Thursday, October 20, 2011

Make-A-Wish Trip, Day 4: Sea World

Wednesday morning started out with horseback riding at GKTW. Twice every week they bring in horses and let the kids saddle up and ride around the circle. They each got a cowboy hat to commemorate the event.



After that, we headed to a non-Disney attraction: Sea World.


The first thing we checked out was the tank filled with stingrays. Both kids commented on how they looked like they were flying. You could reach in and touch them as they swam around and around the tank, flapping their fins gracefully under the water and sometimes above which gave a big splash.

The one thing we were really excited about was feeding the dolphins. We found the place where it was happening and since we had a long time before they let more people in, we wandered around past some sea turtles and some smaller aquariums. Finn particularly liked seeing the stingrays from underneath.


When it getting close to the dolphin feeding time, we headed back in that direction. The kids were pretty excited about it at first. Then they saw the raw fish.


Then they saw how big (and hungry) the dolphins looked up close.


Julia and Finn were pretty nervous about feeding and touching them, but I think they enjoyed it. Amanda and I certainly did!



Since Sea World is known for dolphins and killer whales and we had already played with the dolphins, it was time to move onto the orcas. We walked to the other side of the park to see the Shamu Killer Whale show. I was expecting an orca an two, so I was surprised when there were at least seven of the trained whales. It was pretty amazing seeing them perform and only being able to imagine all the time and energy put in by the trainer and whales.




We headed back to our villa after the show and did a little late afternoon relaxing.

GKTW is able to get many other tickets to attractions at reduced rates for the families staying there. We took advantage and the four of us went to Medieval Times. The kids got a kick out of the whole atmosphere and the idea that we had to cheer for the Green Knight while the story progressed and the knights jousted and fought. At home Julia sometimes gets scolded for not using silverware, so she thought it was funny that they don't give you any silverware to eat with when they give you your food. It turned out that the Green Knight was the villain, which meant he last til the end, but wasn't the champion. At the end we got him to sign our green flag we had been waving. Unfortunately, through some sort of medieval magic, all the pictures I took from there disappeared (I goofed and deleted them).

It was late and the busyness of the week was definitely dragging on us at this point. We slept well and got ready for a breakfast with the princesses in the morning.