Wow! I havent been to Sea World… since, forever. Take it back, we had prom there in high school but before that I was probably 6 or so. Still cool, but damn has it gotten expensive. Makes sense though, they have a LOT of animals to take care of!! The crazier part is that it costs the same for one day as it does for a year pass… take that back, now that I think back it actually ended up being cheaper by a couple bucks to get the year pass with a AAA discount. How does that even make any sense!? Capitalizing on the tourists there for one day apparently… and there were tons of them. I honestly didnt really notice that until we went to the Shamoo show later on in the afternoon. You know how they have the soak zone down in the front. The place where you just get drenched if you hang out and you would only expect to find kids and adventurous adults sitting. Well, when we got in for the last show of the day the place was packed and the soak zone was lined with people as well. I think they need to make the signs that say “WARNING, SOAK ZONE! YOU WILL GET WET IF YOU SIT HERE!” in Japanese too cause these poor families were clueless. Clearly they had no clue the impending doom of the front row when they sat there. They probably thought they had scored the BEST seat in the house and within minutes realized why those seats were all so easy to grab. Shamoo comes by and does a MASSIVE jump to back flop causing a tidal wave that soaks tourists young and old and nearly causes an “I’ve gotta get out of here” stampede [cameras in hand] up the aisle. I felt bad seeing these guys get all their photography gear drenched as well as the babies and elderly that were with them.
Anyway, we got to see polar bears, whales and Avalon even went into the shark exhibit. She loves Sea World and we scored the year pass thanks to Jessicas Dad… so it looks like we’ll be going back this summer when they open up the stingray exhibit. Got a ton of cool pics but not as many as I would have like of the exibits + Avalon in them, just didnt have a wide enough lens ;/ Now that I know what Im in for, next time this photographer in San Diego will be better prepared and strapping a wide angle / fish eye lens. Fortunately I had my go pro on me and was able to snag some cool video footage to compliment the photos.
