Legs, Nerds & Wings Oct 12 - Day 15 - Seaworld (Behind the Scenes Tour) & Shopping

[miss_mouse]

Trip Report Index

Just to start, I'm Lisa - the planner and reporter. Ade is my hubby and he's our driver and there's Hollie who is 13 and partial to the odd teenage moment and Louis is 10 and our fussy eater.

26th October 2012 - Friday
Day 15

Today we were looking forward to our 'Behind the Scenes' Tour at Seaworld.
When we first booked and planned this trip back at Easter 2012. We booked our flights just before leaving to spend a week at the beach in Charmouth, Dorset. Our first day there I picked up The latest Brits Guide and read it from cover to cover during that week. This was when I found out about the Seaworld tours. We all love Seaworld and loved the idea of this. The Penguin Tour sounded like the ideal tour for us, but this was no longer available when it came to booking, but the 'Behind the Scenes Tour' sounded just as good.
We booked through Attraction Tickets Direct and at just £21 each we found it an absolute bargain.

We set our alarms for 6.30am as we wanted to check in for the tour nice and early. As hurricane Sandy had passed the day before the weather was forecast to be much chillier and also wet from 11am. Something like 70% chance of rain.
We planned to just stay for the morning at Seaworld and to go shopping after Seaworld so took raincoats, towels and a full change of clothing with us. Just in case. Always better to be prepared.

The morning started out well. We had a bite to eat in the condo and got to Seaworld for 9am opening and the sun was shining.



We checked in near the entrance at Guest Services and showed our vouchers that ATD had sent us. All was good and we were told where to meet at 10.30am.

We decided to get some breakfast and stopped at the bakery.



There was a lovely selection of goodies.



And we were so excited to spot the Shamu Dishes.
I mentioned these on our first day here. When we came back in 2007, we stopped to watch the Shamu Show. Ade popped out and came back with a Shamu Bowl with cookies for the children. They still love those bowls now and we'd hoped to pick up a couple more. We asked back at the stadium where there sell the refreshments but they didn't have them, so we were really pleased to see them here and grabbed a couple to take home. We now have a set of 4



We sat outside the bakery. The sun was actually really warm, but it was rather blowy today, but dry and that's all that mattered.



Louis had got very excited as a tall bird had walked in to the bakery when I was paying. He found this really funny.
It felt so relaxing sat here watching the world go by.

Hollie (looking rather serious here) had a choccie chip muffin.



Louis (looking so delighted to be here too) had the cookies and every single drop of choccie sauce. There was no way he was leaving any.
Ade had cookies too.



And me happy with my blueberry muffin.



The cookies looked nicer than they tasted, but hey, we only really wanted the bowls, but the muffins were delish.





After breakfast we looked for a gift for our friend Stephen. He's a good friend of Ade's and when Ade asked him if he wanted anything bought back from the States he said a Dolphin. So we went Dolphin searching. Louis thought this one would be good.



After choosing a smaller dolphin, we wandered over the the Ray Lagoon, one of our fave places at Seaworld.
We passed Manta, but decided despite the very short queue times we wouldn't stop to ride today. The park was so quiet today.





We struggled to get a spot here when we came a couple of Saturdays ago. There was hardly anyone around.

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We then stopped off at the dolphins and chatted with a member of staff about them for some time. She was really good.



We were then ready and at the place to meet for the tour.



There were 15 of us in total on the tour. Our tour guide was really friendly and took us behind some big gates to start.
We started with the naughty turtles. They are only young and tend to squabble. So they get time out and bought back here How cute eh?! They get rotated and kept here for a few days and then put back in with the others.



We got shown and told all about the rescues that Seaworld is involved. It was so interesting and all 4 of us were completely glued.
There were some animals/mammals out the back here that were in rehabilitation.
All the vehicals were out here too that were used for the rescues and transporting. Only the day before a Manatee had been released back in to the wild from here.



I was pleased to see the children so interested and answering and asking questions too. I thought they'd like this.

We took a little bus over to the Shark area now.





We got to stroke these 3yr old Bamboo Sharks.



They didn't feel how we would have expected at all.









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We had some sharkey questions and answers which was interesting and then back on the bus to stop at the Artic where we got to meet Mario. This was the bit we were all looking forward too.



Mario was very vocal which was so funny.



And then we all got to have a little stroke









In this area you can see part of the Polar Bears Den, we weren't fortunate to see them out here though.



The tour was now at an end. It was almost 2hrs long and was great timing. The guide was lovely and full of information and great with the kids too. We really recommend it.

So we were in the Artic area and was getting on for 1pm... and no sign of the forecast rain Yay! And it was warmer than we expected too. Double Yay!
Louis was pleased to see the 'Halloween Candy' out again and decided he wanted to go trick or treating.



This whole area is done out so beautiful this time of year. If you have little ones it's perfect. There was a little show going on here.



We'd never been on the Antartic ride before and seen the polar bears. The queue was always so big. When we came a couple of weeks ago it was a wait time of over an hour. There was zero queue right now.



We went via helicopter. Apart from a couple of other kids, we were the only ones on this.

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We saw someone having the Belugar Whale experience.



