We were able to get a really close parking spot, so I thought my plans must have paid off - no crowds. It doesn't take long at all to get through the ticket booth, pick up a stroller for Tessa and start to explore the park. We decide to head straight for the dolphins to see what time the feedings will be. We pause for a minute to check out the flamingos. Since a couple of them are right next to the fence I knew Phoebe could see them.
We get to the dolphin area to learn that they are just finishing a feeding and it will be 30 mins or so before the next one. We meander back to a pool we had passed on our way, the stingrays. We watch the babies swim around and round until we realize that the next pool over has the adults and the park provides raw shrimp for you to feed them. Tessa wants nothing to do with the feeding part but she's enjoying watching them.
It's somewhat awkward getting Phoebe in a position to pet them. She likes the water but doesn't understand that there's something worth reaching for underneath the surface. As Tim tries to maneuver her several inches of her hair gets wet. I have to admit I wasn't thrilled with that. To think of all the goop that's in that water, and the smell. Oh well, too late now.
I don't know how many Phoebe got to actually touch but the girls were both happy.
Tim was having fun and with his long arms was able to touch a bunch of them.
I decided to stop photographing and give it a try myself. You are supposed to put the shrimp in between your fingers so that it sticks up and then lay your hand flat on the floor of the pool. Tim warned me not get the camera too close to the water so I didn't lean all the way over to put my hand flat. I tried putting it on the side of the pool instead but the stingray that was trying to get it missed and kept trying and as he came up higher on the side he splashed me, and my brand new, don't want to talk about how expensive, camera. It wasn't a little sprinkle of water either, it was a splash. Totally flustered at this point I go over to the nearby sinks to get some towels and begin sopping water up off of my camera. I'm sopping and blowing while Tim, the girls and a few other strangers nearby were laughing at what had just happened. I laugh now since my camera kept working, but it really made me grumpy at the time. Darn stingray.
At this point it's almost time for the next dolphin feeding so we go get in line. There was no one manning the line at this stage so I don't know if we could have gone in at the last minute or not but we didn't want to chance it and miss another feeding. About 5 minutes later the line proceeds into the pool area and the attendant tells us where to go for a special entrance. I don't know if it would have been for all wheelchairs or just wish families, because we definitely passed up the cash register. We wait another 10 minutes and watch the dolphins swimming while everyone else is paying and then they lead us in first to the end of the row.
If you look at the small crowd of spectators you'll see a picket fence. That was the end of the line of feeders and where they led us to. Everyone else follows and lines up along the wall waiting for instructions. They explain what to do, not to do, etc (like dangle your camera over the water as the dolphins have been known to take one as a new toy to play with) then hand out trays of fish.
The dolphins know exactly what is going to happen and all stake out a spot to get their snack. Tim helps Phoebe feed the guy who chose our spot and both Phoebe and the dolphin seem to enjoy it.
The dolphin did not really seem to enjoy being touched or pet though, and swam away when they tried.
Phoebe must have really been excited about this activity because after a couple of minutes she starts to seize. Tim hands me the rest of their fish and scoots back against the wall where we had parked her wheelchair. The dolphin had swam away to other feeders because we were simply taking way too long to get that fish to him. Once I start holding them out again he comes back and even Tessa is willing to try feeding a couple of fish at this point. When everyone has run out of fish the dolphins swim back and forth to check everyone out and see if there is anyone left. They are not very loyal creatures when it comes to feeding time. An employee hands us some paper tickets and says these are to view our photos.
Phoebe is still seizing when Tessa and I step back to the wall, so as everyone else is directed to exit through the gate right next to us we attempt to stay out of their way. Once she recovers we walk out to the sinks where get to wash up, thoroughly, before proceeding on to the screens where we can enter in our codes and view our photos. There were some decent ones but I decided to view what I had taken and none of them were as good as the one I got of Phoebe and the dolphin "smiling" at each other so we passed. It was a fun experience and I would probably pay the $7 to do it again but I didn't even think twice about skipping the $20 photo (complete with plastic Sea World frame!).
We glance at the map at this point to try and decide where to go. I'm thinking that we might as well walk around clockwise towards the kiddie Happy Harbor area. The dolphin feeding is in the very bottom left corner. It doesn't look like there is a lot to do between there and Happy Harbor except maybe look at a couple of animals on the way. We see some alligators that Tessa was not real impressed with. We see the manatees which none of us are real impressed with. I mean, they don't DO anything. It's starting to drizzle now and we're anxious to find something to do or somewhere to go.
