Don’t tell MM! It’s NOT a bug’s life! A dolphin’s WHAT? The ER? Is that a body?

[saintstickets]

Great update! I have never seen the HDDR, so I appreciate your fantastic photos and descriptions of the show!

Why thank you. As I said, it was our first time and I really enjoyed it. Stay tuned though...lot's more to come!

 

[saintstickets]

No updates tonight. On Saturday, DW and I visited a produce farm and picked five 5 gal buckets of Roma tomatoes. We are in the process of canning them for sauce and salsa. Here is a pic of about half of them set out to complete the ripening process

 

[MelMel11]

Count me in!!

 

[MEK]

Subbing and I can see from the first page that your pictures are gorgeous. What cute little dogs. Can't wait to get all caught up!

 

[2xcited2sleep]

Climbing aboard for the fun! Your title and intro are definitely intriguing!

Your itinerary looks great and full of fun even without a Disney park. I would have had a hard time with that too though... especially when you got so close to the MK for your TiW card!

I haven't done HDDR since I was little... which is MANY years ago... might be time to give it another try.

Yikes that is a lot of tomatoes! How nice that you will get to enjoy your sauce and salsa throughout the year!

 

[saintstickets]

Count me in!!

Glad you're here. Hope you're enjoying the ride!

Subbing and I can see from the first page that your pictures are gorgeous. What cute little dogs. Can't wait to get all caught up!

Woohoo!! MEK is back from her WDW trip! Can't wait to read your TR.

Climbing aboard for the fun! Your title and intro are definitely intriguing!

Your itinerary looks great and full of fun even without a Disney park. I would have had a hard time with that too though... especially when you got so close to the MK for your TiW card!

I haven't done HDDR since I was little... which is MANY years ago... might be time to give it another try.

Yikes that is a lot of tomatoes! How nice that you will get to enjoy your sauce and salsa throughout the year!

Welcome aboard! It was very difficult to be so close and not enter the WDW parks. We had a great time but I definately want to see Mickey several times before we venture "off the reservation" again!

 

[saintstickets]

I'm taking a break from putting up Roma tomatoes to try and get an update posted. The sacrifices we do for the DISboards...

Day 3 – 5/21/12 - Monday
This was my first trip to SeaWorld in over 30 years. DW had not been since she was a youngster. Since we were spending only one day here, we planned on being here from open to close.

SeaWorld has a dining plan for $31.94 (adult rate with tax included). You can eat/drink as often as you like at any of the participating restaurants. Most of the restaurants are included in the dining plan. The character breakfast, luau, shark underwater grille and Captain Pete’s Inn are not included. Mango Joe’s, Seafire Inn, Seaport Pizza, Spice Mill, Terrace Garden Buffet and Voyager’s Smokehouse are included. For us, today, the dining plan made sense.

We arrived a few minutes before the opening time of 9:00. As previously stated, when I purchased our tickets to Discovery Cove online a few months ago, entrance to SeaWorld was included in the DC price. Since that time, they have added entrance to Aquatica to the DC deal. After parking and entering without any problems with our DC passes, I paid for the all day dining plan while the others plotted our day. See, I’m not doing the planning! I’m winging it. Oh Lord, what have I gotten myself into?

 

[saintstickets]

First things first, we have the dining plan so why not use it? We need to eat! No breakfast earlier this morning for any of us so we head straight to Voyager’s Smokehouse. Other than the not-included-in-the-dining-plan Character Breakfast, this is the only restaurant open until lunch time. The breakfast was standard fare with scrambled eggs, sausage, bacon, oatmeal, cereal, pastries, etc. It was good as these meals go. As you bring your tray to checkout, you give them your receipt for the all day dining and you receive a wrist band to use for the rest of the day. This would be the same process at any restaurant you eat at for your first meal on the dining plan. Very simple, very easy to use.

So what do we do first after eating? Why ride monster coaster ride Kraken of course!

Needless to say, it’s a LOT of twists, turns, loops, ups and downs. I don’t have the best back in my advanced age and DW has had multiple back surgeries so I’m always concerned on these rides. I’ll have to say this was one smooth ride. No jerking motions like BMTRR. No dark portions like SM. I was impressed. I won’t ride it right after breakfast again, but I would ride this one again.

 

[saintstickets]

It’s nearing time for our first show of the day. SeaWorld has 6 different shows and 5 different animal interaction/feeding attractions. There are schedules times for the shows, naturally, but also scheduled times for the feedings. We stop off at the Pacific Point Preserve to see the sea lions and seals. It is not yet time for the feeding but here are a couple of pics of the water critters

Our first show was “Clyde and Seamore take Pirate Island”. It has sea lions, otters and a walrus mixed in with human entertainers. There are the expected hokey jokes but a lot of activity from the main stars of the show – the non-human entertainers. A few pics of them all

And they get audience members involved as well. This man was from England.