We spent quite some time watching the polar bears. they were pretty active. There was a member of staff down there and we chatted with him for a while. It was really interesting hearing how they interact with the bears. They train them to lift their paws up at the glass for example to do health checks.





We came back out to the sunshine. Still no rain
Louis grabbed more candy.





Hollie was in a very sociable mood today and wanted her photo taken with the pretty princess dolphin. I love it when she's in this mood.



And Ade got very excited to see all the candy corn.



We ended up staying later as planned as despite the blowy weather it was actually really nice and we were having such a chilled day.



We thought we'd give Turtle Trek ago as it was a 90min wait last time.
We love the Manatees here.



We walked straight through to Turtle Trek.
You get taken in to this room first where you can see the tutles and fish. There were alot of people crammed in here and although the member of staff was chatting it was really noisy and hard to hear and soon became really hot and stuffy.



The actual turtle attraction when we got in was good, but I'm glad we didn't queue for it.

We called it a day now. It was 2pm. We'd had a really good time here. We love this place.



We now forgot where we parked. We've never done this before. We eventually found the car second row from the front. We didn't realise we were that close.

We thought we'd stop at the Premium Outlets next seeing as we were so close. What a nightmare to park! After going around and around forever trying to get a space near the Gap store, Ade getting annoyed, we finally got a space. I think next time we either go early or late. We learnt our lesson. We all shopped well though. Hoodies from Gap for Hollie and I. Cons for Louis, Hollie and me and some sneaky Batman Cons that Louis wanted that we said no to got sent to Father Christmas
Hollie got some Converse T Shirts, Ade got goodies from Nike. A little sneaky Christmas shopping in the Disney Store and we spent some time and $$ in here.



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It was now almost 5pm and we hadn't actually stopped for food. We do tend to go off food once we get to our second week. We just feel permently full for some reason. But we were really hungry now.
We all fancied steak and decided on Outback.
We always stop here at the airport on the way home and love their steaks and figured it was about time we had one at a normal restuarant. We decided to stop at the one on the 192 on the way back home. It took ages to get out of the Outlets area and on to the I4. Everywhere was jammed.

We finally got to Outback and were starving now.
We took hoodies in knowing that the aircon can be cold. I'd sent Ade out to get my cardi on a few other occasions.

We went in, it wasn't busy and got seated straight away. Squeezed in rather than seated really. We got sat in a booth that was tiny. No elbow room, I couldn't even put my bag between Hollie and I. We are both 4ft 10, so hardly huge.
We asked if we could be seated on a larger table. The server seemed slightly put out and took us to another area where there were lots of empty prepared tables and we had a larger booth that was much better.
We then sat there and sat there. It was so cold. Really cold. Even with my hoodie I was shivering.
Other people were now being seated around us and having their drink orders taken. We then finally got to order too. Which was slightly annoying.

We all ordered steaks. The kids ordered from the adults menus as there were some smaller steaks which sounded like the better option for them. They had 6oz steaks, I went for 9oz and Ade 12oz.

The server wasn't very friendly at all. The table behind us that was seated well after us and got served before us seemed to get so much attention and she barely made eye contact with us at all and came across so rude.
Before our food came, Hollie and I went off to otherside of the restaurant to the restrooms. We came back and walked past weher we had been seated before. These booths were all full now but with couples and not 4's. I felt even more hacked off that they'd tried to squeeze us in now but relieved that we'd asked to move.

Our salads soon came to start.
I wished I'd gone for Hollie's garden salad. It looked so good. The ceasar was very very peppery, to the point of not being that great.

Our steaks came and were good. Spicey but good. Louis loves spice but found it too spicey. I think someone was feeling a little heavy handed with the pepper today.
Hollie's medium well steak was very bloody.
My baked potato was to perfection though.









It was so cold in there though that we just wanted to eat up and go.
We heard another family leaving and saying how cold it was.

We paid up leaving the lowest tip of the holiday to the most unfriendly server that we'd had all holiday.
The meal that we'd had such high expectations of ended up being the worst meal of the whole holiday sadly.

Still, we headed back to Bahama Bay and ended the day in the hot tub with a bottle of bud.
Perfect end to the day in my book.

We had had a lovely day and so pleased that the rain never came.

Tomorrow we were heading to the Altemonte Mall for more shopping and meeting up with friends.

[Guest]

Wow! , the tour looks brilliant ! , the pics you got of the penguin are ace , Seaworld is one of my favourite parks , I will quite happily wander round it all day , think that the tour must go on the to-do list , love the Shamu bowls too ! , I love that kind of stuff , still got my Aquatica rubber ring bowls !

Bummer about the grumpy server tho , since its a tip-led job then its their loss..

Thanks for posting !

[mick]

Good day at Seaworld not so good at Outback must admit I find the steak to highly seasoned

Joan

[Guest]

Fab day - I hadn't realised that the tours were so well priced - thats great value!

Glad you had a good day apart from some terrible service at Outback - thanks for sharing !

[slow.jo]

Just caught up on your trip report, really enjoying it so far! You have a lovely family, your daughter is beautiful and your son is a real character! It's so lovely that they get along so well. Looking forward to the next day!

Jo x

[miss_mouse]

Thanks so much for reading and your kind comments.
Really want to get our next day uploaded this weekend.