Friday January 26th 2024

The great Florida winter weather continued today. It was mostly sunny with the high temperature once again in the low to mid eighties.

I took advantage of the nice weather and took a trip to Sea World this afternoon. I set out from the campground at 11:30AM. It took about an hour to travel the 18 miles up Interstate 4. I endured the normal stop and go I-4 traffic near the campground, but when the highway message boards started reporting another backup ahead do to an accident I bailed onto surface streets. The parking experience wasn’t as bad as a few previous times. I parked much closer than usual, but the park was still very busy. There were three big groups judging by all the similar tee shirts. The biggest group were very young school kids in light blue tee shirts. The groups in green and red tee shirts weren’t as young, but moved around a lot more. I ran into one or more of these groups at every show and experience.

The park was filled with construction and refurbishment activities. The Journey to Atlantis log flume style ride was down for refurbishment and the stadium for the Orca show was getting work done as well. I probably wouldn’t have ridden the Journey to Atlantis, but I missed being able to watch the killer whale show. They replaced the show with something called an Orca “presentation” in the area behind the stadium. The line was very long, so I gave it a pass.

The area around the Penguin Encounter is under construction. They are building a new roller coaster that will connect to or feature the Penguin Encounter. I hope you will still be able to see the penguins without riding the coaster. Right now you can only see the penguins by entering the building through an emergency exit door in the back stage area. Once you get through a narrow walkway with two way traffic, you can see a few penguins through a big glass window. In the original encounter you got a lot closer to a lot more penguins.

I did watch the other two big shows. The Dolphin show was good as usual and the Sea Lion and Otter show still needs an update. The comedy show they have to show off the Sea Lions and Otters gets old after you see it once. I much prefer seeing the sea lions and seals at the Pacific Point Preserve area behind the Sea Lion stadium. You can buy fish to feed the animals. They become quite animated trying to get the attention of people with the fish. A few of Florida’s native water birds also get in on the fish begging act.

After about four hours in the park I had seen most of the things I wanted. I made my way back to my car and began the journey home. It made my journey to the park look like smooth sailing. I knew better than to try the interstate through the resort corridor area at rush hour. My route home was down International Drive through Kissimmee into Davenport from the east side. It was solid traffic most of the way. I don’t know how long the highway crawl would have taken, but I spent close to an hour and a half to get home using my “better way”.