It was entertaining. It was HOT. Make sure you sit at least half way up to get under the covered portion of the stadium but get there early because everyone else has the same idea. The best part of the show to me was the warm-up act.

This was a mime artist doing an ad lib skit while people were filing in to the seats. He mocked people. He spooked a few little ones without making them cry. He made fun of a few, shall we say, portly gentlemen (no…not me…we made our way to our seats early!). He sashayed & strutted behind a couple of uh…er…women well endowed by their Creator! He had the audience really loosened up and without saying a word. The main show was good and well worth the time but the mime definitely set the tone and would have been worth it by himself.

 

[saintstickets]

Next up is the show “One Ocean”.

This is the one with the Shamu show that has the orca whales as the main attractions. When I was here many moons ago, the trainer would ride the orca as well as perform other stunts in the water. After a female trainer was killed by a male orca in 2010, they are no longer allowed to be in the water with the whales during the show. I miss those stunts but it’s understandable. Prior to the show there is a video and then the trainers come out to start the show. One thing they did that I absolutely was thrilled about is they asked all the active, reserve and retired military people in the audience to stand and they gave them a salute and recognition for their service to our country. I’m not ashamed to say it brought a lump to my throat. Hoorah USA!!!

After that, it was time to bring out the stars of the show. Here they are

And if you think you won’t get wet, you are mistaken

It was a real nice show but if you want to stay dry, make sure you sit higher than the area designated as a splash zone!

 

[saintstickets]

It’s feeding time but not for the aquatic creatures; it’s time to feed the two legged ones. Near the Shamu Stadium is the Terrace Garden Buffet. It’s a pizza and pasta buffet with a fair amount of choices and is part of the dining plan. BTW, there are some adult beverages included on the dining plan at various restaurants but it was too hot for me. It was decent food and air conditioned!


Next up is time to ride Journey to Atlantis! This is SeaWorld’s water ride and you will probably get wet. It’s about the same chance of getting wet as Splash Mountain at MK. Here are a couple of pics of Journey to Atlantis

And here is our ride pic. I tried for a funny face but it came out like one of terror!

Another smooth ride and more exciting than Splash Mountain. It’s not as well themed as SM but we liked it so much, we rode it again. While in line the second time, there was a group of Jr. High aged kids (boys & girls) with a male chaperone right behind us. To say they were loud would be an understatement. I understand being excited about being here but they were the kind that hugged the rail in line and kept getting ahead of the person(s) in front of them, sitting on the rail making it difficult for the people in the next line, jumping up and down, playing pattycake (I don’t know what they call it today ) and singing as if they were auditioning for Idol or America’s Got Talent (they would not win!). The chaperone wasn’t much older than them and he did nothing to calm them down or keep them from disturbing the other people in line. There was a group of 4 boys further behind them in line that were a bit younger but very well behaved. You know how you keep passing the same people in the queue lines? Well after about 10 minutes of the kids behind us acting up, I thought I would try something. The next time we passed the 4 well behaved boys, I told them, in a voice the others could hear, “Thank you for being so well behaved in line and making it pleasant for others even though I know y’all are excited to ride Atlantis. Your parents should be proud.” I think I scared them more than used them to make a point to the unruly kids behind us! The look on their face was a mixture of shock, scared and okay, thanks! I’m not sure it worked very well on the other kids but those 4 boys made sure they didn’t even look at me the next time we passed them!

 

[saintstickets]

After riding Atlantis we passed the Stingray Aquarium

And then we walked through the Shark Encounter. It’s a large aquarium that has a tunnel through it. It doesn’t make for very good pictures

 

[saintstickets]

Our next adventure was to ride Manta.

I had been watching this ride as we passed it and wasn’t so sure about it. You start out sitting upright and then the floor drops and you are tilted over on your stomach. An example of the ride

DDiL and I decided to skip this one. After DW, DS, DD & DDfi exited the ride, my sweet, lovely bride told me it was best I didn’t ride the Manta. She said when it tilts over, you are on your stomach and it probably would hurt me to ride! Geesh woman…why don’t you just tell me I’m fat! Just tell me my gut is too large to lay on it! Okay, it’s true but you don’t have to tell me to my face!!!

Well now…after I console myself (no one else would) and put my lower lip back in its proper place so I won’t trip over it, we walk around trying to decide on the next thing to do. We passed these on our way to the Pets Ahoy show

 

[saintstickets]

The Pets Ahoy show is menagerie of dogs, cats, birds, rats and a pot-belly pig that have been rescued from shelters and other places and trained to perform here at SeaWorld. As in previous shows, it was a pretty impressive performance by the animals – but not as much from the two legged ones! You could not use a flash during the performance and the animals did not sit still very long so I did not get many decent pictures.

