A visit to Shamu's house.

I realized as I was typing this last night, that we've been on four other trips this year that I have barely mentioned.  That being said, I think I'll do quick picture post of each sometime before the end of the year, just for documentation sake. 

I mentioned yesterday that we've pretty much laid low on this vacation, however, we did sneak away one day to take Olivia to Sea World on Tuesday.

She's been getting into animals lately and it's been awhile since the rest of us have been, so we thought a visit was called for.

We had heard mixed reviews over the past year on whether or not Sea World is worth it and I have to say, I now understand what people were saying .  I have mixed feelings about the place myself.

It's a very clean park and what attractions they do have were done well, however, it seemed like they didn't have very much. That being said, we had a great time and Olivia really enjoyed it.

Olivia's favorite was a toss up between the Shamu show and a cirque du soleil type show. 

Of course we opted to sit far away from the "splash zone."  The people who chose to sit in those rows looked confident at first, but their faces looked like it was not such a great idea by splash twenty. Word of advice....you get drenched in those rows....no $8 rain poncho will save you.

 Don't you like how that guys head was in my way the entire time???

Olivia stayed pretty amazed that the whales were "dancing" and waving at her.

She's still is talking about it two days later.

Beluga whales under the water....I know y'all love my mad photo skills.

 It has taken us three years to get Olivia to ride a carousal.  We finally talked her into it at Sea World, but she played it safe and stuck with the bench.  Sooooo my kid.

Like I mentioned earlier, we also watched a cirque-Du-soliel type show, however, you were allowed no cameras during the performance.  It was Olivia's first "theater" type production.  She was glued to it and clapping the entire time.  We laughed afterwards saying that we might need to skip the regular circus because she's would be highly disappointed with it.   We'll start saving our money for Cirque du soliel tickets.

Overall we had a nice day and plan on hitting it up again in another ten years.  Definitely one of those places you can go to once every ten or fifteen years. Since we come to Orlando a good bit now, we don't spend all day at the parks anymore and only spent about four hours there.  It was plenty of time to see majority of the stuff they offered.

Also, we loved that we came to the park in October.  Though in the Shamu show pictures, there was obviously enough people to fill an entire theater, the rest of the day it seemed as though we were the only ones there.  Plus, the weather was warm, but nothing like a July day.

Afterwards, we headed fifteen minutes down the road to Downtown Disney so Olivia could get her princess fix.  We sat in the car for about 45 minutes waiting for a few people to get their naps in.

We spent the rest of the evening throwing way too many bucks down at the Disney Store, walking around to catch a few street performers, and having dinner at Planet Hollywood.

On our last trip to Orlando, we convinced Olivia that Downtown Disney was "Minna's House" (aka: Minnie's House).  We thought we were pretty smart last May when we skipped the whole Magic Kingdom chaos, by staying at a Disney Resort and taking her to Downtown Disney a few times during our trip.  We had convinced her that was "Minna's House."  However, at three years old, she figured out our trickery and our genius plan was blown to pieces .  At dinner, we asked her if she was having fun at "Minna's" and her response was "no, I want to go to Minna's other house" (i.e. Magic Kingdom).  So, our game is up after only two trips to Orlando.  Please don't fret for her....we more than made up for it at the Disney Store and she still walked away a happy girl.

Looks like we're saving up for Magic Kingdom tickets too!