Monday, May 7th: SeaWorld, continued
After the One Ocean show concluded, we spilled out into the walkways (with a few thousand others) and meandered our way back through the park. We decided to visit the seals and sea lions who call Pacific Point Preserve home.
While we normally find the herd to be very vocal and clamoring for food from those carrying the coveted trays of fish, today the whole group was surprisingly chill and shockingly quiet. There was very little roughhousing, and not even much begging
. We surmised that they must have been well fed early in the day, and content to enjoy an afternoon siesta in the spring sunshine
.
Their lazy demeanor didn’t take away from all their cuteness, however. Oh, those faces!!! <3 How can you not just fall in LOVE with these adorable little beasts??
We had toyed with the idea of buying a tray of food and feeding the few fellows who seemed interested, but opted to leave that until later in the week when perhaps there’d be more activity in and around the habitat.
So, we just spent the time watching them lounge and pose…..and we were happy to note that Big Chris, one of our favorite sea lions whom we learned about from
@chiamarie on a previous visit, was still alive and well (and apparently still in charge of his half of the habitat)
.
We were just going to stop and grab some fresh and cold bottles of water from the Expedition Café as we passed through Antarctica, but since we were on the dining plan we thought we’d grab some food to share while we were there [calories don’t count on vacation, remember!]. The Expedition Café features three different pods, each with its own theme (American, Italian and Asian). Steve only had eyes for the chocolate cake, but I wasn’t feeling dessert…..so between the two of us, we ended up with a platter of stuffed meat cannelloni, a side of cake, a pair of bottled waters on this stop.
The cannelloni, which came with a warm breadstick, was surprisingly good. Very cheesy and the sauce was quite meaty. It was WAY larger of a portion than I had envisioned when I was ordering it
, so I was glad that it piqued Steve’s interest once we had our wristbands scanned at the check-out and made our way to a table. He ate well over half of it as well as his cake, which made me happy as I always feel bad when I throw out food…..and there was no way I had enough stomach capacity to eat the whole thing myself.
Once again stuffed full and re-hydrated, we decided a sit-down attraction might be a fine idea while our mid-day snack settled. We decided to make our way over to the SkyTower to soak up some views of the park from 500 feet in the air.
We knew that they had started to charge for SkyTower admission some months back (when we first starting visiting in 2012, it was an extra fee to ride….then they made it part of regular park admission…..and now they’ve gone back to the $2.00 per person fee) so we were happily surprised to see that passmembers got to ride for free. It’s good to have an annual pass!
I’d like to say we had a wonderfully peaceful spin in the sky as the pod rotated a full 360 degrees giving riders a wonderful view of every part of the park, but we ended up sharing the pod with 14 second graders and their chaperones
….. so peaceful it definitely was not!
Despite the excited (and incessant
) chatter of the school group …… and the fact that NONE of them were made sit down during the ride
….. we still were able to appreciate the great views from the large windows. Shamu Stadium, Bayside Stadium, the Waterfront, and even Aquatica and Discovery Cove were all clearly visible during the ride….and they sure look different from the air than they do on the ground.
A little fun fact: the SkyTower was constructed in 1973, the same year as I was born. It’s also the highest free-standing structure in the state of Florida.
And we even got a peek at the progress on the building of the newest ride, Infinity Falls!
The day wasn't over yet.....still more to come!