Seaworld!

Yesterday we went to Seaworld to celebrate the birthday of Littletree’s friend, Anasho. I was pretty reluctant to go – it’s a really far drive, and really expensive to get in, and I dislike being in crowds and overtly commercial stuff… but Littletree wanted to go and after all, they have loads of interesting aquariums and stuff Littletree is interested in learning.

So we got up really early, and drove up to Queensland. We timed it well and arrived just when the gates opened, though it still meant standing in the line for the better part of half an hour. but by the time we were through the entrance, the line up to get in had snaked through most of the carpark, so it was lucky we were there early!

First up we went to see a show, which was cute.

Then we went on some rides. Most of the rides involved getting splashed, with Littletree didn’t like so much, but she still had fun. Then we went to play in the waterpark section and go on waterslides. Littletree chickened out on the waterslide, but she had a great time swimming in the kiddie pool.

We went into the aquarium section, the kids got to pat (de-barbed) stingrays

And starfish

We went into the underwater viewing area, which was Littletree’s favourite – she chose to go back in there later as well, while Anasho was riding on the big roller-coasters.

We had a look at the baby penguins

And the Polar Bears,

It seems somewhat cruel to keep polar bears in a tropical place where it’s incredibly hot. They seemed bored, this one (in the photo) was continuously swimming at the wall, doing a backflip and kicking off again. But Littletree was fascinated.

We rushed off to see the Dolphin show, which was pretty cool.

There was one guy who did a trick of standing on the heads of two dolphins, which would jump high in the air, do a flip, and the guy would do a flip off them as well. I didn’t manage to get a really good photo of that though.

But it was a very cool show

Littletree’s favourite ride was one of the kiddie rides in the Sesame Street section – it just went up and down, but she really liked it – I think she was still a bit small to appreciate the big rides, even though she was tall enough for most of them.

Finally, exhausted, we took the skylift back to the gate to go home.

Here’s our final view of the park from the skylift.

It was a fun day, but I was totally beat by the time we got home!