"Sea World's Family Fun Tour" trip review!!!

[shoppgirl]

I just returned from Orlando and had an incredible holiday with my family. My girls are 9 and 7. I promised I would return to this board with my trip report of the Family Fun Tour, so here it is, with lots of photos! It is very detailed, as I am a very detail oriented person. So I hope you enjoy the review! It is long and I have lots of photos, so it will be written in installments!

This was our girls' first Sea World trip. My DH and I have visited once before. I went way back in 1980, and DH went in 1991. I have no memory of my first trip to Sea World, and frankly, neither does DH. So when I planned this trip, I read about the tours Sea World offers, and it definitely sounded like the best way to see Sea World for the first time! My girls are are not thrill ride seekers, so the family fun tour seemed to be the best fit. It allowed us an opportunity to visit with three animals, go on some rides and see a great show! I highly recommend this tour for anyone with young children. Here is a link to the description of the tour from Sea world:

http://www.seaworld.com/sitepage.aspx?PageID=944

I booked this tour way back in January for our July trip. When I booked online, it just said that we were in "tour 1", with no specific time. I just assumed it would be at 10:00 am. I think I may have called Sea World after booking and was told it would be at 10:00, but I don't remember. You are supposed to check in 30 min before the tour starts too...it would have been nice if they were more specific with the time. It wasn't too big a deal for me since I am normally an early park person and get there as soon as the park opens anyways.

We arrived at Sea World at 9:02, and by the time we parked and walked to the gates it was around 9:15.

We lined up at guest services to check in for our tour. The gentleman informed me here that our tour was starting at 9:30!!!! Good thing we arrived early enough. He gave us these great lanyards with a tag on it that said Sea World VIP guest and told us to wait by the park benches next to the guest services for our tour guide.

While waiting we watched Shamu great all the little guests. We didn’t bother meeting him here because I knew that we were going to get a private meet and greet with Shamu later on!

To be continued.....

 

[8migue8]

Thanks I was waiting for this. Im going with my wife and 6yr son and 7yr daughter on Sept the 3rd. I have some questions, i was thinking to get the dining plan, who you did with meal?

The part of feeding the dolphins and sea lions and touching d penguin. who was that?


p.s. sorry for my english im from Puerto Rico and my first language is spanish LOL I have to think 1st in spanish to put it together in english

 

[shoppgirl]

Thanks for reading along!
I was also considering on getting the all day dining for our day at Sea World. I am so glad I didn't!!! You can get breakfast as early as 8:45 in one of the restaurants. We didn't get to the park until after 9:00 and the tour started at 9:30, so there wouldn't have been any time to enjoy a breakfast! We were so busy during the tour that there was no time to slip into a restaurant to get any food anyways! Our light meal that was included with the tour was enough food for our lunch meal. I thought we might stay for the full day and enjoy Summer Nights as well, giving us a chance to eat dinner in the park. Well, at 3:00, it started to rain, it was hot, we were tired. We wanted to go back to the hotel to swim!! We felt like we had a great day at Sea World and had seen everything we wanted. So we left and didn't need to eat anything else!
I will get to all the animal interations later in my report so please keep checking for updates!

PS please don't apologize for your English! My DH and I were in Puerto Rico for our honeymoon! Beautiful country!

 

[budbeerlady]

Thanks for writing a review on this tour, I cannot wait to read the rest!

 

[shoppgirl]

At exactly 9:30, Aaron, from Michigan, arrived and introduced himself as our family fun tour guide! He said that a family of 5 would be joining us and he was going to give them a few minutes to show up before getting started. He was very friendly and welcomed questions and answered all the questions my 7 year old had. No question was too small for him! After waiting 5 minutes, and the other family had not shown up yet, he said we could get started first.

Up first was the Dolphin interaction and feed. On the way to the Dolphin Cove, we stopped to look at the flamingos.

He told us some interesting facts and stories about the Sea World flamingo. DD7 asked why flamingos were pink and that is because of the shrimp they like to eat. Also one of the flamingos just had a baby and they allowed the "mom" to keep her baby in the nest with her rather than take the baby away to a nursery.

