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Old 22 Oct 12, 05:03 PM  
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Bella1
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Bella1's Reviews
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Restaurant Reviews: 2

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California Calling-Day11-Seaworld San Diego

We woke early on Day 11 in San Diego and we popped in to the Regency Club to grab a quick breakfast. This ended up being a slow breakfast as although there was no hot food the selection available was brilliant. There was lots of prepared fresh fruit with delicious strawberries and melon, a vast array of pastries and an interesting selection of breads for toasting. There was plenty of cereals, yogurts and muesli with lots of dried fruits and nuts to add flavour as well as juices and tea and coffee. We made ourselves comfortable on the squashy sofas and watched some water polo which was the first bit of Olympic coverage that we had seen all holiday although we had been keeping a tab on the medals able every day.

We had decided to visit Seaworld on our first day in San Diego. Located near Mission bay it took us about twenty minutes to drive to it and it was easy to find and easy to park. We were all excited to see how the original SeaWorld would compare to the park in Orlando.

I always have terrible trouble with the SeaWorld map in Orlando, I don’t know why I find it so tricky to use and I was disappointed to see that the San Diego one used the same sort of diagrammatic and as expected I had trouble finding my way around the park all day, the paths just weren’t where I expected them to be!

The park was open late so we took our time to have a look at all the show times and plan our day accordingly so that we could see everything we wanted to.

Since we expected the park to get busy as it was an August weekend we made straight for the Manta rollercoaster as it hasn’t been open long. I am claustrophobic and I struggle with being strapped in with shoulder harnesses although hypnotherapy means I can just about manage it but I can’t do the Orlando manta as the leg restraints are just a strap too far for me! I was pleased to see that this one had a firm lap brace but nothing over the shoulders. It is a fantastic coaster, you start by rocking slowly backwards and forwards until the current takes you and then you are off. There are no inversions but there is a good drop and because you are help in at the waist you feel really exhilarated as the wind whizzes past you. The area around the coaster looked like a building site so I don’t know if other things are planned for here. We rode again later in the day since it was such good fun.





The children wanted to ride Journey to Atlantis so we found that right in the corner of the park, people seemed to be coming off soaked so I gave it a miss since the sun wasn’t out yet but they enjoyed it and said it was better than Orlando version as it went up higher.



I have always loved the Shamu shows, nothing compares to the shows with the keepers in the water but they are still amazing to watch. We managed to see both the new One Ocean show as well as Shamu Rocks later in the evening.



The Blue Horizons show was almost identical to Orlandos except that instead of False Killer whales they have Pilot Whales. However I always find it a colourful show and love watching the dolphins.



Right on the banks of Mission bay is the Cirque Stadium where we watched the Cirque De La Mer. This was a slightly bizarre show involving a bit of comedy followed by jet skis, acrobats and trampoline acts. It was enjoyable and the core strength of some of the acrobats was astounding but the setting and the stage looked so impressive I was expecting more to happen than actually did.



Clyde and Seamore always bring a smile to me face and in San Diego there was no exception. The preshow act was incredibly funny and set the tone perfectly for the spoofs of TV and Films. It was a great show and the otter was brilliant although I must admit that the Pirates show still beats it hands down. In the evening we went back to watch Sea Lions Tonite which was a comedy show parodying the other shows to be found at SeaWorld. This was really funny but you did need to have seen the other shows to appreciate it. The impression of Cirque De La Mer had me in hysterics.



Since we knew that we were going to be in the park until late we decided that we would eat somewhere on site. We had a look at a few menus but nothing appealed to everyone and then we spotted an All You Can eat picnic at the nautilus Pavilion. I think it was $14 a head and it was inside with shade and fans so we decided that was better than sitting outside in the sunshine.

There was a buffet with fruit, salads, bread, burgers, chicken, fajitas with salsa and veg, cookies and brownies (huge cookies with M&Ms, yum!). There were also fountain sodas and tea and coffee. This worked really well for us and we had plenty to eat. It was a nice relaxed atmosphere but we probably didn’t arrive until about half past two. We were able to have a nice rest and eat lots of small platefuls which I much prefer over a mountain of food. I am not much of a burger fan but have to admit that these were really tasty.

Feeling fully refreshed we spent the afternoon lazily wondering around the animal exhibits as the park was now quite busy and it was pretty hot. The Dolphin Encounter pool had good visibility even though it wasn’t very big and we stood for quite a while watching a group of girls in the water having their “encounter”. Most of the other exhibits were smaller than I had hoped, especially the Sae Lion area which was really tiny. The Penguin Encounter was pretty much the same as Orlandos only there was also a nice outside area where we watched one of the keepers feeding the penguins and he was chatting and was very interesting. There was one penguin who seemed far more interested in having his photo taken than having some fish and he had to keep encouraging it to eat.



Wild Artic was very familiar but its tucked away location meant that there was hardly any queue. After that we decided to try the Skytower. Graham isn’t the greatest fan of heights but he decided he wanted to give it a go. The slow rotating viewing room gave breath-taking views right across the park and across Mission bay too and it was certainly worth the few minutes wit in line to board.




Megan and Ally wanted to ride the Rapids Ride. I like rapids rides normally but when I saw the length of the queue I really didn’t fancy it so they stood in line whilst we went for a walk and enjoyed the views of the bay. Once they had ridden we went to the tide pool to look at the Starfish.

I think the location, right on the sea, meant that the evening went quite chilly. We had been experiencing such extremely hot weather that although we had jumpers we suddenly started getting cold. We had planned to watch the late Shamu Rocks and then hang around for the fireworks which were at 10pm but instead we squeezed in an earlier Sea lion show and Shamu Rocks and headed out of the park at about 8.30.

We had a great day at SeaWorld, we haven’t visited the Orlando version for a couple of years so it made a nice change for us but I probably wouldn’t visit again as there was nothing particularly new or distinctive about this park over the Florida one which I prefer.
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Old 1 Nov 12, 11:18 PM  
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tonymc
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Enjoying your reports. We are planning on visiting SW in San Diego next year, so good to know about the buffet - I'm sure I'll make a sizeable dent in the food!
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Old 11 Nov 12, 02:17 PM  
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Great read!
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