I think we can all agree that sleeping in this morning felt great. Our departure for Sea World was not until 9 am which gave everyone plenty of time to get ready and enjoy a tasty breakfast - except for Mrs. Nicholas and Mrs. Rhodes who ended up grabbing their breakfast to go and ate on the bus. What's up with that!!
At Sea World we were met by two park educators - Dave and Rachel - who became our personal tours guides for the day. We split up into 2 groups to make it easier to move around the park. Rachel's group began their day in the classroom - a very fun hands on lesson in taxonomy and identification of animals by looking at different skulls. Then they took a quick detour to the Sting Ray petting area before visiting the Animal Hospital area of the park. Only authorized team members and special visitors like us are allowed here. Injured animals like manatees, sea turtles and different sea birds are brought here for medical care. Due to the extreme cold they have had over 300 sea turtles brought in since January this year compared to an average of 30-40 in a year. Most of these Sea turtles have been returned to the ocean.
Dave took his group to shark display followed by the seals and sea lions. Did you know that seals are very non social and non communicative animals and therefore do not make many sounds or have outer ears? Sea lions on the other hand talk a lot with each other. At the Shark exhibit we got a special behind the scenes explanation of why humans fear sharks so much. Sharks are actually NOT killing machines. You are more likely to die from lightning than being attacked by a shark. Every year
100 000 000 sharks are killed by people. In the aquarium we walked through the shark tunnel and also saw Barracudas,Leafy Dragon fish and Lion fish.
Next it was time for the Dolphin show. WOW!! This was a spectacular show with as many as 6 dolphins performing at one time. They also had a False Killer Whale show us her talents. Luckily we did not sit in the splash zone.
Time for lunch. We got our $10 meal cards and went off in small groups to different eateries. Most of the adults decided to have BBQ chicken - very tasty. After lunch our two groups went their separate ways again basically doing what the other group had done before lunch. Once again we met up for a marine mammal show - this time it was the Killer Whales' turn to show off and boy did they ever. These are such amazing, humongous and majestic animals. It's hard to believe that humans and Killer Whales are able to communicate and work together in such an amazing way.
Our final stop was the Polar Bear exhibit. Polar Bears are omnivores and do not hibernate. Their hairs are translucent and hollow and their skin is black. These are adaptations that make it possible for them to survive in the cold sometimes harsh environment of the Artic. Polar bears are above humans on the food chain and at Sea World the animal handlers do not go into the Polar bear area while the bear is still there. It has to be tranquilized in order for them to do anything with it.
The rest of the time in the park was "free time". Most of our group decided to ride one of the two roller coasters they have at Sea World. Mr. Alderfer and Mrs. Rhodes gave the Manta - a coaster where you fly face-down, in a horizontal, underneath the bely of a coaster train shaped as a giant manta - thumbs up. Dinner was again eaten in small groups at one of the restaurants. It started raining just as we were heading out of the park.
Once back at the hotel we gathered for a wrap up session about yesterdays activities at EPCOT (as we did not get to do that last night). We talked about the IllumiNation story and also made sure everyone had the correct answers to their journal questions.
This gave us time to hang out some and also play in the pool before lights out at 10pm.
Tomorrow we begin our day bright and early at Magic Kingdom, at 7:15am to be exact.
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