Toarin' - August 2015. Day 2

[Scruffette]

Day 2 - Seaworld

Dinner at Longhorn Steakhouse

I woke up this morning at 4.20am. This is unusual for me. I’ve never been one of these people who is up ridiculously early the first morning. I fell back asleep around 5am. Ollie woke up at 6am and I slept until the alarm went off at 7am. The alarm tone this morning was ‘Under the Sea’, which I thought was appropriate.

We were at the Itrolley stop for 8am. The Number 20 stop was right outside the hotel. I’ve never stayed on Idrive or used the Itrolley before, but we found them really easy to use. We saved the marker map on our phones and could open them as pdfs in iBooks. This was really useful when we couldn’t remember what stop we needed.

From the 20 stop you can go South in the Sea World direction. There is no stop 20 on the other side of the road. To go North (in the Premium Outlets direction), you need to walk up to the Pointe Orlando to stop 18. The Itrolley turned up at 8.10am. Online it will give you the time of the next trolley at that stop. We checked this before leaving the hotel.

The Itrolley this morning wasn’t too busy and we got seats no problem. We arrived at SeaWorld at 8.25am and it was empty.







I know there are a lot of mixed opinions on SeaWorld. Ollie has never been, and I haven’t visited in years. We wanted to go and make an informed decision for ourselves.

We were let through the turnstiles at 8.45am. I printed our tickets which we ordered from undercover tourist. This was one of the few places I could find single day tickets. Despite a worrying email after booking (all because we had different last names) all was fine. The barcode wouldn’t scan for some reason, but they typed the codes in.

A rope was up, which they dropped at 9am. Ollie went straight to Manta and got on the first ride of the day.







The queue for lockers for Manta was longer than the queue for the ride!

Ollie loved the ride, and thought that I could manage it without it making me ill. I suffer a bit with travel sickness, and rides that go upside down always give me headaches. However, as a flying coaster, when you go upside down you go on your back rather than properly upside down. I rode the ride once in 2009 and really enjoyed it, but my motion sickness has got so much worse since then.

However, the queue was longer by now so we headed to Antarctica and chose ‘wild’. The ‘Wild’ is a relative term. There was a little bit of spinning, but it didn’t bother me at all. I loved the trackless technology, Ollie who is a ride geek loved this. At the end you could watch the penguins, who were super cute. It was very cold though!



Kraken didn’t open until 10am, so we did Journey to Atlantis next.



I had to put my bag in a locker for this (I was more than happy to take it on). They charge $1 for an hour, and $2 for each hour after. This was a surprise, as I thought if lockers were compulsory, then it would be free like at Universal.

It was a walk on and I really enjoyed this. Ollie didn’t realise it has the coaster section so that was a nice surprise. Ollie put his arms up for the drop, and when we came off the ride the little girl behind us looked at the photo as said ‘Oh Man!’. He was covering her face…. Oops.

Ollie was in the line for Kraken at 10am and was on very quickly. While waiting I noticed that the Brits were out in force today – almost every accent I heard was British!

The sky was looking really overcast by this point. I’d heard bad reports about the weather for a couple of weeks before our trip, so we were a bit concerned.

We headed back to Manta, where the wait was listed as 30minutes. It was actually only 15 as they had just opened the second loading platform. There was only one part of the ride I didn’t like. I wore my travel bands and came off feeling a little rough for only a few minutes.

I managed to get back to the locker within the hour to get my bag.
Ollie wanted another go on kraken, as the queue time was still quite small. The sky looked a bit ominous. There were announcements saying to take cover, although no lightning ever appeared. It drizzled for a couple of minutes, but didn’t last long. The sent round lots of empty ride cars as tests.



Ollie gave up in the end when it was clear he wasn’t getting on the ride any time soon.

We headed to Wild Artic next. I found this unexpectedly rough! It also seemed a bit dated.

Our plan for today was to do the rides in the morning, and shows in the afternoon. Just before 12pm we headed into the One Ocean show. Being a party of 2, we don’t tend to arrive at shows too early, as we can normally squeeze in somewhere.

I noticed a shift in the theme of the shows since my list visit (in 2009). The show was big on talking about conversation and their rescue efforts. It really felt like Seaworld was trying to prove a point.
There were less tricks from the whales, and more focus on the interaction.









We avoided the splash zone…



This guy clearly wanted to be part of the show. He kept stealing the whales' fish!



It was time for lunch next. I was being indecisive and couldn’t decide what I fancied. We ended up at the Voyager’s Smokehouse and shared the Beef Brisket with fries and a roll ($13.99 plus tax). We were still adapting ourselves to American portions. We just got 2 cups of iced water with this.



I didn’t get why they served the roll with it, until I made a brisket sandwich.

We wanted to catch the 1.30pm Clyde and Seymour show. The sky looked very grey and it started raining in the stadium.







There was an announcement saying the show was delayed, and then another one 10 minutes later saying the show was cancelled. This would make it difficult to fit in all the shows we wanted to see later.

With various rides and shows stopped, the turtle trek wait had gone up to 35 minutes. We queued, but it actually turned out a bit shorter. They made several motion sickness warnings, but I was absolutely fine.

We had stop to pet the rays and visit the dolphin nursery.





We also passed the new coaster being built.



We had a short window to get to the 3pm Blue Horizons. I saved seats while Ollie picked up some Dippin Dots ($7.99) and a sprite.



I enjoyed the Dippin Dots, but found them overpriced compared to regular ice cream. We got a mix of two flavours – cookies and cream and one that was supposed to resemble a chocolate bar. A few dots of the mint flavour also slipped in!

