Make-a-Wish Trip Day 5: Sea World

Today Annie woke up covered in a red rash. The locations seemed to match where she gets pressure from her wheelchair seats or straps, so we suspect it’s just a heat rash. It’s been in the mid to upper 80s the last few days, but with heat indexes much higher. It’s pretty humid with no air movement at all, and with Annie in that chair all day, I guess I’m not surprised. We grabbed an express breakfast to go from the Ice Cream Palace and ate in the car on our way to Sea World. But we stopped at Walmart and bought some benedryl and hydrocortisone cream for Annie first.

Waiting in the car while I ran into Walmart for meds for Annie.

Arriving at Sea World!!

 We still managed to get to Sea World as they were opening and headed straight to the dolphin feeding experience we had heard about. We got free trays of fish to feed the dolphins.

I love this picture because of the crowd in the background!  It looks like everyone is as excited as we are to see Annie feed a dolphin!  She's got her own paparazzi!

 

Photographers from the park were across the way taking pictures of us.  If we were handed a white ticket by another worker, that meant that the photographer had just taken a picture of us. Well, we ended up collecting 7 white tickets! This is the free picture we chose from the park photographers as part of our MAW benefits package:

After the fish were gone and the feeding was over, a Sea World worker came to us and called a dolphin up and had him jump up on the narrow ledge there so Annie could better pet him and feel him. It was so awesome! Sea World definitely treated Annie well!

Petting the dolphin!

I frantically took as many pictures as possible, because unlike all the free photos we got at Disney World, we only get one free print from Sea World. I know that’s still a fantastic gift, but I knew it would be hard to choose just one. So I tried to take as many pictures as I could myself.

However, as we were leaving the dolphin feeding area, a woman came up to me and told me that she had happened to be standing across the way near the park photographers and saw us feeding the dolphins, so she stayed and took several pictures of us on her own camera. She showed them to me quickly on her camera screen and told me she would email them to me! I gave her my email address and got her name, thanked her profusely and walked away just stunned and humbled! The kindness of people is amazing. It’s hard to imagine that I would have done the same thing for a total stranger.  I haven't received them from her yet, but I'm keeping my fingers crossed that she'll send them eventually.  She had some really great pictures--better than mine--of Annie petting the dolphins.

Then we headed to the first aid station for a place to change Annie and put the hydrocortisone cream on her. We learned that we had to plan our routes around the parks by where the VIP lounges or first aid stations were, so we could change Annie without hiking across the park each time she needed a new diaper.

Next we headed to a dolphin show with some divers and aerialists too. It was pretty impressive.

The height these dolphins could get was impressive!

At Sea World we also had the special perk of not having to wait in any lines, so it was really easy for Justin and me to trade off going on some of the bigger rides. We each rode the Manta roller coaster which was pretty freaky. It is a suspended roller coaster, but you are strapped in so that you are laying on your stomach, so when you go down the big hills, you are falling head first into a dive! The scariest part was knowing that the only thing supporting my weight was a moveable part that if it were to come unlatched, I’d be a goner! I love roller coasters, but I don’t think I’ll be doing that one again anytime soon. However, Justin loved it!

This is how you first sit in the ride--Justin is on the far right.

But then the seats get pulled back so you are face down with all your weight on the chest harness!

So you feel like you're flying and when going down hills, you are doing a head-first dive!

Next we went to a Pets Ahoy show that was really great and the kids absolutely loved! They had trained all these animals so well that it was amazing to watch them do all these amazing tricks.

I originally had no interest in this Pets Ahoy show, but knew the kids would probably like it, but it was fantastic!  Those animals were trained to do some pretty impressive things!

Next we went on a penguin ride which we didn’t fully understand. It said there was a mild ride and a wild ride, so Justin took Annie on the mild version—having to transfer her—while the rest of us took the wild ride line. Justin carried Annie onto the ride before the rest of us got on, and the worker wheeled Annie’s chair around to the exit somewhere.

When we got on the ride, we liked it and had fun, but then discovered that the ride ended in the ice cold penguin house! It was 30 degrees in there! And I wasn’t there ahead of time to help Justin get Annie in her wheelchair after. We rushed out to find them afterwards, and Justin clearly stated that Annie didn’t like that!

Right after we got off the penguin ride.  It was freezing!

We found some lunch afterwards, and enjoyed Sea World not being nearly as crowded as Disney World. We had the entire dining patio to ourselves. Then I took Molly and Lexie on a big water ride like Splash Mountain, but at the end it turned into a roller coaster for a short while. It was a lot of fun and we really didn’t get too wet.

Then Justin and I swapped turns to ride the Kraken roller coaster. It was better than the Manta, but it was still really jerky and ended up giving me a bit of a headache.

Justin on the Kraken

After that, Justin wanted to go on the Manta again. We then saw a really cool show that reminded me of Cirque du Soleil. It had some really impressive acrobatics and everyone really enjoyed it, including Annie.

Then we headed over to the kids’ zone and the first aid station to change Annie’s diaper and let her rest. By this time, Justin started not feeling very well, so he stayed with Annie in first aid while I took Molly and Lexie on several of the kids rides.

We met back up with Justin and Annie and found seats at the big Shamu show. We got some ice cream and watched the Shamu show and all the killer whales. It was super fun.

 

The park closed at 6pm after the show was over, so we made our way to the front and picked up our free photo of Annie feeding the dolphins.

Once we got back to GKTW, Justin still wasn't feeling well, so he went to bed, and I took the girls to dinner at the Gingerbread house. Then we walked over to the accessible playground that is designed like a huge Candy Land board game. It was huge and so cute! But it was dark and getting to be late, so we didn’t stay long and I promised the kids we’d go back during the day sometime. Then on our way back to our villa we ran across the cookie cart and got cookies, then stopped at the Ice Cream Palace too for shakes.

At the Candy Land playground at GKTW.  Better pictures coming on the last day of our trip when it was light out.