Shamu! Shamu! (Seaworld Adventure Park (Florida))

Member Name: adambrown400

Product:	Seaworld Adventure Park (Florida)
Date:	27/05/09 (33 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Shamu Rocks

Disadvantages: none

On our recent trip to Florida we had our whole two weeks planned out. We had bought our Disney and Flexcard passes on the Internet beforehand and looked forward to seeing as much as we possibly could. Our hotel was situated near the top of International Drive, with Seaworld being nearer the bottom.

Seaworld is quite different to other theme parks in the Florida area, being mostly live animal showcases. It has its share of rollercoasters and thrill rides, but its main attraction is the range of whales and dolphins that perform in front of large audiences.

Entrance to Seaworld came with our Flexcard tickets, which for just over £125 gave us access to Seaworld, Aquatica (Seaworld's water park), Universal Studios and Islands of Adventure and Wet n' Wild as well as a host of other attractions in the area. We bought our Flexticket via attractionsdirect.com.

Seaworld is very well set out, mainly around its entrance area which is made out to look like Key West, a coastal area of Florida. The park is situated around a large lake, many of the parks around Florida tend to be based around lakes for some reason. Seaworld has a large observation tower, whose main viewing platform rises and falls slowly giving ample views of the park.

We gave ourselves half a day to explore Seaworld, which was ample for what we wanted to do. We bypassed the roller coaster and the big wooden log drop splashy thing and went straight for the animals.

The first area we went to see was the penguin house. The penguin house is a large mock seascape behind Perspex. Half of the Perspex is under water with the other above ground. It is populated by hundreds of penguins, some standing still, others jumping into the water. You can view the penguins via a moving walkway. This was excellent and the penguins were very funny, but you couldn't help feeling sorry for their incarceration behind plexi-glass.

From the penguins we went to see the manatees which for the most part were asleep, but cute I suppose. One of Seaworld's main attractions is the underwater walkway where you can view the sharks. This was another example of something you just cannot see anywhere else and was truly something everyone should see.

There is one thing everyone goes to Seaworld to see, and that is the live whale dancing spectacular Shamu. Situated in a large stadium with an even larger pool, the Killer whales jump around and splash everyone with their trainers riding on their backs. Unfortunately, during the afternoon show that we saw, the whales went on strike and just circled the pool. The commentary stopped and the trainers apologised, but the whales didn't want to work this afternoon! The good thing was, the whales would be performing later in the evening in a rock music spectacular - Shamu Rocks. This was much better. Shamu danced around to Kiss, Motley Crue and Van Halen in a way that could only happen in the U.S of A. This was excellent, and one of the highlights of our holiday.

After Shamu Rocks, to end the day, a large fireworks spectacular topped off the day. This was a little schmaltzy, with footage of the whales being projected onto a waterfall, but effective nonetheless.

I recently have been watching all of the Jaws films on DVD. Jaws 3 was filmed at Seaworld Orlando. Luckily enough, no Great White Sharks has found their way into Shamu stadium on our visit. If you have seen Jaws 3, then you will know that there is a large underwater observation tunnel under the main lake. This actually isn't there, and never was - just a bit of Hollywood trickery.

In all, Seaworld was much better than I thought it would be. Animals are presented in an entertaining way. It made me a little wary of their predicament, having to perform endlessly for the enjoyment of the public. But there you go. Seaworld was really excellent.

Summary: A great day out