Again, during the show they talked about their rescue efforts. There were two 3 year old dolphins who were rescued at 6 months old and were just starting to perform.

[Scruffette]

We then had a dash to the 4pm Clyde and Seamore show. We were worried it would be really busy as the earlier show was cancelled, but being a party of two it’s always easy to find seats.

For 15 minutes before the show, some of the trainers were demonstrating how they train and build relationships with the animals. Again, this seemed part of the shift in the way Sea World are trying to present their shows.

The biggest downside of the show is that the mime is gone They’ve replaced him with a school crossing card. Whilst funny, he was no mime.

At the start of the show there was a salute to ‘our teachers and educators’. I stood up for my round of applause. This did feel a bit awkward as in One Ocean, they get members of the armed forces to stand up. Teachers are not quite in the same league. On a side note, I love how proud the Americans are of their military.









One bit I loved of the show was when the sea lion did an eye test.







This was probably my favourite of all the shows, I always had a soft spot for Pirate Island.

We really packed in the shows today and made a dash over to Pets Ahoy at 4.45pm. The indoor theatre with air conditioning was welcomed.

The show is what you’d expect, animals doing tricks. All the animals are rescued, which of course, they mentioned a lot. This point was getting a bit old by now.

We were planning to stay for the evening show, but decided to head out of the park for dinner and comeback later.
On the way out of the park we needed to get our hands stamped for re-admittance later. This seemed a bit dated. Surely they could tell from your ticket?



I wasn’t sure how long a wait there would be for the Itrolley, but we didn’t wait long and got a seat comfortably.

We took the trolley north to stop 11 (again, checking on the map we had saved to our phones).

Dinner tonight was at Longhorn Steakhouse. We were debating between here and Outback, but Longhorns sent me a coupon for a free appetizer, so they won!

We checked in and were taken straight to a table as it was still before the dinner rush.

Ollie ordered a raspberry lemonade and I had about 4 glasses of water. I hadn’t had enough water today, so was making up for it now.

For our free appetizer we ordered the Firecracker Chicken Wraps ($9.29). These were really good with just a bit of a kick.



We both got a ceaser salad with our mains, which I forgot to get a picture of (bad trip reporter…).

For mains we both ordered the 11oz ribeye with a parmesan crust ($19.99 with $1.00 upgrade). I got a loaded baked potato with mine and Ollie upgraded to a premium side of Corn for $1.59. This came with more cheese on top.





I really enjoyed my steak. Steak in Florida always tastes better than steak over here.

Our server was excellent, and just the right side of attentive. She kept bringing me plenty of water!

We were too full for dessert, even though there was a coldstone creamy next door!

On the way to the trolley stop, an American girl called out of her car ‘cute romper!’ at me. This was particularly impressive as she was driving, eating icecream and was on the phone at the same time!

Our driver for this trolley journey was scary. She kept shouting at pedestrains, and we weren’t sure if she was joking or serious. She kept shouting ‘Get out of the road. You’re meant to run!’ at people who were crossing in the designated places.



Anyway, we made it in one piece. We got on the trolley at 7.35pm and arrived at sea world at 8pm. The show wasn’t until 8.45pm, so Ollie felt this was enough time to sneak in a coaster.
Ollie tried to ride Manta, but only one side was operating and the queue looked much bigger than it stated.



There was no queue for Kraken, so Ollie went round twice in a row. His excuse for riding the second time was that he could see the Shamu Stadium from the ride, and he wanted to check how many seats were left!



We headed over to the stadium and, again, got seats no problem. A DJ was warming up the crowd, playing songs from different decades and getting the audience to dance.

This is the last thing I remember from the show. I spent the entire thing having a nap! I woke up at the end feeling quite groggy, and there were big crowds getting out of the park.

I thought there would be a really long wait for the trolley, but there wasn’t and we managed to get seats again.

The journey back took about an hour as the traffic was solid. However, I wasn’t aware of this as I again fell asleep! Ollie stayed awake to make sure that we got off at the right stop!

It was straight to bed. Fortunately we didn’t have an alarm set for the morning.

I think we've decided that if(!) we do go back to Florida, we would give Seaworld a miss. It's not quite in the same league of the others parks and I feel that we've done this park now.

Day 3 - Shopping

[LauraC]

Really enjoying your trippie! Can't wait to read more x

[Dan's Mum]

Fab report. Looking forward to next instalment .

Dee
xx

[collybird]

Dinner looks gorgeous!

Can't believe how quiet he park was when you arrived.

[Scruffette]

Originally Posted by LauraC

Really enjoying your trippie! Can't wait to read more x

See more...

Thank you

Originally Posted by Dan's Mum

Fab report. Looking forward to next instalment .

Dee
xx

See more...

Thank you it will hopefully be posted soon!

[Scruffette]

Originally Posted by collybird

Dinner looks gorgeous!

Can't believe how quiet he park was when you arrived.

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It was - I love a good steak! We couldn't believe how quiet it was either. Shame Disney wasn't the same!

[Juliemack]

Can't believe you can sleep anywhere like that love the raspberry lemonade in Longhorns

[Scruffette]

Originally Posted by Juliemack

Can't believe you can sleep anywhere like that love the raspberry lemonade in Longhorns

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Power napping like that is how I survive busy days in Florida!

[2littleboys]

Great 1st day, so jealous of your ability to power nap, that would be my saviour!

We did Sea World on our first trip and its not somewhere we factor in to our plans anymore, it just didn't do it for me like other parks and I would rather have more Disney or Universal stays xx