Thursday we headed to Sea World, our second theme park for the trip. This had been Kristine's favourite park when we headed up on our honeymoon - she did a dolphin trainer for a day and got to swim with dolphins. We looked into doing this again, but it was just too expensive.
The park has three major rides, a kids area (Nickelodeon Land) and many animal exhibits. Just inside the entrance is Thunder Lake, the site of the stunt show. A monorail runs through the park, with three stops, but we found it easier and quicker to walk. We visited Sea World on the Thursday and also again on the morning of the Tuesday for a few hours before we had to head off to catch our flight.
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| Entrance |
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| Park Map |
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| Monorail |
Our first thing for the day was the Seal Guardians Show. This was a animal show featuring the seals cleaning up and preparing a lab for service:
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| Not the real seals... |
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| The stage |
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| Putting away some recycling |
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| Another helper |
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| Pretending to be a shark |
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| Tangled in rubbish |
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| Happy to be free |
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| Pressing the button |
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| Taking a bow |
The kids (and I) were excited to check out the Storm coaster - a half log flume, half rollercoaster that simulated an escape from a tornado. The ride started in a boat in water surrounded by storm damage theming, before moving up onto a rollercoaster and finally crashing back down a slope into the water with a big splash:
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| Outside - the dip back into the water |
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| The ride went down a drop, kicked back up and then dropped down through the mist into the water |
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| Heading in |
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| Inside - Queue theming |
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| Waiting for the Storm |
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| Nothing like a facepulling contest while we wait... |
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| Outside part of the ride |
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| Going up... |
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| Going down! |
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| Splash! |
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| Starting the ride - ride photo |
Next, we stopped by Shark Bay. This area was in construction when Kristine and I visited in 2003, it was finished in 2004:
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| Giant Shovelnose Ray |
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| Sharks |
As well as the view from the top, we headed underneath to see the view through the underwater windows:
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| Bottom of the glass bottomed boat |
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| Fish identifier for all species in the reef |
At the back of the park was Seal Harbour, where we could walk among the seal pools:
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| Sunbathing on the deck chair |
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| Swimming upside down |
The next ride was the Sea World Sky Flyer - we could see this over the other rides, but we didn't ride on it:
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| Sea World Sky Flyer |
Heading back to the front of the park, we checked out the Sea Jellies Illuminated, a new display of jellyfish:
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| Giant Jellyfish at entrance |
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| Blue Blubber Jelly |
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| Upside Down Jellies |
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| Moon Goddess Jellyfish |
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| Coloured tanks |
Walking down the left side of the park we passed the Sea Bird exhibit:
and came to Polar Bear shores:
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| The bears |
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| Digging up the ice |
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| Scratching on the wall |
Tom was quite excited to see the Penguin Encounter. It was closed on our second visit, so luckily we made it on our first:
Of course, the kids advised us that we'd been too long without going on a ride - so next we jumped on the Jet Rescue Coaster. The seats for this ride were made to look like jet skis and it was a fast race around a twisting track. When we went on for the second time, they had to run some tests so they were running empty coasters around. I managed to scare the lady behind us - when the kids asked how much more testing they needed to do, I pointed at the empty cart and said "Until the people on it stop falling off..."
The theme of the ride was apparently relieving pressure in a cave to say sea lions, but this was only mentioned at the end and, while there was a cave, there wasn't a lot of theming. It was a fun, fast ride though (and no one fell off):
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| Jet Rescue Coaster |
It was time for lunch, so we headed back to Thunder Lake and made sandwiches while we waited for the stunt show. The second visit we bought fish and chips and a seagull snatched a chip from my hand between my plate and mouth.
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| Thunder Lake |
The stunt show was themed on a rivalry between two groups, the River Rats, a gang that previously owned the lake and have just returned, and the All Stars, a group that was now using the lake for training.
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| Waiting for the show |
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| The All Stars |
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| The first River Rat arrives |
The stunt show took place on the water - jet skis, water skis and solo skis, and on the shore on bikes:
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| The All Stars "Disco"'s bike stunt |
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| The All Star girls arrive |
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| Girls on the solo skis |
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| River Rat "Razor"'s bike stunt |
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| All Star wakeboard jumps |
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| Another bike jump |
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| Double ski jump with flips |
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| The truck-boat arrives |
After lunch we checked out a few other areas of the park. Creatures of the Deep was closed:
Castaway Bay at the rear of the park had a kids play area, a water boat battle and a tree-top climb (but this was extra money):
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| Tree Climb |
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| Castaway Reef |
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| Battle Boats |
Next, we caught penguin feeding time at Little Penguin Point:
Of course, we had missed Kristine's favourite, the dolphins. We checked out the dolphin show "Affinity":
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| The stage |
On the first visit we didn't really visit the Nickelodeon area as it was for smaller kids, but for some reason after riding the crazy thrill rides at Movie World, the kids wanted to prove how brave they were on the kid rides.
Nickelodeon Land is split into three parts - Dora the Explorer, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Spongebob.
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| Nickelodeon Land |
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| Cam falling over while trying to pose with Michelangelo |
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| I meant to do that... |
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| But they didnt want their photo with Dora |
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| Kris and Squidward being sad together |
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| Ninja Turtle Party Wagon |
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| Michelangelo |
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| Raphael |
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| Donatello |
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| Leonardo |
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| Nickelodeon Stage |
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| Heroes in a half shell! |
The Ninja Turtles ride was Donatello's Ninja Flyers - a spinning ride where pedeling raised or lowered the cart:
Next, came the Dora section - there was a carousel (Dora's Fiesta Carousel) that was under maintenance and Boot's Banana Boogie:
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| Boot's Banana Boogie - Another spinning, rising/lowering ride |
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| Alana didn't quite fit.. |
There were three Spongebob rides, the first was the Bikini Bottom Crosstown Express, which was a pirate ship type ride that moved sideways also - the kids even got me on that one. Then came Cam's favourite - the Spongebob Boating School Blast rollercoaster.
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| Note the 99% success rate... |
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| Here's why... |
They got an excellent selection of ride photos:
The final Spongebob ride was Patrick Jellyfish Frenzy, a spinning cups ride:
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| Tom was upset because the 25c Jellyfish Jelly wasn't real, and he even had 25c |
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| The Jelly Spotter Society Oath |
The final part of Sea World was more dolphins! By the entrance were the more dolphin pools:
My favourite was the one playing the the kick board. At first it just sat with the kickboard stuck on its back while it floated around:
and later started playing with it:
When we came back a little later, it was swimming around underwater with the kick board underneath it.
As we headed out of Sea World, we got to look at the green screen photos that were taken of us as we entered:
Once we got home, we cooked up some nachos for dinner and had an early night, ready for Movie World the next day.
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