The next thing we see is this:
When we see the ride Journey to Atlantis Tessa is very excited about it and wants to ride. We find the "VIP" entrance which brings us up to the front of the regular line. The attendant checks Tessa's height (42 1/2) and places a bracelet on her wrist (to show the other attendants that she passes that requirement?).
She then shows us to an area on the other side of the line where the boats are emptying out, before they get to the regular line. The attendant directs us to enter through the gate and board the boat in front of us. When he tells us to pull the bar down it won't budge. He tries it himself, won't budge. Goes back to his desk and presses some buttons, makes a call, tries again....tells us to get out and wait back on the other side of the gate. He is very clear about us not entering through the gate until he directs us to. It's really raining now and I decide to put ponchos on myself and the girls. Tim declines so I use his to cover the wheelchair and camera bag. The loading area and the attendant are under an awning but we are not, and neither is the chair and our bags. Tim and I both try to maneuver our stuff as close to the railing as we can so that it is at least somewhat protected by the awning. We wait a couple more minutes as the boats cycle through to the bad one again and they remove it from the queue with some cool mechanical thing. Finally we are allowed back in the gate and onto a boat. We sit in the back two rows to try and avoid the inevitable splash, but we have our own boat, so Tim and Tessa are essentially in the front row, just a little farther back. Phoebe and I are in the very back.
The ride starts out pretty tame as we meander through some lost treasure land, a la Pirates of the Caribbean, which Phoebe seems to be enjoying and then we come to the drop. The big tall one that everyone watches from the bridge outside.
I put my arm across Phoebe just to give her a little extra comfort. I know my arm won't hold her any better than the safety bar but she trusts my arm. Then we drop and I feel myself come up off the seat just for a quick second, but airborne none the less. Poor Phoebe's eyes are just bulging our of her head but she doesn't cry. I guess it was over so fast she didn't have time to react. The splash at the bottom of the big drop doesn't really get us wet, but something else does....the people watching the ride from the bridge have buttons to press that make little geysers pop up as the boat goes past them. We didn't know that was the source at the time, but we definitely got a good soaking. The boat turns slowly around the curve and we are now sitting in the pouring rain. Then the boat drops again, a small one this time, but looks are deceiving because this one makes a big splash right into our boat. We ride up the steep incline, still outside in the rain, and then go behind the "palace" thing and go up, down and around on a couple of fun roller coaster moves, also outdoor in the rain. As the boat pulls up to the exit we are dripping wet, even with our ponchos.
The rain is really heavy and as we retrieve the chair we find out that we couldn't have chosen a worse spot for it. The edge of the awning just acted as a funnel and was pouring buckets of water over the chair. The chair was protected by the poncho but the force of the water had moved it a bit and the camera bag was soaking wet, inside and out. We were wet and had nothing to dry stuff off with. We start transferring things from the camera bag into the dry backpack and I find a plastic bag to cover the camera with hoping that keeping it out in the air will dry it out (in the pouring rain, duh). Again, I find myself hoping that my camera (and Tim's camera, and cell phones, etc) will be okay.
It's still steadily pouring down rain outside and it's 3pm so I suggest we go ahead and go to Shark's Underwater Grill and have an early dinner. We hop over the puddles and protect the camera from any more water as we make our way to the very back of the park. This place looked good online but you can't make reservations until you are in the park that day. Apparently when it started raining lots of other people had the same idea to eat early as the hostess told us curtly that we would have to wait about 30 minutes. No problem. The restaurant has shark pools right outside the doors, so we watch small sharks swimming around the tank.
I think the hostess was cranky because there was a constant stream of people walking right by her and opening the doors of the restaurant where she had to call out to them "are you here for dinner?" to which most of these people said "no" and the hostess then directed them to the entrance of the shark encounter which must have been poorly marked.
After about 10 minutes Phoebe is starting to whine and is bored, tired and hungry so I suggest Tim (yes I'm a chicken if there's someone else who can do the dirty work) go inside and ask for a manager. Tim was wearing the magic buttons and lanyard today so I hoped the manager would notice and help us out just a little. The manager came right away and Tim explained that Phoebe was visually impaired and could we please sit next to the shark tank? The manager said to wait a minute, left, came back and said to follow him. He led us to a table right by the tank and obviously cut out the rest of our wait time. We were so grateful. Here is the restaurant (pic borrowed from google):
Here is Tessa at our table:
We ordered the kids' pasta marinara, which our server offered to bring out asap and we gladly accepted. It came with garlic bread and a big gummy shark on top. Tessa had already added her parmesan when I took this pic.
