April 2013 - Our last hurrah! - Day 15

[Hannikins]

April 2013 - Our last hurrah! - Day 15

We were woken several times in the night by thunderstorms and when we finally woke to daylight it didn’t sound any better. We decided to make the most of it, both of us were worn out by the rain by now and so we decided to ignore it and stay in bed instead!

We finally got up at 9.30 (I know, that still sounds early, but believe me for us on holiday that’s a lie in!) and got ready at a leisurely pace, doing a little packing as we went, could this morning sound any more depressing!

We made it out for 11am once the rain had stopped and since we had no plans until our seaworld tour that afternoon we decided to grab brunch at ihop. We’d visited the one near our hotel on our last trip so we though it might be nice to try the one further down instead. We took the itrolly down and arrived at stop 28 just as it started to rain, although I knew it was the right stop (well according to the iRide map anyway!) you can’t really see it from the road so I panicked a bit that we were going to get soaked looking for it. Luckily we found it quickly down a side street and headed in. It was PACKED! It looked like everyone else had had exactly the same idea as us! Luckily as we were only a party of two we were ushered over to the counter stools instead.

Now sitting at these stools have both positive and negatives. The positive being that you can see the kitchen and everything being prepare. The negative?... you can see the kitchen and everything being prepared. What an eye opener!

We took our seats and had soon placed our order with a grumpy yet efficient waitress called Janice who seemed to be in charged of the counter area, and then the show began. The cooking stations seemed to act as a sort of production line, with food been cooked waaaaay in advance and moved around the hot plate into piles for ages until someone ordered and then new stuff was thrown on top. The problem seemed to be that once it reached the end, and it reached the end quickly since everything was already pretty much cooked apart from the eggs, it was just placed on the side and this built up a MASSIVE pile of plated food waiting. Eventually one of the servers arrived for his food and I thought here we go, he’s going to demand a refire…. Nope he picked up his plates and zapped them in the microwave for 2 minutes…. Yum!

It wasn’t all bad though, we did get to listen to the banter from the station cooks. I didn’t catch most of it since a majority sounded like slang to me but Adam kept giggling, apparently it was a little blue “guess what I did to your wife last night”. “yo muthers so…” you get the picture.

Not surprisingly our food was soon ready, served straight away by a line cook fortunately so no reheating, see, I told you there was a positive!





Adam’s had an extra egg on the side because they’d broken one.

We enjoyed the food, but probably not as much as we would have done had we not seen it all being cooked. Halfway through our meal disaster struck, one of the trainee line cooks chopped a chunk out of his finger, nobody seemed to notice or mind until a supervisor came out and put a rubber glove in him… which then filled with blood as well, LOVELY!

We didn’t stay to watch for further antics, we’d finished eating so we handover over our voucher to “Janice” and paid up.

As we were getting ready to leave I watched as Janice picked up the payment, count it, and ROLL HER EYES!

WHAAAA! I’d left a 20% tip on the amount before the voucher deduction, what on EARTH was she expecting, she hadn’t even served us in the end!

I was so annoyed, but I decided life was too short to worry about it and left, muttering alternative names for Janice under my breathe!

Guess what…. No rain! HURRAH!

Ponchos stored away we skipped to the itrolley stop to await the next one. We didn’t wait long and it was still dry by the time we reached Seaworld, so far so good!

We headed first to guest services to check in for our tour and get our slips for later. For those thinking of doing a tour we went for the Wild Arctic Up Close Tour, which at the time was $59 per person + vat

We headed first towards Manta to look in the aquarium that we kept missing, at the end I spotted my nemesis!



Although Adam was convinced this guy was a lot bigger



And here’s a pic showing the closest you’ll ever get my head near fish!



Before you ask no that it not a ‘selfie pout’ (if you know what that is, well done, you’re “down with the kids”, unlike me who uses phrases like “down with the kids”!) I was blowing bubbles!

Next we headed over to the sharks, we’d completely missed this bit on our previous visits for some reason. No photos though I’m afraid, Adam’s camera battery seemed to have over heated and needed rest apparently.

We left the shark area to light rain, which after the last few days was nothing so we headed off towards the killer whale viewing area.

Now I don’t really like this bit, the tank always looks small, but then I’ve never really seen them move away from one corner of it so who knows! Today they were more interested in us I think, one came in for a smooch



or a nibble, it’s hard to tell!



Next we decided to head to wild artic to see where the meeting place was. On the way over the bridge the heavens opened and we started to run for it instead, carrying on until we found shelter by the bakery



15 minutes later…



15 minutes after that…



By this point I was starting to feel very grateful for my waterproof crocs, the whole area was one big puddle! The rain didn’t seemed to be stopping and we couldn’t wait any longer so we donned our poncho’s, took a deep breathe and headed out.

