Sunday, May 6th: Sensational SeaWorld
When we were in the planning stages for this trip, we intentionally left Saturday and Sunday wide open with the intention of having some downtime and relaxing before we started our busy week at the parks. After a chaotic winter of house hunting and packing followed by a spring that had us moving to our new home and starting on a major overhaul of the front and back yards of our property, I thought we’d need to rest a bit once we finally escaped the hullaballoo of our everyday life. Then came the offer to join T at Epcot, and all of a sudden our otherwise lazy Saturday was filled with awesomeness and fun
. Then we learned that another Diser would be at SeaWorld on that first Sunday and was interested in meeting up to say hello, so we said OF COURSE! When opportunity knocks, we always try to answer. A “bonus” day at SeaWorld was A-okay with us
.
We did allow ourselves to sleep in a bit that morning, which did wonders for my migraine and I awoke feeling much better than I had the night prior. We had been in text communication with
@JaxDad since our arrival in Orlando and let him know that we’d reach out to him via phone once we were inside the park. Once we were showered and dressed and ready to greet the day, we decided to stop and have breakfast before heading to the park. I let Steve do the picking, and he opted for Steak & Shake. I was totally down for that
. Service is generally pretty speedy there, it wasn’t far from the resort, and you’re hard pressed to beat their value.
There was some major work going on in the parking lot in front of the restaurant, but the large signs posted throughout indicated that all businesses were open during construction. We headed to the double front doors, pulled on one, and found the door to be locked
. Odd. We checked the sign on the window…..it said they were open……and tried the other door (just to be sure). Voila! We were in.
We were greeted warmly by a friendly server who encouraged us to sit wherever we would like. That opened up a lot of options, because the restaurant was completely deserted:
As she brought us over cutlery and menus, she commented on how odd it was that business was so slow that morning. We mentioned to her about the locked right hand door (which was the most accessible of the two, if trying to avoid the construction barriers), and commented that perhaps other folks had tried to get inside and thought that they were closed for some reason. She thanked us profusely and, after taking our drink orders, left us to browse the menus while she hurried to unlock the second door.
Two cups of hot coffee were placed in front of us shortly thereafter, and she whisked our menu selections off to the kitchen. Since we were the only order of the moment, the cook set straight to work on preparing our food. My head definitely appreciated the serene quietness of the restaurant that morning, as migraines can sometimes linger a bit for a day or two, making me a tad extra sensitive to noise, light and other irritants. This ‘serenity’ early in the day was a timely an unexpected bonus
.
Our food was brought out to us before we ever made it to the bottom of that first cup of coffee. While Steak & Shake is no fine dining experience, I have to say that our breakfasts that morning were nothing short of fantastic. The eggs were cooked perfectly, the bacon was crispy (which, in my humble opinion, is the ONLY way to eat bacon!), and the hash browns were golden brown and crisp on the outside/soft on the inside. And the pancakes? Some of the best I’ve had
…..and that’s saying something. Between the wonderful service and the great food, this day was definitely off to a positive start.
We lingered a bit after breakfast (So. Much. Food.
) and enjoyed a second cup of coffee before settling our bill. I’m always wary of ordering coffee from restaurants…..I’m an admitted coffee snob, and have high standards when it comes to my morning cuppa…..but their coffee that day was surprisingly satisfying. I like a good, bold dark roast with flavored cream and they hit a home run on both scores.
Our total bill, including gratuity, was $20.52. Breakfast win
.
As we made our way to SeaWorld, we remarked that now that the park had been open for an hour or so we were less than likely to get a good parking spot. I also couldn’t recall if we’d have to pay for parking on that initial visit, as we would be activating our newly purchased AP’s (which we had decided on upgrading to in the last few days before our trip) once at the gate. Pulling up to the parking attendant, I was ready with cash but was told it wouldn’t be needed…..a quick peek at our AP purchase confirmations and the parking agent was happy to issue us complimentary parking for the day
.
