We got up early again and had breakfast at the hotel (which was included in the nightly rate) before heading to SeaWorld. I had asked at reception the night before about opening times and was told it opened at 9am. We arrived at 8.45am and the carpark wasn't even open yet and there were only 2 other cars waiting to enter. That's when we realised that it didn't open till 10am. I was not keen on sitting in the car and waiting for an hour so we discussed heading to downtown San Diego for a look around, but then they opened the gates and let us in. We entered SeaWorld at 9am but the rides and attractions didn't start operating until 10am. So we grabbed a coffee and a park map and made our plan of attack. First up, we were all keen to try Journey to Atlantis so we joined the rope drop queue for that. At 10am (after having to pause for the national anthem and a minute's silence for the fallen military) we ran with the crowd to Journey to Atlantis, only to be turned away by staff who said it wasn't operating. So we re-routed to the Wild Artic Ride and while the line looked long, it moved pretty quickly so it wasn't too bad a wait. From there we headed to Shipwreck Rapids which didn't have a line either, probably because most people weren't crazy enough to get wet that early! We got soaked!! The only show that we really wanted to see was Shamu, so we grabbed some popcorn and went to find a seat in the sun (and not in the soak zone!) for the first show. The kids loved singing the Shamu song and the show was pretty impressive.
The flamingos were gorgeous
We headed back to check out Journey to Atlantis and it was up and running! So we rode that twice in a row then went over to watch the Sesame Street Presents Lights, Camera, Action! 4D movie. Every park we went to had a 4D movie and Alex took the sitting down in the dark opportunity to have a quick nap! So we had a running joke on the trip that when Daddy was sleepy we needed to find a 4D movie so he could take his nap!
We strolled through the Shark Encounter on our way to Sesame St Bay of Play where the kids did the kiddie rides.
Oscar's Rocking Eel
Elmo's Flying Fish
After a couple of hours we'd done most of the rides so we decided to leave and head over to the San Diego Zoo for the afternoon. We enjoyed SeaWorld but were happy with just a few hours there.
When we got to the zoo we sat down and had some lunch and looked at the map. The zoo is huge! Our So.Cal CityPass ticket included a guided bus tour and a gondola ride, so with our limited time we decided to just do those two things.
View of San Diego from the gondola
Around 5pm I asked the kids "who wants to go to Disneyland?" and the response was an overwhelming me! me! me! so we hopped in the car and started the drive to The Happiest Place on Earth!!
We arrived at Anaheim around 7pm and checked into the Howard Johnson. I had requested a room not in Tower 2 with a view of Disneyland. We got a room in Tower 2 with a pool view! The freeway noise did not bother us though, I didn't even notice it.
I think we ate dinner at IHOP and were back in the hotel at 9pm when we heard the Summer Nightastic fireworks, so we went down to the carpark in our pajamas to watch! It made us very excited to finally be at Disneyland and we couldn't wait for the morning!
No comments:
Post a Comment