Don’t ask me how they trained Pepe le Pew here

DD and DDfi decided they wanted to ride Manta again and get a picture. And here it is. They are the two on the left.

By now it is around 5:00pm. Most all of the shows have ended since the park closes at 7:00 today. There’s only one thing left to do…eat! We go back to Voyager’s Smokehouse to try their non-breakfast fare. They have BBQ chicken, ribs, turkey sandwich, smoked chicken and grilled chicken Caesar salad with assorted sides and desserts. Good counter service food and plenty of it even though ribs and chicken are starting to get a bit old now after WCC, HDDR & this restaurant too. This wasn’t planned very well….see what happens when you don’t uber-plan things? It’s okay, we’re wingin’ it!!

It’s only an hour or so until closing when we finished eating. No one is willing to risk another ride after our meal so it was left to amble and shop…shop and amble…and…shop. Wanna guess which gender decided on that? The sacrifices we men make. FINALLY, we head back to VWL.

 

[saintstickets]

Once back to the resort, everyone is going their separate ways. DS and DDiL took the boat to the Contemporary to do some more shopping (Sighhh…see comment in previous post). DD and DDfi head to the pool. DW and I are taking the bus to Downtown Disney. We put a load of clothes in the washing machine before we left that morning. We put the clothes in the dryer when we returned and … and … and … nothing. It would not work! Sighhhh (I do that a lot, don’t I?). A quick call to maintenance and they said they would send someone up. We told them we were leaving and they said if we didn’t mind them coming in with us not there, they would be right up. Not a problem and when we returned, the dryer was working and the clothes were almost done. Nice going Disney or so I thought. More on that later.

In the meantime, as previously stated, DW and I were going to DTD. We have not been to DTD since our trip in 2007. We get off at the first stop at DTD, barely walk 50 feet and then it happened. A bug flew right into my eye! OUCH! Love bugs are normal this time of year and they have an acidic body chemistry that will take the paint off your car. Whatever kind of bug it was, it didn’t do my eye any good and if it was a pair of love bugs, then their honeymoon was over! Now you see where we get the second part of the TR title – It’s NOT a bug’s life! There was a CM a few feet away and we tried to ask her where the 1st aid station was but she could not speak English very well and evidently did not understand what we were saying. We gave up trying to find out from her. A lot of water later and it was tolerable but my eye looked like I had been on a 3 day drunk and REALLY enjoyed myself! We had to leave so we walked down to the second bus stop at DTD. Since I could not see well enough to take pictures, I only took have this one attempt of a street performer

Back at our room again and as said before, the dryer was running so we started another load in the washer and headed down to the beach to watch the Electric Water Pageant again. We walked around the resort a bit. It really is beautiful at night but what do you expect? We’re at WDW and everything is magical…especially at night…even if you only have one good eye to see it!

Once back in the room, the washer load is complete so we transfer them over to the dryer and … you guessed it, it doesn’t work…again! Another sighhhh. Obviously mouse maintenance did just enough to get it started but did not fix the problem. DD and DDfi are with us now and after I give up trying to get the dryer started, he starts to fiddle with the knob. Now those of you not from the South, to “fiddle” with something is not a reference to playing a country violin. When you fiddle with something, you poke, prod, twist, twirl and keep jigglin’ it until something happens. DDfi “fiddled” with it and eventually took the knob off and used a bottle opener to get it started working. That there is called redneck engineering. I started to take a picture but I didn’t want it to end up on YouTube or in some e-mail about the people at Walmart.

“Eye” was impressed to see how he made it work but after putting drops in my debugged-eye, it’s time to get some shut eye with our sight on tomorrow and what I’m hoping will be the h”eye”light of our trip – swimming with the dolphins at Discovery Cove.

 

[MEK]

All caught up.

Great TR. I am really enjoying all your witty comments. I can't believe you had your eye sight taken out by a love bug. That's a bummer, for sure.

Your trip to Seaworld looks so fun. I have never been there and I really need to change that. For a long time I didn't think I could do a non-disney park trip, but after this summer I would really like to try one. I am also anxious to try DC. Can't wait to see your pics. Hope your eye recovers.

Bummer about the broken dryer. I love the layout our your 2BR vila. WE had an unusual room combo when we stayed there but it was a lock off unit. It was huge.

very funny about all the neked boys at BLT. Who knew?

 

[TinksThree]

Way to sport that Golden Eagle!!!!

LOVE HDDR!! I can't believe this was your first time there!!

We loved Sea World in San Antonio and after seeing your pics I think I need to plan on going one day in Orlando!

Holy cow at the tomatoes!!!!!!!

 

[natebenma]

Great day at Sea World!

Your pictures from the One Ocean show are amazing!!!

The rides are a nice addition to the park. My teenager loved Kraaken and Manta.

The mime preshow is my favorite thing at Sea World. Unfortunately, we came in too late to the Sea Lion show to see him last summer.