Following the directions of the lot attendants, we wound our way over to the parking area to be delighted yet again with an absolutely
prime space just steps away from the front walkway and a super short walk from the front entrance. I don’t know how it happened, but it was like SeaWorld’s version of Disney’s pixie dust. Dolphin Dust, maybe?
Either way, we were pretty thrilled and quite appreciative of that stroke of good fortune. When we left the park later in the day, we’d be mighty happy to be that close to our vehicle
.
Since our trip photos are the souvenirs we value most, we had already decided (once we had opted to upgrade to the annual passes) to purchase the annual Photokey so that we would have all of our park photos from both SeaWorld and Aquatica for the duration of our AP validity. Considering we are likely to squeeze three vacations into the one-year time span, we should get some excellent mileage from that photo product. A one day Photokey pass at just SeaWorld runs $60. The one-year photo pass, which covers not only SeaWorld but Aquatica as well, is $169…..less than the price of 3 single days. Better yet, we’d save 10% as passmembers off that posted cost, so that would bring our price down to $152 plus tax…..broken down on a per-trip basis, about $50. SeaWorld Math that made sense (or, is that….”cents”?
). As we entered, then, we made a point of stopping and having the park photographers capture a couple of quick pictures. The beautiful red flowering tree along the boardwalk made for an outstanding backdrop, especially against the dreary sky.
After the quick pause for pictures, we headed toward the park entrance. It had been a while since we had activated annual passes (and I think the process may have changed since our last purchase in December 2015), so we weren’t quite sure how long it would take for us to redeem and activate the passes we had purchased online, but it ended up that we had no need for any concern in that regard, either. If it took more than 3 minutes in total, I’ll eat my shorts (no shorts eating emoji is available, so the popcorn man will have to suffice). With our freshly printed AP’s in hand, we breezed through a lineless bag check and walked right up to an open turn style on the far right (guessing no one even saw that there was a team member standing there with no one in line). They snapped our photos for our annual passes, captured our fingerprint, and we were on our way into the park lickety split. From unbuckling our seatbelts to being inside the park (including pausing for Photokey pictures), it took us maybe 10 minutes (15 at MOST). So crazy easy.
I quickly stowed our AP’s in my wallet….didn’t want to chance losing them on day 1!....and we were ready to roll. We spied a park photographer just inside the turn styles with a fun prop that we hadn’t encountered before, so we (maybe I?) thought it was worth a stop for another picture. Unfortunately for us (and much to the horror of the sweet young photographer) his camera decided it wasn’t going to function properly, and the picture couldn’t be captured through the Photokey. Amidst an abundance of apologies (which were totally not necessary although the sentiment was appreciated) he offered to take a picture with my phone instead. That worked for us. It turned out pretty decent, too. Not Photokey quality but otherwise not bad
.
We decided we'd get all the "administrative" stuff done on this first day (rather than carry over those random to-do's into other days on the trip), so we stopped at Adventure Photo to purchase our annual Photokey. Since they're located right at the front of the park, it made sense to stop right then and there and scratch that off the list. They were able to put the pictures we had had taken already that morning on the permanent card, and put the card on a Photokey lanyard (making it easy for park photography staff to spot). After getting our Photokey all set up, we then headed to the Under the Sun gift shop to pick up the new Passmember Lanyards that were a free gift during the month of May (one of the extra monthly passmember benefits in 2018).
I dug our shiny new AP's out of my wallet, popped them into the lanyards, and we hung the lanyards around our necks. They were actually very sharp looking, sporting the colors and logo of the new Infinity Falls ride which is set to open sometime this summer. Steve is already looking forward to riding it for the first time when we return in October!
With our to-do list pretty much fulfilled (annual passes activated, Photokey purchased, lanyards picked up) I reached out to
@JaxDad and let him know we were in the park and ready to meet up whenever it was convenient for him. They had just sat down at a show, so we had some time to kill while we waited. It felt SO good to be in the park.....our last visit had been in December 2016, a full year and a half ago.....so we were more than happy to roam and explore and just soak up the feeling of being in one of our favorite places in Orlando. It may sound sappy, but almost felt a little like coming home
.
Much more SeaWorld to come!