Kjirstin and I were watching the littles, we went to the Sesame Street section with rides for the babies.  I tried to put Hazel on the merry-go-round and she freaked out so much we had to get off.  Isaac also tried taking her on a spinny ride and after a few seconds she started yelling "DONE! DONE! DONE!".  Unfortunately rides don't work like that so she had to stay on the whole time and was traumatized the rest of the trip.

We went to the Sea Lion show which is always fun.  They're jokes are super cheesy, but the kids laugh their heads off.  We also went to the Orca show.  It's impressive to see those big whales doing tricks, but I still miss the days from my childhood when the trainers would ride on their backs.

 

There was an arctic exhibit that was like walking into a freezer, which felt really good on a hot day, but after a few seconds the kids were all complaining about freezing.

Overall SeaWorld was fun, but definitely not my favorite day.  Once when Isaac and Brad were watching the little kids, Brad said something about Hazel being like Houdini because she could vanish so quickly.  We had the stroller, but she wanted to walk the whole time, and she walks slow.  But then we'd be in line and she could take off under the bars and it was impossible to get her back.  Watching her was a full-time, stressful job.  I know she had a lot of fun, but if you looked away for 1 second that girl would be gone.  So it would be fun to come back when all the kids are taller and we don't have to waste as much time switching off all the time.