It was here that the other family caught up with us. They had two young children (I am guessing 2 or 3 and 5 or 6???) We never asked! Once they joined our group we walked quickly over to the Dolphin Cove. We waited in a separate area near the public entry while there was a feeding session occurring.

Once that was over, he let us into the Cove before the public, and we walked in first. They have you walk single file all the way to the end of the cove pool and wait against the wall. Then they explain how to feed the dolphin. Every person who enters the cove gets a tray with four fish in it. They say that you should stroke the dolphin’s lower jaw, say a few words and the dolphin will have his/her mouth wide open at which point you just let go of the fish into their mouth! It was a great experience. Just be careful you don’t feed the paper tray to the dolphin, they have been known to grab anything and everything out of excitement. My 7 year old enjoyed touching the dolphin, but wasn’t a huge fan of touching the slimy fish! So DH fed them for her while she had fun touching the dolphins.

This entire experience may have lasted at most 5 minutes (the actual feeding part). It’s hard to make 4 fish last any longer! The dolphins somehow know when you have run out of fish and will swim away when they know there is no more food!

Sea lions up next!

 

[shoppgirl]

Thanks for writing a review on this tour, I cannot wait to read the rest!

Thanks for reading along! There is definitely a lot more to come!

 

[reelmom]

I am looking into booking this tour also. Thank you for taking the time to write this report. The details and the pictures are great.

 

[mdurette]

looking forward to the rest!
Keep it coming!!!

 

[Dumbo Mad]

Great Photos, looking forward to reading more of the trip report

 

[ScotsMinnie]

This sounds great. Can't wait to hear more!

 

[shoppgirl]

As soon as the dolphin feeding was done, we walked out and made a trek across the park to the Pacific Point Preserve where the sea lions hang out. We don’t get to touch the sea lions because they are hanging out/swimming below our look out area (about 10 feet below us).

We waited here while Aaron went to get each of us a tray of fish. This time we got more fish, I didn’t count, but I am guessing there were at least 6 this time. I heard about the birds that love to hang out here and swoop down to catch the fish stealing them from the sea lions! Aaron taught us to throw the fish down to the sea lions as if you were throwing a dart. With some aim, they almost always get the fish before those darn birds! My DD9 had some pretty good aim and managed to get all her fish to the sea lions.

You can see one of those pesky white birds that go crazy when they see fish flying around!

Our experience here lasted only as long as the fish did once again. We probably spent a total of 10 minutes here. In addition to feeding the sea lions, we were also given a lot of information about the sea lions at Sea World. Some of them were "rescue" sea lions from the US west coast. I think the story was that they moved up the northern coast line eating all the fish and were becoming somewhat of a nuisance. They had to relocate them for their safety as well as those of the fish! With the sea lions done, we headed out for our "touch a penguin" encounter!

 

[shoppgirl]

I am glad to have some followers! Thanks for reading everyone. I can answer any questions you might have as you read along!

 

[It'sOffToDisneyWeGo]

Enjoying your review. Thanks for sharing!

 

[8migue8]

yeap, just keep going LOL I already book it since your 1st review.

 

[shoppgirl]

yeap, just keep going LOL I already book it since your 1st review.

That's great you booked the tour! I am sure you won't be disappointed!

 

[shoppgirl]

After the sea lions, we were on our way to our penguin encounter. We walked along with Aaron into a restricted area (behind the scenes) to a penguin habitat building. The building was identified as the Avian Research building. We walked by these huge filtration tanks that they use for the Shamu show. Aaron warned us how cold that salt water is for the killer whales. We definitely had no plans to sit in the splash zone!

We soon arrived at our destination. Aaron ran inside to check something first, and then he came out and said that we can enter the building. When we all walked into the building, they closed the door, and instantly we were hit with a blast of cold air. It was quite welcoming after being outside in the sweltering heat and humidity! Luckily, I brought little sweaters for the girls in anticipation for the cold environment. We met our penguin tour guide, and unfortunately, her name escapes me. She told us about the penguins we were about to meet and then led us into another room where the penguins were. All the penguins in the room were Magellanic penguins. We stood in a single file line against the wall. Then the guide went into the penguin enclosure and found Spike. She had to lift him out and then she put him down when they got near the gate so that he could walk out towards us.

