We did it in May with DD's 2, 4, and it was worth every penny. We did the lunch and got the table right next to the perching platform where Shamu comes out of the water to pose and get fed. It was great.
The trainer talks about the whales and then they have the whale do some tricks that you'd see in the big shows. It was great. We never went to the Shamu show because we figured out girls had already seen all the "tricks". I know that's not true, but for them, it was a close up show, and a better experience seeing the whales than in the show arena.