Living Stone Faith

SeaWorld Birthday Celebration

As I explained in my previous blog, we spent the weekend in Orlando, celebrating my 51st birthday.

Before leaving Tampa,  we stopped at the AMC Veterans 24 movie theater and saw SkyFall. The latest James Bond movie. TOTALLY AWESOME. I must say, it's nice to see a movie that falls back on the style of the older James Bond movies, like from Sean Connery days. I thoroughly enjoyed it. A great way to start off my birthday weekend.

We arrived at our hotel suite Friday evening and collapsed from the late ride from Tampa to Orlando. The movie was a bit longer than we had expected.

The next morning, we woke, had a bit of breakfast at the hotel and headed to SeaWorld. It was about a mile away from the hotel. Upon arriving, we saw that we weren't the only ones getting an early start. The lines had already formed. Lucky for us, we're pass members and could glide through the checking in process and gaining access to the entrance gates.

We didn't have any real path determined how we were going to approach SeaWorld activities, we just wandered about, catching a show here, walking a bit there, then catching another show. I've taken some pictures to help you see what we saw this weekend.

The Dolphin Show was spectacular. We enjoyed the way the dolphins performed the innate behaviors that show off their skills.


From jumping and leaping through the air and back into the water, to dancing on their tails. It was a beautiful sight to see.







The dolphins, I think were my favorite, until we went to the Shamu show.













Then, seeing those great killer whales leaping out of the water and gracefully re-entering, was really something to see. The best parts were wen the whales raced along the edges of the tank and used their massively strong tails to send ice cold salt water hurtling into the stands where many people were splashed and soaked to the skin. Of course, I chose a dryer seat for my viewing pleasure.











I hope that I was able to do the show justice, by capturing just a few of these images to share with you.







The grand finale was all of the whales jumping in unison.













Isn't it gorgeous?






Then, once again, we moved on to see the Sea Lions and other critters. Here too, I found my favorite again. I loved watching the Sea Lions sun themselves on the rocks. And I paid my portion to get a tray of fish to offer them to more aggressive Sea Lions that braved the birds who would swoop in and grab the fish before it landed in the Sea Lion's waiting mouth.

Most of the birds were just like this little fellow.


And what visit to SeaWorld during the holidays isn't finished without seeing Santa Claus? Well, I gotta tell you, Santa was in a bit of a hurry to get to his break when we arrived at the North Pole, but I did manage to get a picture of his sleigh and great big, gigantic enormous bag of toys.

The trip to the North Pole via the Polar Express was really something to experience. I hope that many of you get to experience it as well if you get the chance to visit SeaWorld.



I want to thank my husband, Greg, for making my birthday completely awesome and for letting me pick Joe's Crab Shack to have my birthday dinner because I really love crab!


So, I wonder if it's too early to start planning next year's birthday?

-- Vicki