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Old 7 Apr 20, 07:03 PM  
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nothingless
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Talking 5-week Split Stay in Florida, Feb/March 2020 - Day 04: Seaworld & Pool

Day 04: Seaworld & Pool
February 13, 2020

[-- Trip Index --]

Today we decided to head to SeaWorld! We hadn't booked any tickets in advance - I knew I most likely wanted to visit SeaWorld as Myla would love it, but I wanted to see what we all felt like once we were there. If we just wanted to do nothing the first week, it'd be a waste to buy 14-day tickets and a 2-day ticket might have been better, so we had decided before the trip, to just play it by ear and see what we felt like doing.

Well, we talked about it a little bit last night - we all felt really good and energetic, none of us picked up any colds or virusses on the plane, and Michael and I agreed we'd love to try SeaWorld the next day.

We all had a good sleep - I woke up at 6:15 and Myla 5 minutes later. We had breakfast and Michael played with Myla while I went online to buy tickets. I had a really good deal on 14-day unlimited tickets via Hotelopia here on the Dibb, so we could come and go as much as we wanted over the next 2 weeks, instead of cramming everything into one day - they’re not a lot more expensive so definitely worth it.

After I bought the tickets online, I couldn't get the online code to work to download the barcoded vouchers, so I actually had to phone Hotelopia to get the digital etickets. I don't think their system is setup for purchasing the morning-of, but it wasn't a problem, the girl I spoke to sorted it out for me and they were in my inbox before I was even off the phone with her!


(here you can see the new toy she picked out at World of Disney on the first night - the baby Figaro. She LOVES him and he goes everywhere with her even now that we're home!)
We ended up leaving the villa at 9:30 - the park opens at 10 so that should be plenty of time. However, traffic on Interstate 4 was pretty bad and a normal 16-minute drive ended up taking twice as long, plus we queued another 20-25 minutes to get into the car park - it was super busy at the entrance. So altogether it was past 10:30 before we were in. The good thing is that this reminded us of why we were so excited to be staying on-site for the Disney part of our trip - no endless queues in the carparks lol!



We parked up and headed to the entrance, each of us pretty excited. We've never been to SeaWorld, so this was a first for all of us, and Myla is a big fan of zoos and aquariums!

The eTickets worked perfectly at the gate, and we headed to the Starbucks Bakery just after the park entrance to have coffees and a muffin for me, and let me check the park map to get our bearings.


We checked the map to see what was where, and picked on what shows we wanted to see today. We decided to not do too much today - just check out some of the aquariums and the orca show, and come back for the rest another time. Myla really wanted to go swimming again later, so this allowed us to do both.

Plans made, we walked into the park, first stopping with the mascot where of course Myla ran ahead to get a photo - the bigger and furrier the animal, the better lol!


We watched the roller coaster for a bit - Myla was VERY impressed with the speed of it and told us she'd definitely go on it "when she was bigger" haha.


We also stopped at the flamingos - they're always so cool, I love these!

She noticed some were asleep while standing on one leg, and asked me why they didn't fall over. Um. Pass? I had to google it LOL - it's to do with their center of gravity and what looks like their "knee", isn't actually their knee, it's their ankle! Of course Myla didn't understand any of this, being 3, so I ended up telling her they just practice a lot.

We walked a bit further and headed to the stingrays, admiring the lovely park all around us. Even though it had seemed so busy at the entrance to the car park, it wasn't busy inside the park at all, and we were enjoying the peace and beauty of the surroundings!


Ah, happy memories of our visit to Key West on our honeymoon 4 years ago!


We stood at the stingray lagoon for quite while and I have lots of videos of all 3 of us petting them! Myla was a bit hesitant at first, but tried it when she saw us doing it, and couldn't stop laughing, she thought it was fantastic!


Eventually we convinced her to go a bit further, washed our hands, and walked on to the dolphin area. We stood and watched them outside for a bit, they were playing around and jumping all over the place just for fun!


We also checked out their underwater viewing area - Myla absolutely LOVED this, it was so cool to see them so close, and the dolphins truly were responding to the little kids standing there!


Next we walked on to Turtle Trek, and went inside to see the turtles and manatees.


Myla is especially fond of turtles, since forever ago and I can't remember how or why, so she didn't let us stop at the manatees and powered right on to the turtles. Unfortunately the water in their tank was a little murky - a SeaWorld employee was there giving information and answering questions and she said it had to do with the water temperature. So it was a little bit harder to see the turtles, but we did find them eventually!


We skipped the movie (those types of 3D Imax type things make me nauseous) and headed outside, where we saw the manatees from above as well as the small alligators!



