First Time at SeaWorld Orlando

After living in Florida for 12 years is a little hard to believe that I had never visited SeaWorld. This is probably the only theme park in Orlando that I never visited before. Maybe because I only went to theme parks if I had friends in town and most of them wanted to go to Universal Studios or Disney. The real reason to buy the annual pass this year is that SeaWorld and Busch Gardens have a Latin music festival this month. One of my favorite bands from Cali, my hometown, was playing in SeaWorld last weekend. I went to the concert with a friend from Cali. We had fun singing (screaming) all of El Grupo Niche songs. 

I have some issues regarding animals in captivity, but at the same time this is the only way that we can see them and fall in love with them. I love animals, I want to touch them and feed them. At the same time,   I feel guilty because of people like me they probably will never be free. If you ever watched the documentary The Cove you will feel guilty as well. Besides my guilt, SeaWorld was amazing!!!! If I had been here as a kid, I would probably be a marine biologist instead of an engineer. 

The first thing that we did was buying food the dolphins. You have to pay $6 for the food.  This was the first time that I touched a dolphin and I will happily pay again to feed them. The $20 picture that the SeaWorld photographers took of me wasn't that good and I decided not to buy it.

$6 dolphin food

Beautiful Bottlenose dolphins

me and a happy dolphin

Under the dolphin pool there is an aquarium. It was beautiful and with Enya songs playing it was really peaceful. I could have stayed there for hours watching the dolphins swim. 

We had some time before the concert and headed to the dolphin's show.

I did a few videos of the concert but they are really painful to watch. The image is shaky from the dancing and our voices are NOT that great. Their most popular songs are about Cali and when you live far away they sound even better. 

El Grupo Niche, SeaWorld

El Grupo Niche

After the concert we went to see the killer whale's show. It was perfect since the show lasted as long as the rain. This was my favorite show. Orcas are beautiful. The trainers are not allowed to be in the water with the whales after a trainer was killed during a show a couple of years ago. 

Orcas kissing

Photo credit: www.seaworldparks.com

We didn't have enough time to see all the shows or exhibits. I was not rushed to see everything in one day. I still have about half of the park to see and one year to go back. I didn't take my DSLR, but I will on our next visit and take better pictures.