Thanks for posting that, it's really good to hear.
Zoos etc often really upset me as I have a hard time seeing animals in captivity unless they have been rescued/are unable to live in their natural home etc.
The polar bears in San Diego zoo very much upset me and that's one of the reasons I'm not overly keen on going to seaworld, all of these huge creatures who should be in snow/ice/ a huge ocean and they are stuck in boiling hot Florida.
I really want to go to DC, but will only do so if the dolphins are 100% happy to be there.
we went to DC several years ago - the first year it opened...
we'd never been to sea world before, but when you get the DC ticket, it includes sea world...
anyway, we were also worried about how the dolphins would be at DC - the place we usually visit with dolphins is a place near where we live, where the dolphins actually live free....in their natural environment (in the sea and can come and go)..
so we were also worried about how we'd feel at DC....since we also don't like seeing animals in captivity...
but the dolphins at DC seemed to be in a more natural habitat than in the typical sea world type environment....and they seemed happy....
after our day at DC - actually, we only spent a half day there, we went over to sea world to check it out...(since it was already included in the price of our DC ticket)...
we only stayed at sea world for 2 hours for exactly the reason you mentioned...we were so disturbed by how the whales were kept - we only saw the orca show and then we left....we just couldn't be there...
i suppose i'm a hypocrit, since i do go to animal kingdom....
but we vowed we wouldn't go back to sea world..
however, we didn't get that same sort of bad feeling at DC....maybe we missed something, but the dolphins did seem happy.....
as for polar bears - if you want to be upset, go see the polar bears living in the central park zoo in New York City....terrible!!