We walked on some more, and had a toilet break in front of Journey To Atlantis, but Myla again refused to go. The toilets are all really noisy here compared to home, plus the super noisy hand dryers, and it just scares her and she won’t pee. However, she is good at holding it, and just pees when we get home. I decided on this trip to not fight with her over it - there’s no point, I can’t force her to pee, it just leads to her screaming, and so long as she doesn’t pee her pants, which she pretty much never does, I left it alone. I’d definitely prefer for her to pee when we’re out, but in these first weeks in Florida, she just plain refused. 🤷🏼 It wasn't worth the battle for me, and I'm happy to report she did eventually start getting used to it, and was using the toilets in the parks etc much better towards the end of the trip!

By now it was time to head over to the big stadium for the orca show. Myla walked a good while today, which was nice to see - she hardly sat in the stroller and only used it while she was eating snacks: the Goldfish crackers she'd loved so much on our trip last year, were still a firm favorite this year too.



We found some seats soon and Myla ate some more Goldfish crackers while we waited to it to start.


It was VERY hot, even while sitting in the shade we were sweating. We all loved the show though - big emphasis on rehabilitation and how to save the orcas in the wild, and using the various ‘tricks’ they do here to explain more about their behavior in the wild, how they communicate and hunt etc. Very interesting and cool, Myla loved it!


This is her "WOW!" face lol.



Towards the end, she was getting very tired though, so we headed back to the car. At home she hasn't taken afternoon naps for over a year now, but here in holiday we found that with the early starts (waking up around 6AM instead of the 7:30-8AM she usually does at home), she just needed some rest to make it to the evening.

Edited at 02:32 PM.
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Old 7 Apr 20, 07:03 PM  
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We walked back via the dolphin nursery, where we admired the babies for a few minutes.


I have to say, we were all impressed with SeaWorld and had a fabulous morning there. There's SO much to see and explore for an animal-loving 3-year-old, we were really happy with our decision for the 14-day tickets and just really enjoyed our time in the park!

Also, side note about food! From some googling that morning, I knew SeaWorld does very little to no vegan food. So Michael had packed peanut butter sandwiches for himself, and a bag of nuts - we explained at the bag check (you're not really allowed food into SeaWorld), that it was for his vegan diet and it was fine! As for me, I had a non-vegan muffin to eat, and a (vegan) frappuchino, and that was plenty for me until later on in the afternoon - I'm not a big eater!

Myla was asleep within minutes of us starting to drive back - I think we barely left the car park haha!


Unfortunately she woke up again when we lifted her out of the car back at the villa around 1:30, so she only napped for like 15 minutes. I tried to lie beside her on the bed to get her to sleep a bit longer, but no go. I gave up at 14:00, and instead went on to the laptop to do my work for the day while Myla and Michael played and relaxed.

She asked to go to the pool again, so as soon as I was finished with work, we changed and drove the car down to the pool for the 2 minute drive around 3. Myla loves the community pool, she played with a girl called Brielle for a while and had a blast! I was in the water with her, so no photos from today - Michael did a workout in the gym while we swam.

Around 4, she swam over to me, crawled into my arms, and said, “I’m done. “ 😂 She was exhausted, so we went back home, and she had a bath while Michael sorted dinner.

After we ate, roughly 17:30 or so, we headed out to the Walmart down the road - Michael needed some groceries, Myla still needed flip flops, and I wanted to get a t-shirt and some jogging bottoms because I keep getting cold in the air conditioning and I hadn’t packed anything like that!


A Walmart trip is always fun, and we all enjoyed browsing for a bit. I still hadn't found any decent flip flops for Myla, Walmart didn't have any nice ones in her size, but I got lovely joggers and T-shirts - Mickey themed of course! We were back home by 18:30, Myla ate a bowl of cornflakes, and when we tucked her into bed around 19:15, she was asleep within minutes.

Michael and I stayed up to watch the Disney fireworks from the backyard - I took a few videos but you can see it here, above the buildings:


We couldn't hear them, but it was cool enough to see them! We then watched some tv in bed before going to sleep at 9 - a perfect evening as far as I'm concerned! 😴

Edited at 07:14 PM.
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Old 8 Apr 20, 07:39 AM  
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Some lovely photos there. I have to say I agree with Myla the toilets flushing at opportune moments can be off putting until you get used to them.
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Old 8 Apr 20, 09:21 AM  
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A lovely day and great photos

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Old 8 Apr 20, 09:45 AM  
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Just loving how relaxed your days are... the beauty of a very long stay... so lucky!
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Old 15 Apr 20, 08:11 AM  
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Another fabulous day. I love Seaworld, it always seems a slower pace than the other parks.
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Old 15 Apr 20, 08:41 PM  
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A lovely day. So nice being able to take your time and not feel you have to cram your day full. I’m glad Myla got used to the toilets - same with my youngest- I think inevitably they’re going to have a day somewhere where they just can’t hold it & the issue forces itself- at least the hurdle is then overcome is my view.
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Old 21 May 20, 08:34 PM  
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It looks like you had a great day at Seaworld. We went for the first time on our last trip but I don't think we really made the most of it as we went on our first day and were all a bit jetlagged.
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Old 12 May 21, 10:12 AM  
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Lovely photos!
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