She sat on a bench and lifted Spike up onto her lap and then one by one we each got to go up to Spike and stroke his back using two fingers.

That was our “touch a penguin” experience. She allowed the kids in our group (4) to touch Spike twice since we were a small group and there was time.

Here are more photos of the penguin habitat:

There was a separate enclosed room next to the Magellanic penguins that housed the type of penguins used in the movie Mr. Popper’s Penguins: Gentoo penguins. The girls were excited to catch a glimpse of these since they had seen the movie.

After our penguin encounter, Aaron walked us out and around to a small room that had a window looking into the penguin enclosure. We were just hanging out here for a few minutes, and then the back door opened and Shamu came in! It was now time for our private Shamu greeting. He gave the kids hugs and took pictures with everyone. Then he presented the kids with a wooden Shamu tail necklace (you could buy these souvenirs at the carts and shops for $4.99).

Happy Harbor here we come!

 

[Miasmom2009]

Thank you so much for the review! We have the tour booked for october. It will be, my husband,our 2 and a half year old DD ,my mom and i
Good thing to know about bringing a jacket!
What did the small lunch consist of?

 

[shoppgirl]

Thank you so much for the review! We have the tour booked for october. It will be, my husband,our 2 and a half year old DD ,my mom and i
Good thing to know about bringing a jacket!
What did the small lunch consist of?

That's great you booked the tour. I am sure your family will enjoy it. Your DD is at the perfect age for this type of tour. It's short enough to keep their attention, but full of activity so they aren't bored. I will get to the lunch part soon!

 

[shoppgirl]

Next on the agenda was our visit to Happy Harbor. It was time to ride the Shamu Express. As part of the tour, we get front of the line access to this ride. However, there was a showing of One Ocean, so everyone was in there, and hardly anyone was at the neighbouring Happy Harbor. We entered the ride through the exit gate, but there were only a few people waiting to get on the ride, so the whole front of the line access was wasted!

Aaron mentioned that Happy Harbor is always very quiet in the morning, but come afternoon and evening, the place is packed! After the ride, Aaron took the group to a shaded area with picnic tables and misters in the middle of Happy Harbor. He planned to wait there for 45 minutes and offered to watch our bags while we took the kids on the other rides. This was our free time in the area. We took the girls to try out all the other rides. Most were walk ons, and some were even repeated without lining up again.

There was this huge climbing/play structure made of nets, tubes and platforms that you could lose your child in! My DH was nervous about letting the 7 year old wander in this area alone and insisted on following her through the maze of nets and tubes. Oh well...better him than me!

Our very last ride was the carousel, and this was perfect timing because One Ocean just finished and crowds of people were streaming out of the stadium into Happy Harbor. The area was a zoo after we completed the ride. It was time to leave!

Up next: One Ocean and lunch!

 

[shoppgirl]

We quickly went back to the meeting spot and Aaron informed us that we were now going to get our “light meal” and sit in the VIP Tour guest seating area of the One Ocean stadium to eat while waiting for the show to start. He took us in and showed us where we could sit. It was right in the middle of the stadium, immediately behind the splash zone.

I sat there with the girls while Aaron took one person from each group to go with him to get our food. The light meal turned out to be a regular meal in my opinion! We got a hot dog, snack (popcorn, chips, pretzel or churro), and a bottle drink (water, pop, Gatorade) or small frozen lemonade. Aaron helped carry the food in and then he said good bye to us. He didn’t need to sit with us to eat and watch the show!

Here are some photos from the show:

You can see just how much of a splash the killer whales, especially Shamu, can make! Think twice before sitting in the splash zone! It's cold and wet!

In summary, our tour started at 9:30 with all the animal interactions. We had an hour in Happy Harbour. We got food and sat in the One Ocean stadium to eat. The show started at 1:00 and ended around 1:20. That was the Sea World Family Fun tour!

I hope that my trip review has provided you with enough information to make your decision about whether or not to do this tour an easy one. I can honestly say that it was definitely worth it for my family since this was our very first trip to Sea World together. Aaron was a fabulous tour guide. Enjoy your trip to Sea World!