Sea World San Antonio Day Trip

Yesterday, true to our word, we took the family to Sea World. This involved getting up at 5:30, driving 4 1/2 hours to San Antonio, spending over 5 hours in the park, and then driving 4 1/2 hours back home. Crazy? Probably. But it worked out pretty well, and we're all doing OK today, so I guess it didn't wear us out too bad.

Here are Kara and Anna at the park entrance.


Here is the trainer in the orca show diving off the nose of a killer whale.


Orca back flip. These animals really are amazing.


I crammed myself into a little twirly paint can for a ride with the girls.


This is the dolphin tank where you can feed and pet the dolphins.


Alyssa used her Christmas money for a Super Shamu Sundae.


Here the girls get ready for the Viva beluga whale and dolphin show.


Unfortunately, the show was more acrobats than animals. I expected to see much more of the dolphins.


Here's a shot of Anna with the beluga whale trainer.


Kara and the girls get ready for the sea lion show. Anna decided ice cream was a good idea - the day was overcast, humid, and nearly 80 degrees. After the recent cold snaps we've seen, I had to really work hard to convince Anna that she would want short sleeves.


Sea lions learn about Christmas. This show was pretty good, because it was all about the animals.


Penguins in their habitat. I like the way this was set up - you got on a moving walkway at the beginning, and just cruised along to the end.


Since it's a Busch park, we saw the Budweiser wagon.


A Shamu shaped pretzel. Anna thought it looked more like a ghost.


"Do you have to take my picture while I'm eating?"


As you can see, we had a great time. I'm going to try and piece together a short video from the footage we got. Our apprentice videographer was running the camera, and it looks like San Antonio was suffering from an earthquake the whole time we were there. But there are a few good shots, and I think I can pull together something watchable.

She's getting video lessons later today.

My biggest concern was for the drive home, but we all did really well. The park closed at 5:00, and we left a little bit early. We were home by 9:30 and in bed by 10:30, and today we're feeling pretty good and ready to go again!

Maybe on Monday...

Comments

Josi said…
What a great day--we did San Diego Sea World a few years ago and we all loved it. I agree about the pretzel though, definitely a ghost.
12/27/08, 11:53 AM
Tristi Pinkston said…
How amazingly fun! Thanks for sharing the pictures.

I'm another vote for "ghost" in the pretzel debate.
12/27/08, 12:08 PM
Noreen & Allen said…
What a fun day!
12/27/08, 2:37 PM
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