[Hannikins]

We reached the wild arctic area just as a shamu show was finishing so the area was packed. We managed to make it into the shop and huddled in there. With 10 minutes left until the tour was due to start we thought we’d better find the meeting point, which luckily was just outside. It was still bucketing it down so lots of other people were huddled in the meeting area as well so it was impossible to say if we were in the right place or not!

Eventually our tourguide arrived and gathered together our group. She explained that they were currently on lightening alert as it had struck less than 3 miles away, and she’d be back in 10 minutes to let us know the situation. If we didn’t want to wait since there was a possibility the tour would be cancelled or only done in part we could reschedule or get a refund…. Eeek!

With no days left to reschedule and no wish to throw in the towel just yet we agreed to stay, luckily so did the rest of our group.

10 minutes later there was still no news but she took us into the briefing area and gave us our lockers and an area to sit and wait so then at least if it did happen, we’d be ready.

After 15 minutes of waiting she announced that if they didn’t hear back in the next 5 minutes, they would be cancelling the tour.

Time went very slowly…

Tick, tick, ticking by….

4 minutes later….

AND WE WERE ON!

Apparently the lightening has stopped and there was only a light drizzle.

First stop, food prep!

We were shown around the prep area and the big freezers while they explained how everything comes in fresh, fresher than most supermarket fish, and they have to use it within the day. Apparently the “best before” and storage guidelines are higher here than for humans!

After our briefing we were lead out to see the Harbour seals. We all lined up on one side and waited our turn, unfortunately you can’t wear ponchos on the tour, and everything is outside so we all looked like participants from a wet t-shirt competition by the time the seals came out.

I can’t remember what they were called but they had really funny names and were very cheeky.

We did a few tricks with them and then fed them some fish. On the tour you are followed everywhere by a pair of photographers so we also posed for a few shots.



Including this one, which must be the worst photo of me EVER! But I add it here for completeness and your amusement!



I know what you're thinking, you've seen that face before...




*shudders*

Next we headed over to the Beluga Whales. They explained that you could tell where they came from their colouration, I can’t remember which was which but apparently it told us that one was from Canadian and the other from Russian waters.

Unlike with the seals there was an umbrella to shelter under here, but the rain had stopped, TYPICAL!

It did mean we got some lovely shots though. We did various tricks with Klondike and Maple, fed them and also got the chance to touch them, including that strange head of theirs, which turns out to be like blubbery foam! Again the photographers were with us taking shots throughout.















and then we said goodbye in typical seaworld style



Next we headed out the back to where all the filtration tanks are for the area, they were huge. We were heading towards the back residential area where they keep the animals not in exhibits, a holiday home of sorts. We were going to meet Garfield.

No not the ginger puddy, the Walrus!

And boy was he a big un!

Luckily they have big iron bars at the entrance, which allow him to stick his head out but not come all the way out, for our safety as well as his!

Garfield is an old boy and when he saw everyone he started making kissing noises, apparently he picked this up as a pup and does it now when he’s expecting some grub. And grub he got!

I was a little nervous about feeding him if I’m honest. I couldn’t get the hang of it. You’re supposed to hold it out in front of him and he’ll suck it up but I kept chickening out!
Adam did a much better job.





Then they asked Garfield to give everyone a kiss goodbye so we each held out a hand for a kiss.

Can you tell how NOT keen I was by this!



And that was it, the end of the tour. We were led back to the lockers and an area to wash our hands (Walrus kisses are great but they are a little fishy!) before exiting into the wild arctic shop.

So what did we think? We thought it was excellent! I’m so glad we decided to stick with it, and bad weather aside it was one of my favourite parts of the trip.

[Hannikins]

Clean and fresh we decided to grab a snack, in seaworld there is really only one snack of note for me..

BUTTER PECAN ICECREAM!

In a cone with nuts of course ☺



It certainly helped me forget about the weather :P

Adam wasn’t feeling the ice cream vibe and grabbed a cake instead



While munching we debated what to do, we didn’t really want to head back to the hotel yet, this might be the last bit of dry afternoon we were going to get! Instead we headed off to shamu stadium to watch the last show of the day.







After 10 minutes the skies grew very dark and the rain started up again. An announcement came over the tanoy that they would be taking an interval, bloomin lightening again! I was beginning to dislike it as much as Adam.

After 15 minutes the show started again but I’m sure they cut it short and just moved straight onto the ending.