Tim made fun of me for taking pics of our food, but I told him anything I spent this much money on I wanted to remember! They brought out a bread basket and citrus caesar salad before our entrees. Tim ordered the Shark's Trio, which had shrimp, scallops and salmon with julienne veggies. We both liked it.
I ordered the Chicken Portobello. Our server questioned me about it, which I thought was funny, but she claimed that lots of people order and then don't care for the flavor saying it's too mushroomy. It didn't make sense to me because portobello is in the name but who knows what people are expecting? It came with orzo. Tim and I liked it.
Phoebe conked out after just a few bites.
Tessa bugged the kid behind her. She would tell him to look at every single fish that swam by. I apologized (mainly to the parents) and the kid said "that's okay, I don't mind talking to little kids".
We tried to get a picture of us before we left, but the lighting is low to be able to see the sharks clearly, so it was a challenge.
It was a really cool atmosphere, and we all liked the food. Our family of four cost just over $100 but we felt the splurge was worth it.
As we leave the restaurant we look around for our stroller and I'm not sure if we have the right one or not because we had draped our wet ponchos over it to attempt to dry them off. This stroller had no ponchos. Somebody stole our ponchos?!? Wow. I then realize that I should have taken both girls to the bathroom in the restaurant so one by one take them both back in. Okay, NOW we're ready to move on. Or are we? It's still raining steady (I thought Florida storms passed quickly???) and we're not sure if the other things we thought about doing will even be open...there are the Clydedales that Phoebe would hyperventilate over, but would she be confused and sad that she couldn't ride one? Probably. Happy Harbor is not on the way to the exit and we don't know if those rides would be open in the rain. We ask Tessa if she wants to find a new roller coaster or go on the boats one more time and she chooses boats. She actually begged to go on Manta, the new ride that puts you flat over the water as you ride. Thankfully she was too short. (Looking back I wish we had just asked an employee if HH was open or not, as Phoebe would have had fun in that area.) As we make our way toward the ride we see the Penguin Encounter and go inside. It's a pretty brief encounter. There are some displays and then a conveyor belt takes you past an arctic habitat in a fish tank with penguins frolicking and having swim races.
We start heading for Atlantis again when I see a tank with people swimming in it. A woman is describing something on a loudspeaker and then I realize, this is the pearl diver place. I know they do this at about every park in Orlando but it seemed more fitting to do pick a pearl from Sea World so we head on up. They see the wheelchair and bring us out on a bridge where a man swims up with both hands full of oysters for us to choose from. Tim starts to tell Tessa to pick one but I told him to take her down to the tank to choose. Just because they didn't have a ramp for Phoebe to go down and watch didn't mean Tessa couldn't. So we let Phoebe reach out and pick her oyster, while Tim takes Tessa down the stairs. I was yelling at him to take a picture of her choosing but he didn't hear me in time. This was what I could catch from up above.
He took her back down later to get a pic.
After she chose her oyster the diver brought it up to the bridge.
They open the oyster for you on this table while chanting some little rhyme and then clang a bell. Phoebe was not happy about the bell!
They open Tessa's first and out rolls a "rare" blue pearl. Pretty cool.
Then they open Phoebe's and out rolls a white pearl right off the table which I somehow managed to catch just in time. I thought it ironic that my little yin yang girls managed to pick two different color pearls. They were only 1/10 mm different. I stop to look in the shop at the jewelry they have to set it in but am not overly impressed with anything for the girls or for me so I decide to wait and figure something out later. I was happy I waited when I remembered I have a black pearl (really quite green) from Tahiti that my mom gave me. It's a rather large one, and I've got a couple of ideas to set it with the blue one and white one that girls picked. I asked Tessa if I could have it and her answer changes every time. She'll probably inherit whatever I make with it, so she can just wait for it. The pearl picking experience was $16 each and I felt it was worth it. Later I saw that everyone else charges the same and you just pick the oyster from a little tank in the cart. This was much more fun.
Now, on to Atlantis because it's just never gonna stop raining and we're wet and tired. Tim and Tessa get on pretty quickly because there is no line. I think Tessa is crazy for wanting to go again, and I think Tim is crazy for asking to sit in the front. I practiced taking pics of the boats as they dropped but I barely caught theirs.
I did catch their faces at the bottom though.
A few minutes later they come meet us and are dripping wet but laughing. Tessa wants to watch a few more boats come down and yell at them about getting wet. This is when I discovered the buttons people could press to soak you.
After we exit I snap one more pic of the dripping pair.
We get in the car and I change Tessa into dry undies and a dry sweatshirt for the ride home. Tim just has to suffer.
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