Sunday April 23rd 2023

The humidity was down today after the latest weather front passed through the area overnight without fanfare. The generally clear day allowed the temperature to climb into the upper eighties. The weather forecasters continue to predict lots of rain possibilities during the current week.

I started my day early to work on a reservation for next winter. Yesterday was the day I was supposed to book my next two stay in a Florida State Park, but I forgot until I was in bed last night. Luck was with me this morning. Not only did I manage to book a site, I was able to book it for eleven months from yesterday. The race to book sites wasn’t heavy enough yesterday to consume all the available sites. The only down side is it isn’t the best site, but it will do.

Since I was up early I was able to get an early start to the day. My destination for the day was Sea World. This my first trip since December. I arrived at the parking toll plaza about 9:30; half an hour after park opening. It was a few minutes before ten before I was in the park.

Grip of the Day: Sea World needs to hire more parking support staff. This morning I followed the long line of cars to the far end of the parking lot. At one point I passed a parking staff member that was clearly counting the cars. A half dozen or more cars after I passed by, he diverted the remaining cars in another direction. Those of us entering the end parking lot were left to ourselves. There weren’t any obvious open parking spaces. It was everyone for themselves. Cars were going up and down aisles in every direction. Some drivers were getting boxed in forcing them to wait for things to clear before backing up. I finally stumbled on a section of open parking spaces and got parked. I am so used to Disney that parks you very carefully.

I had a fun few hours at Sea World, but I only saw one show. My timing was terrible. If you time things right you can do all three of the big shows in sequence. I missed the 10AM Dolphin show by a couple of minutes. Doing other things while the Dolphin show was running I ended up in the wrong area of the park at the start of the Sea Lion show. I managed to see the Orca show by killing time watching the Sesame Street Parade. There were only three showings of each show today. Before the next sequence started in early afternoon I was running out of other things I wanted to do. The next Dolphin show was full before I got there. I am not a roller coaster fan. Sea World has several that draw lots of visitors. Today, most of them were closed. This made the competition for other attractions high. Other than the Dolphin show, the only attraction I wanted to see that I missed was the penguin encounter. The wait time was close to an hour.

There is a lot of construction going on at Sea World. They have been building a new coaster between the entrance and the big outdoor stadium for over a year. The construction blocks the entire lake shore in that area. It was a big obstruction after the Christmas show in December. On this visit I encountered another construction blockage. The area between the Penguin Encounter and the Sea Lion Stadium is closed for construction. To get from the Penguin Encounter to the rest of the park you need to backtrack toward the front of the park. To get to the Sea Lion Feeding area behind the Sea Lion stadium you need to travel backstage along a walled off pathway. I don’t know what they are building or how long the detours will last.