SeaWorld to the bitter end

I like aquariums. When I was a kid, visiting my dentist in Winkler was rad because they had a sweet fish tank in their waiting room. After seeing that, I think I even asked for one for Christmas once or twice. I didn’t get one though, because my parents refused to believe that my promises to keep the tank clean would last longer than the first week. They were probably right – I was super lazy. But who cares about small tank fish when you are about to visit the motherlode of aquariums – SeaWorld.



So I’m still in Florida. Yep. No Disney today. No sireee. Just a different tourist-trap theme park. But at least today we have finally escaped the masses. Four days later, I start breathing again.

Today also happened to be the first day that we managed to actually arrive at a decent time, so before we headed to the first show of the day, I managed to take a ride on Manta. Manta is a sweet roller coaster you ride on your belly:



YAYYYYY! So fun I almost lost my headband during one swoop. Then we headed to the dolphin show, Blue Horizons.









Lots of fluffy music and Cirque wannabes. I give it four soggy hotdog buns out of five.

Since we were on a roll, we headed straight over to the Sea lion show. This was a bit more in my vein – pirates!



Sea lion pirates! Best idea ever.













Well, that was fun. There was some clown there, making fun of people too. What? Oblivious geris getting made fun of is good laughs. But some of them got angry and then hit the clown. He was not pumped.



I was ready to storm up to the next show (shamu!) but with much time to kill, we went on some lame environment ride up to the arctic or something. We had to get into this fake helicopter and it lurched about for a while pretending to fly to the arctic. Tres lame and nauseating. I seriously thought puke was forthcoming. (tmi…I know.)


Can you see the glowing walrus in the water?



Finally it was time for the shamu show. Papa-chu busted out his poster paper and sharpies and got to work on the sidewalk while we took our seats in the venue.



This is being mid-February, we didn’t realize that less than a week later, one of these trainers would be killed by these whales. Hindsight in this situation is creepy-deepy. It was a fun show nonetheless and those crazy little shamus (yes, I realize there is no “s” in the plural form of “shamu”) just had a jolly time giggling and splashing the lower-seated patrons. Tee hee!


WOOOSH!




I mean, seriously…he looks like he is just ready to take a chomp out of something in the worst way. Don’t worry little shammy (my shamu nickname), I ain’t mad a’cha!



Then little shammy got started on what I call “his brilliant dance”. Just scroll through the next few and pretend it’s one of those flip books where you flip them quick and it’s like watching a cartoon. You know what I’m talkin’ bout! Dance, little shammy, just dance.





He really starts to get graceful here:









Oh little shammy. You could be in the Russian Ballet.

The actual “story” of the show was the fruitiest piece of fluff I’d heard in a while. So they showed this little video of a boy cobbling carving a whale’s tail in his bedroom late one evening. Then, the boy is wearing this tail around his neck on a leather string while kayaking one day and, wonder of wonders! Suddenly a massive killer whale breaches – soaring out of the water to incredible heights, just feet away from the boy in a small kayak. Miraculously, his boat just kind of bobs in the water a bit and he smiles. Then the camera shows the boys’ photo next to one of the trainers’. Amazing. That dorky little boy became a trainer at SeaWorld. Dreams come true. As soon as the show was over, I saw them rolling up their carts to the exits to sell us –what else – carved whale tail necklaces. Aw. I give the show a superb 10 wooden whale tails out of 10, but the premise of the story one very tippy kayak out of five.





They had a few rides at SeaWorld, but compared to Disney, it was a little laughable. I mean, the ride looked like this:



And it’s not bad, right?!? But, it’s no Splash Mountain…let’s not kid ourselves. This particular ride was called “Journey to Atlantis”, and it was a sopping-wet doozy.

By this point, I’d done everything I wanted to, and it wasn’t even lunch yet. So, we decided to take it easy and settle down on the deck at the food hut.




Yep, this looks about right for an average meal for moi.


For some reason, my Dad kept referring to this squirrel as my friend(?)

One thing I did notice, is that shamu sure seems to get around. Like, seriously, everywhere in the park has shamu’s remnants left behind – as evidenced by this sign:

I read this as “shamu wuz here”.

The best picture of the day wasn’t shamu dancing in the water, or leaving his mess behind for others to clean up…no...it was Papa, posing with his beloved shamu.


The face says it all.

And, of course, SeaWorld has aquariums.








This has to be the most bamboozling animal I’ve ever seen. The good Lord sure got creative when it came to the fishes.


Blah! What horribly cruel fates have taken hold of this things’ face!



An earthquake right now would be really bad. I can just see it now – down come the sharks.











We’d already seen all the big stuff, so we got around to seeing what I call “the excess” – sea lions, penguins, manatees…





It really smelled like poop and fish.







A headless penguin!! Sasparilla!


Amazed.




I feel like I’m in Batman. You know, with Michael Keaton.


Too many penguins. Good thing those beasts are behind glass. They seem like the type who’d take over the earth.



Oh the manatee. Have you ever seen one of these things up close? They are mischievous little buggers. There were two swimming around in the tank, and both just kept pooping over and over again and one even tried to rub his poop up against the tank window. I’m not even kidding. Some girl was all irritated at people who kept snickering and was just like, “It’s natural!”


This is srs bznss.










Oh! They look so happy. They have anime faces.


Ew.







I closed the day the same way I opened it – another ride on Manta.


Yeah, I was on the bottom that time and I got a bit damp. Hooray! But theme parks are done now – PHEW.

I schlemed for the Cheesecake Factory, so that’s where we went for dinner on this loveliest of nights. Sitting outdoors on the patio - OH BBQ chicken pizza…I love you.



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The next day was spent at the Premium Outlets, where I scored a plethora of goods. Geeze.



Armani dress, Marc Jacobs cardi, not to mention some new boots and workout gear…and a pair of Wolford leggings to round it out. DAYUM! I be poor now. That night we ate at some salad bar…what was it again? Oh yeah, Ruby Tuesday’s. We did a bit of malling too, since we were already there and (apparently) hadn’t had enough during, you know, the rest of the day.



And that was it. The next day at some ridiculous hour, I, along with scads of others, jammeled into the Orlando airport to get the hell out of Dodge. The younger me would have kicked myself for not visiting the Kennedy Space Centre, but at least I got this:


Small condolence.

I was with an interesting group of people for the flight to Dallas. This is America.



So after an early departure to Dallas, I was content knowing that I would likely make my connection with no issue. Then came the storm. When we were above Dallas, we were denied landing and circled in a holding pattern for an hour. My departure time came and went, but since no planes were coming in, I was sure no planes were going out, either. When we were finally allowed to land, I hustled to the gate, only to find it was going to be delayed further. So here I am, now with a two hour layover in Dallas, Texas.





I walked around the terminal, into the next, and back again. For some reason I kept on thinking of Jessica Simpson and how Tony Romo plays for the Cowboys. Several more gate changes for our plane. Finally, a plane arrived and it looked like we were going to get to board. Then, there was something wrong with that plane, so we changed gates yet again and waited for another plane to come in. I HATE AMERICAN AIRLINES.


Do you see? Departure time: 10:20 AM. Time now: 2:05 PM. How did a one-hour stop turn into a four-hour death trap? Ughhhhhhhhh. All the “clever” “Don’t mess with Texas” shot glasses and giant jellybeans were appearing on my eyelids when I closed my eyes. I don’t think I’ll be headed on flights within the States for a while.

ps – I eventually did make it home. My luggage did too! Huzzah!