We went down a day early and stayed the night in La Jolla. We did some shopping, went to the beach, and had dinner. The rocky coast line in La Jolla is covered with sun bathing sea lions and birds. We walked the path along the coast and then made our way down to the beach. There were some small caves in the rocks where Charlie took Isaac to explore, but they weren't nearly as cool as the sea cave in Maui that Isaac loved so much.
It's a little bit of a challenge to get kids to sleep in a hotel room, but both boys did well. We put Luke's pack-n-play halfway in the closet, with the doors open to block the view from the rest of the room. He seemed to like it in there.
We had a fun day at Sea World. The park was not very crowded, and despite the rainy forecast, we had pretty good weather. I was actually glad that we did not have to stick together with Isaac's school group. It was much easier to just do our own thing. We started the day with a sea lion show, checked out all of the exhibits, went on a few rides, and ended our day with the dolphin show.
Isaac saw the Journey to Atlantis ride as we were entering the park and was super excited to go on it. He claims to love roller coasters, but I think the only ride he'd ever previously been on that could be considered a roller coaster is the Matterhorn at Disneyland. And he did not love it. Anyway, the Atlantis ride has a big 60 foot waterfall drop right at the beginning, and Isaac did actually love that part. What neither of us realized though was that after the waterfall, the ride then goes back up through an elevator and down the back side on a fast winding track. He hated that part and declared that he was never going on that ride again! Here are the pictures:
Before (filled with anxious anticipation):
During (this was on the waterfall drop at the beginning):
After (notice the effect this ride had on his hair):
When we asked Isaac what his favorite thing was at Sea World he said he liked all of the fish that could hurt you. True boy I guess. He loved the electric eels, the sting rays, and the piranhas. He also really liked the glass fish, which were some little fish that had clear skin so that you could see all of their internal organs. I thought the orca whales were stunning to look at, and I liked the manta ray exhibit because the rays swam right up against the glass and seemed to be interacting with the viewers.
I think the target audience for the dolphin show was probably 6-10 year old girls because they tried to work in this theme about "dreams really do come true" and something about a water princess that wanted to swim with dolphins. We managed to get past that though and enjoy seeing the dolphins, whales, birds, and acrobats. Isaac was captivated by the acrobatic guys that did all sorts of tricks from trapeze like ropes & swings and dives with flips from the high platforms. My favorite part was the beluga whale that seriously SOAKED the audience members in the first few rows. Totally hilarious.
We headed home right after this show, and lucky we did! The rainstorm that was forecasted hit just about the time we got on the freeway. Farewell Sea World, until next time.
