San Diego Trip - Day 3 Seaworld and Ocean Beach

For the first day in San Diego I decided that we would do the tourist thing and go to a tourist trap. Thus Sea World is the place that we decided to go.

The first show we went to was the Sea Lion and Sea Otter show. The show was a spoof on Saturday Night Live. (Sea Lion Live).  As such it consisted of small skits performed by the sea lions and sea otters. Sea lions it appears are naturals at comedy.  The sea otters also participated but it was generally to come out and grab something and then run back behind stage. I tried multiple times but was never fast enough to actually catch the sea otter on camera before it made it backstage again.

The next show was the dolphin and exotic bird show.  This show was quite a bit more elaborate than the last time that I was at Seaworld.  The show had a storyline in which she was introduced to both the lord of the Sea who controls dolphins and the Lord of the Sky who controls exotic birds. The dolphins did their usual tricks; splashing people, jumping, flipping, but I did notice they didn't ever launch their trainers into the air like they did last time I watched this show.  Probably some danger/liability issue.


Seaworld didn't seam to have too many exotic birds. Occasionally some were let out and they flew around the stage but the vast majority of the "exotic bird" representation were divers or acrobats that swung around on tethers, bungee cords, or swings. Fun to watch.  Think Circue du Solei with dolphins.

They arrange the shows that you basically go from one to another to another. So after the dolphin show I made Debbie run to the Killer Whale show.  I walked fast; Debbie had to run to keep up. I remembered last time that I was here that you had to be really early to get into the show. It appears that not as many people attend Seaworld in September as in May. We didn't have to run to make it.  Ooops. Sorry Deb.  The killer whale show was cool. It's amazing how high those huge animals can jump out of the water.  Even more so when they are doing backflips and so forth.

Debbie made fun of me but there was something in the show that fascinated me almost as much as the killer whales did. They had 4 large rectangle video panels set up in the performing area. During the show these panels moved horizontally across the entire stage, but they also pivoted around a central axis. So that sometimes the long side was vertical, other times horizontal, then other times slanted.  They did all this without any obvious anchors or wires. It appeared that the panels were just floating and rotating in air above the tank. It was cool.

The last show that we watched was called "Pets Rule." It's a show where trained domestic birds, dogs, cats, and even a pig perform.  I kept trying to find a reason that Seaworld would have a domestic pet show but I could not think of a valid reason. It was however entertaining to watch. There were pet competitions, races, sports demonstrations, and even a dog preparing for a date with another dog.That was the end of the shows

Debbie however found something else to entertain herself. Seaworld offers animal experiences in which  you get in the water and interact directly with the animals and trainers. Debbie did the dolphin interaction. For 45 minutes or so she touched, directed, and play with dolphins. It was fun to watch and photograph. She was obviously on cloud nine with a gigantic grin on her face.



We spent the rest of the day admiring all of the exhibits at the park. We actually ran out of time to do everything that we had wanted to. So we missed out on a bunch of the rides.

After Seaworld we went to the closest beach so we could watch the sunset.  I was playing the tourist and going to tourist traps but I wasn't going to let a day go by without at least sometime at the beach and ocean.   It's interesting watching the sunset on the ocean. It makes you realize how fast the sun actually moves in the sky.