Sea World Day Two!

Checking out the birds in the pond

The dolphin and whale show

Lily taking in the show

Here's the 3 of us at the dolphin encounter (a little fuzzy, but the random tourist who took it did manage to get a cute little dolphin in the picture- off to the right)!

Here's Lily and I feeding the dolphin (and the seagull who was trying to steal our fish)!

Somehow Joe managed to get us cheap non-stop flights from Bangor to Orlando (which was amazing). The only catch was that we had to fly out Wedn instead of Tuesday (the day everyone else was leaving). Our plan was to stay with some good friends of ours in Orlando, but unfortunately their kids all came down with the stomach flu while we were there. Not wanting to take any chances we just got a hotel. But here's the best part- since we had an extra day (or at least part of a day) we were able to spend another day at Sea World! As it turns out the park was offering free 2nd day tickets- so we got a hotel right near the park, walked over (to avoid paying parking), and enjoyed our 2nd day free! And... our friends the Litchfields were able to join us again since they didn't fly out until later that evening! Doing a 2nd day at the park was wonderful and it even made our first day there relaxing (since we didn't feel like we had to do everything in one day). Both days we stayed until mid-afternoon- which gave us plenty of fun, but also gave us time for Lily to still get her naps in. And in all honesty we still didn't see everything in two days- but we did see most of it!

I didn't get nearly as many pictures on day two, but we had a great time. We spent most of the morning with the dolphins. In fact, Lily and I even got to feed the dolphins! I had no idea how difficult it would be to hold Lily, cover the fish (so the birds wouldn't get it), and feed a dolphin all at the same time! Wish we would have brought Joe to help (but he stayed back to try and get a picture). We were nearly done feeding them when out of nowhere a dolphin jumped straight up right in front of us- Lily was totally thrilled! Watching the dolphins in the underwater viewing area was pretty cool too. We also took in the dolphin and whale show (also featuring birds and some amazing acrobatics). I have to say that the show was incredible. I was impressed with ALL of the shows we saw at Sea World! We finished the afternoon with a tour through the arctic animals exhibit where Lily was most impressed with watching the huge walrus swim underwater (and bump up against the glass right next to her)!

After a little break in our hotel room to rest and get dinner we went back to Sea World to enjoy the last hour the park was open. And this was perfect. There were very few people in the park and the majority of the people still there were at the late Shamu show. So we decided to hit the children's play area where we rode on every single kids ride without waiting (one of them twice)! Lily seemed to especially love the rides that spin and go high in the air (this child has no fear)!:) We ended the day watching the killer whales in the underwater viewing area. It was totally amazing to see such huge creatures so up close- and I could have stayed there all night- except that the sheer enormity of the whales brushing up against the glass and jumping in and out of the water was a little too much for our sleepy Lily- so we called it a day and said goodnight to Sea World. What great memories!