California trip recap 1: San Diego Sea World

Our first full day in California was spent in San Diego. It was about a 90 minute drive from our hotel in Anaheim. It wasn’t a bad drive at all. Compared to driving in Illinois there is a lot more than cornfields to look at in California.

Driving down Highway 5 towards San Diego

Driving down Highway 5 towards Anaheim

When we got to Sea World we headed straight to the Arctic Wild exhibit with beluga whales, polar bears and penguins.

 Beluga Whales, they were so graceful and just beautiful

The polar bears! The one on the left was gnawing on a bone and the one on the right was scratching his butt on the rocks!!!

 Aww they're sharing!

They had penguins out on display and they were so cute. They were following the trainer around with her bucket of fish hoping to get something to eat. She was looking for one specific penguin and couldn't get her to come, even with the fish bribe!

The trainer trying to lure one of the penguins

A close-up of these cute little birds

After the penguins we headed to the dolphin show. It was like no other dolphin show I’ve ever seen before. Not only were there dolphins, but also pilot whales and many different types of birds. They also had some cirque de solei type performers. It was amazing.

 The stage and pool for the show - The pool was 30 feet deep!

Amazing dolphins

 The acrobat performers

Birds were even part of the show

I was definitely glad we were pretty high up in the stands because those pilot whales splashed people in the first 12-15 rows. Check out that splash!

After the dolphin show we grabbed some lunch and then headed to see the rest of the animals. We went over to the seals and sea lions and bought some fish to feed them. They were really cute. There was even a seal that waved to you to get some fish.

Seal pool

The "waving" seal cheesing it up for some fish!

The only crazy thing was there were birds flying around trying to steal the fish before it got to the seals. When Michael went to buy the fish the woman told him to do it quick because the birds are very aggressive. She wasn’t joking! Check out the bird swooping in to steal my fish I was trying to feed the seal.

 I had no clue what was happening behind me!

Michael avoiding the aggressive and hungry birds

When we were done feeding the seals we headed over to the main event show of the day, the Shamu show. It’s what Sea World is known for and it did not disappoint.  It is amazing that an animal that large can fling its body so far out of the water. I got some amazing shots of Shamu jumping and splashing.

 The cool stage and pool for the show

 The star of the show!

There were some amazing jumps and tricks

 Up close jump

Fun with the trainers

We definitely stayed out of the splash zone for this performance. The first 20 rows got completely drenched. We were laughing our butts off watching everyone get completely soaked. Check out the distance of the splash!

Splash!

No poncho is going to protect you from that!

After the Shamu show we headed to our behind the scenes tour with the dolphins. We got to spend time with a dolphin trainer and a dolphin named Dottie. She was so cute and just an amazing animal. She was brought to Sea World about a year ago in really bad shape with kidney and liver failure and they nursed her back to health. She was the first dolphin to ever undergo dialysis successfully. We had a lot of fun with her getting to pet her and use hand signals to have her do some tricks. I am really glad we got to have this experience.

Michael and I waiting for our dolphin encounter to begin

Our trainer who works closely with Dottie everyday

Michael giving Dottie some love!

Dottie "marching" with her tail

We really enjoyed Sea World; I haven’t been to a Sea World since I was 5 years old. We had a lot of fun seeing and interacting with all of the animals. 

After Sea World we headed to the downtown area of San Diego for dinner. Michael’s cousin Anthony is a Marine stationed there so he met us there for dinner. It was great to see him since we haven’t seen him in almost a year. We had a great dinner at a restaurant called Island Prime.

The restaurant had a great view of downtown San Diego and the bay

Mom and Dad before dinner

Michael and I

It was amazing and one of our best dinners we had the entire trip. We had a beautiful view at our table of the bay and all of the boats sailing.

My delicious caramelized pork chop and augratin potatoes

The view of all the boats from our table

After dinner we said good-bye to Anthony and headed back to our hotel in Anaheim. It was a long day but so much fun. It was a great way to get our trip started!

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