Check out that sky!







It was now just gloomy and drizzly and because there had been nothing but rain all day the evening was a little chilly. We decided to call it quits and headed towards the exit. Not before we picked up our photos from today’s tour though!

As you can’t take cameras on the tour you’d expect the photos to be expensive, we were thinking discovery cove’s laughable package prices, but nope. We got all the photos in this report and LOADS more for $40 + tax, bargain, well done Seaworld!

By the time we’d finished our purchase we’d missed the main exodus so we managed to get on the next itrolley without much difficultly. We decided to head to the pointe and decide from there.

[Hannikins]

We did have a little wander, we thought about Maggianos but I really wasn’t in a pasta mood. Instead we ended up at Cuba Libre. One mistake we did make is underestimating how ‘posh’ this place was. When I say posh I don’t mean V&A standards, what I mean is not drenched park clothes, wet hair and bright blue ponchos which dripped all over reception. The hostess took it well though, after hiding her initial shock she offered to take our poncho’s away to dry. I could tell she thought a bin bag would have looked better but hey ho!

We were seated in a lovely area all to ourselves (I’d like to say she sensed the romance in the air but I think it was more to keep us out of the eyeline of other guests!). The décor in here is amazing, I couldn’t get any decent photos but here’s one I found online



I would like to say that it was mainly the food that drew us here but I’ll be frank, after the day we’d had it was more the huge mojito menu offering than anything else!

We soon had a few on the go!







YUMMY!

We also received some bread while we decided on the food



Adam’s brother had been here a few months before us and had recommended the “Plato Gaucho”





our pictures weren’t great, but it did look something like this:



Adobo-rubbed all-natural Black Angus sirloin steak, chimichurri skirt steak, jumbo shrimp, herb marinated chicken breasts and Spanish artisan chorizo sausage. Red hot onion rings and a trio of sauces

It was $34 per person but it was sooooooo worth it!

It was rather hot though, so obviously more mojito’s were ordered.



So many flavours!

You would think after all that we’d have no room for anything else, but you’d be wrong!

We decided to share dessert :P We took our servers recommendation and had the Tres Leches De Caramelo


Basically it’s sponge cake soaked in dulce de leche , very yummy, but after all the mojito’s it did leave me dangerously close to the wrong side of “squiffy”!

We headed out and the hostess handed us our lovely dry ponchos and wished us luck, it was raining again ☹



We contemplated a quick “round” in the british themed pub next door in case it soon stopped but looking at it we knew it was here to stay, and besides I’d had enough!

We headed towards the Itrolley stop only to find there was no shelter, oh come back holey umbrella, all is forgiven! We decided to walk to the next stop in case that had a shelter, it did, several, but the itrolley had passed us on the way…. ARGH!

I think this was the point I hit an all time holiday low, sat there, in the rain, in my poncho, under a holey umbrella.

Adam seemed to sense it to, since he took a picture of me to remind us of the occasion!



Ok it could also be a homeless bag lady but I assure you it’s me

We did eventually make it back to the hotel, and I did cheer up after a nice warm shower, but I remember thinking that the rain had better ###### off tomorrow as it was our last full day!

SPENDS RECAP
Well as Adam was in charge of money today naturally I have no receipts from the day apart from Dinner when I took over!
Dinner – LOTS of mojitos, Plato Gaucho & Dessert - $140 – expensive, but worth every penny!

NOM OF THE DAY
The Mojitos!... that counts as food right?

[Fuellady]

What a shame about the rain... still, at least you made the most of your day... the tour looks good, bargain photos indeed!

The restaurant does look a bit posh, I had to laugh at you and Adam handing over your soggy ponchos The food looks good though, and of course you needed more margharitas to cool the heat from the food

Hope the weather cheers up a bit (a lot!) for your last full day tomorrow.

[joanna23]

Only you could make a rainy day sound so fabulous. I do love that last photo!

[ILoveDaveLamb]

I hope the sun shines for you tomorrow. The ice cream looked good as did the restaurant. Thanks for sharing. X

[miss_bell]

Another wet day, the tour looked good with lots of animal interactions. The rain is bringing back memories of us hauled up in the townhouse or various parking lots just waiting, I hope we don't get rain like that again this year.

[yellowrose78]

Fab day, pity about the weather! That ice cream looks amazing!

[jocat]

The Seaworld tour sounds fab. Definitely something to add to our must do list for the next trip (not that we've got one booked yet! )

The restaurant looks great too. Can't believe the amount of rain you had in one day though, so not surprised that you felt fed up at the end of the night.

Fingers crossed for good weather for your last full day.