Sorry your night was hampered by the love bug incident.

 

[saintstickets]

All caught up.

Great TR. I am really enjoying all your witty comments. I can't believe you had your eye sight taken out by a love bug. That's a bummer, for sure.

Your trip to Seaworld looks so fun. I have never been there and I really need to change that. For a long time I didn't think I could do a non-disney park trip, but after this summer I would really like to try one. I am also anxious to try DC. Can't wait to see your pics. Hope your eye recovers.

Bummer about the broken dryer. I love the layout our your 2BR vila. WE had an unusual room combo when we stayed there but it was a lock off unit. It was huge.

very funny about all the neked boys at BLT. Who knew?

Thanks MEK. I'm glad you are enjoying the TR. I always enjoy yours so consider it partial pay back!

It was our first non-Disney trip to Orlando in 15 years. SeaWorld and Universal seem more amusement park than theme park with all the coaster rides to me. There's nothing wrong with that but one can't expect a Disney-type trip because, well....it's not Disney! With that said, DC comes as close to a Disney-type experience as one could expect. I would return there often.

Way to sport that Golden Eagle!!!!

LOVE HDDR!! I can't believe this was your first time there!!

We loved Sea World in San Antonio and after seeing your pics I think I need to plan on going one day in Orlando!

Holy cow at the tomatoes!!!!!!!

Gotta support dem Eagles! I usually wear USM or Saints shirts every day at the parks. After the 2009 season and the Saints Super Bowl victory, we were at WDW 3 months later and there were LOTS of band-wagon fans wearing Saints garb. I can't tell you how many times we were walking around and someone yelled out "Who Dat!"

Hopefully we will finish putting up tomatoes tonight. We picked WAY more than we should have!

Great day at Sea World!

Your pictures from the One Ocean show are amazing!!!

The rides are a nice addition to the park. My teenager loved Kraaken and Manta.

The mime preshow is my favorite thing at Sea World. Unfortunately, we came in too late to the Sea Lion show to see him last summer.

Sorry your night was hampered by the love bug incident.

Thanks natebenma! The show at One Ocean was fantastic. It always amazes me that they can get those HUGE beasts to react to specific commands. Oops, gotta run...DW is giving me "the look" to come help with the tomatoes. Hmmm...I guess I'm trained pretty well too!

 

[saintstickets]

Day 4 – 5/22/12 – Discovery Cove

For those that are unfamiliar with Discovery Cove, it is located across the street from SeaWorld. DC is a place where you can snorkel among exotic fish, rays and sharks. You can hand-feed tropical birds in a free-flight aviary. You can relax on white sand beaches and float a lazy river. The price of admission includes unlimited access to all of the above plus it includes your food, snacks, drink and even select adult beverages for the entire day. Also included are parking, a group photo, snorkel gear, swim vests, wetsuits, noodles/flotation devices, sunscreen, lockers, showers, towels and changing facilities. The only thing you need to bring is a swimsuit, some type of pool shoes/water socks, a hat, and a change of clothes. As mentioned in a previous post, the reservation even includes admission for 14 consecutive days around the date of your reservation to SeaWorld and Aquatica. The price varies depending on the time of the year and from time to time special promotions are offered. We found one that knocked $30 off the price of each adult ticket for the day. Here is the link to their website - Discovery Cove

As you can see, this all-inclusive price covers most everything. The only thing that will cost you extra would be souvenirs, additional pictures, private cabana rental, an underwater walking tour while wearing a dive helmet, a dolphin training package and the best thing about DC, a reserved 30 minute dolphin interaction and swim!

We decided months ago that this would be our day to splurge. DC is not cheap but it also includes a lot to do. When you consider the price of admission to SeaWorld and Aquatica are included ($82/$50 one day adult gate price respectively), the price is not bad at all. DC does limit the number of guests each day to around 1,000 so it doesn’t get overly crowded. As stated before, the dolphin swim is extra but IMO, it is the highlight of the day and well worth the additional cost. There are different levels of dolphin swim packages. There are only 13 private cabanas so as you can imagine, they rent quickly. You cannot reserve a cabana until a few weeks before your reservation date regardless of when you made your reservation but it also is well worth the additional cost. Make your reservation early to insure you get the day you want and ask at that time when you can call back and reserve the cabana. It can get awfully hot and they really pamper you if you have reserved a cabana. There are also different levels of cabana rentals depending on what “extras” you desire. As I said before, this was our day to go all out. We did the premium dolphin swim package with the cabana rental. This gave us a reserved dolphin swim, a personalized buoy delivered by a dolphin, DC t-shirt, DC backpack, underwater camera, 6x8 photo with the dolphin, photo frame or plush toy, private cabana and 25% off the ultimate photo package if purchased. Here is a pic of some of the extras in our package