SeaWorld was by far the closest theme park we’ve visited yet, only being 15 minutes away from our hotel which made Busch Gardens seem really far away.
We began the day by riding manta a roller coaster where you lean forward and fly around like Superman, or in our case a manta ray. ( yes Sophie, it’s like air at Alton Towers.) Unlike other rides of this type it rides really close to water “on the crest of the wave” you might say!

Seaworld is in the same group / association as Busch Gardens. Having enjoyed the dining deal there we decided to go for the dining deal at Seaworld. Matty was on a mission as soon as his dining deal wrist band was stuck to his arm. If it’d been a cartoon he’d have been the classic Scooby tongue that licks off all the pink candy stuff in one swipe of his tongue. The restaurants didn’t open until 11am and Matty marched us into a burger joint “just for a drink Dad”. FIve minutes later he was tucking into a cheeseburger and chips with a drink and strawberries for dessert. Luke had a pulled pork roll which he really enjoyed (nice to find something Mr Fussy will eat and wants to go back for seconds).

We strode up to see the Shamu show and all sat at the top except Matty. “Mr Waterproof” sat in the splash zone and aimed to stay dry. Against all the odds he did and boy did he go on about it.

From there we made our way to Antarctic Adventure. this was a meet and greet penguins. It was pretty good but really very cold (duh). We didn’t overstay our welcome with the penguins, keen to get out into warmer air.

One of the big rides Matty wanted to do was the Kraken, a large, fast coaster that due to the close proximity of SeaWorld to our hotel we can see in the distance from the 14th floor room we’re currently occupying. Amazingly there was no queue and we strode to the front of the queue line. The ride was good but not as good as manta. I guess the number of coasters we’ve ridden lately makes you a bit of a critic!

Next we tackled the water ride Journey to Atlantis, Luke didn’t fancy this ride preferring to stay in a shady spot. I sat with him whilst Liz went with Matty on the giant water ride. The size and number of hills and sharp drops caught her by surprise!!

After the water ride Matty wanted a drink and took us into a pizza place to get one. Five minutes late he was munching the largest slice of cheese pizza you’ve ever seen. The one slice was as big as a dinner plate!!! I had a Caesar salad and Luke and Liz had fruit and cookies. We all flicked the half ton of ice out of our drinks with a fork, to the amusement of some of the locals.

With ten minutes to go until Sealion show we walked up the hill towards their stadium. Their show was called SeaLion High and was about them graduating from high school. They even had a dinner lady which in American spak is the “lunch lady”.

Unfortunately for us rain stopped play in the last 10 minutes of the show. After waiting to see if the show was resumed, we eventually heard the bad news that the storm was heading directly for us and so the remainder of the show was cancelled. Strolling down the park a little and around the corner we headed past the noisy staff breakout area to a giant aquarium tank. Shamu was still performing and so the tank was empty and the door leading into the tank was shut. Fifteen minutes later the door opened but no killer whales appeared for another 10 minutes. When they did it was worth the wait. They are huge, graceful and swift all rolled into one giant whale. We watched Shamu and his mum for a while. Not long after they arrived so did the rain, which was breath takingly heavy. Matty ran 10m to a bin and back and was soaked to our amusement! Clearly “Mr Waterproof” wasn’t as waterproof as he thought. Due to the slope down towards Shamus tank and the heavyweight nature of the rain storm, water soon flowed down towards us. After four or five minutes it was 5cm deep! I suggested we moved even though it was still raining before the water rose to 10cm which would have been over shoe height. We ran to a cafe, despite the poncho we still got v wet. After 10 minutes sheltering with no sign of the storm subsiding, we decided to walk to get our tea. I suggested we took off our shoes and socks and walked bare foot. Sounds silly maybe but the water poured down and in places the puddles were wide and pretty deep (no we didn’t have any wellies mother!). I took off my shoes and socks, tied the laces together and hung shoes around my neck under the poncho. The others copied and we walked as fast as possible to the restaurant. The bumpy surface of the pebble encrusted concrete was smooth enough and the stones provided a strange massage type feeling on the soles of your feet. The puddles were as warm as a bath and were an unexpected side effect of the sun baked paving. I guess concrete paving acts a bit like a storage heater!!

Luke had opted to eat tea where we had lunch, having enjoyed his giant pulled pork roll so much. If it’d been England the amount of pulled pork in one roll would have been split over three. The 5/6 inch bap had 1 1/2 inches of pulled pork stacked into it, topped with BBQ sauce. It came with a large chips on the side as standard – just in case you weren’t full enough !!! Surprisingly Luke packed all of the pork roll away.

We finished our tea and walked to see swimming dolphin, turtles and mantees. The dolphins were large but were dwarfed by the mamtee. I also loved the turtles. By now the park was pretty empty and so we headed home to our hotel.