Sea World Orlando

Date of Visit: April 2013

Cost: $95 Adult (FL Teachers get free tickets)

To get your complimentary free ticket, remember your teacher ID, your teaching certificate, and a paystub from the past 30 days.
Child (Ages 3-9) $90

Hours: 9:30 A.M. - 10:00 P.M.

Seaworld Website

This was Noland's 1st trip to an amusement park. He loved looking at the animals in the up close exhibits.

Highlights: The #1 highlight for us had to be our little guy's face when we were in the Shark Encounter or in the Dolphin underwater viewing area. He loved being that close to the animals and they were really neat looking. The Sea Lion show is always a favorite of ours as well. The Manta ride (which we didn't go on this time because he couldn't ride) is a fantastic roller coaster and one of our favorites. They set up the queue area brilliantly too so that you can look at the aquariums as you are waiting in line. Finally, the fact that teachers get in free is a huge plus.

Disappointments: They don't let you take your stroller anywhere which is frustrating when you have a baby. The crowds were also pretty big too and there were long lines to get into some of the exhibits. One of the things we looked forward to so much was the Turtle Trek exhibit because the commercials made it seem so cool. It was a nice sea turtle exhibit, but it fell well below my expectations. We also waited more than an hour to get into this exhibit.
It is basically a nice aquarium plus Shamu for more than double the price. The price has to be the #1 disappointment for the value, but it works for teachers.

Here are some more photographs from the trip.

Dolphin Underwater Viewing

More Dolphins

The Dolphins were our son's favorite part.

A Sea Turtle in the Turtle Trek exhibit.

More turtles.

Even more turtles

Our last turtle picture.

Random Fishes

More Random Fishes

Some neat looking fishes with tiger stripes.

More fishes with stripes.

Some random fishes including a Blue Tang which is one of our favorites.

Two Moray Eels swimming.

Crazy looking Moray Eel.

Shamu and another Killer Whale.

Walrus from the Sea Lion show.

We gave this place a 3 out of 5 elephants!!

It was a very good aquarium. However, it is nowhere near the Baltimore Aquarium. I previously said that it was much better than the Florida Aquarium, but I think I was wrong there. While Sea World has cooler marine life than most, I actually prefer the Florida Aquarium now. This place is definitely above average though if you don't consider price. It is also important to remember that teachers get in free. If you like aquariums and are in the Orlando area, then check it out. However, it is not as cool as some of the other animal attractions in the Central Florida area. I will say that seeing Shamu for the first time is an experience you will never forget. It is not as cool anymore though I do not think. If you can only go to one zoo in the Orlando Area I would suggest Animal Kingdom. Or making the hour drive over to Lowry Park Zoo or Busch Gardens.

Let us know what you think of this post or the SeaWorld Orlando!

-Noland

Busch Gardens Tampa Bay

Busch Gardens Tampa Bay

Tampa, FL

Date of Visit: December 4, 2011

Highlights: It is not just a zoo, but an amazing theme park. The rides are all awesome. This park also offers a sky rail that goes over the African animal part of the park. The diversity of animals is awesome. They have hyenas which most parks do not have. Several kangaroos, cheetahs (almost a whole themed area). Just amazing park. Noland says it may be his favorite amusement park he has been to.

Pictures!!

This is one of the cheetahs in the cheetah exhibit they have a small exhibit right outside the new Cheetah Hunt roller coaster. It is very neat how the park sets this area up.

Like most other animal attractions the park features many flamingos.

The zoo had hyenas which I had never seen before and Noland has rarely seen. They didn't even have these at Animal Kingdom!

I love these tortoises

There's a zebra among them! (OK, that's an inside joke for Noland's family)

My favorite, elephants!

This is the first time Noland and I can remember seeing a white one of these.

Tired from all that hopping all day

Crazy Tiger Bush

The real thing

There is our komodo dragon!

Orangutans

We gave it a 5 out of 5!

We both highly suggest checking out Busch Gardens Tampa for the animals and the rides. It is a great value and you can get a season pass for the price of going for one day.

That's all for now!

Leave a comment or your opinion if you have been to Busch Gardens Tampa!

♥ jen

Disney's Animal Kingdom

Sorry Everyone! I've been a bit of a slacker lately on the updates! I have the blog over at itsjustcalledspicy and since my last update have gotten married and pregnant. However, Noland and I have been to quite a few zoos since November. After this update on Disney's Animal Kingdom, we will post on our local zoo next week and we got many more updates coming soon! Unfortunately, this update will not include many pictures.

Disney's Animal Kingdom

Lake Buena Vista, Florida

Dates of Visit: December 27, 2011 & February 18, 2012

We went to Animal Kingdom with Noland's family right before the wedding and again just the two of us in February. However, when we went back I was pregnant so it was quite a different experience.For seeing animals the first trip was much better. You cannot ride the Kilimanjaro Safari ride while pregnant so we missed the biggest attraction at this park during the visit. We also were unable to do practically anything in Dinoland USA because of the pregnancy. Disney's Animal Kingdom is still a fantastic time whether pregnant or not. In fact it is Noland's favorite of all the Disney Parks.

Highlights: This is one of the best if not the best animal attractions in the country. You could easily spend the whole day there! They have an amazing "African" area and "Asian" area! The animals are all awesome! There are some spots where you can't see certain animals, but there are so many viewing decks, you could probably move somewhere and get a view of them. The Kilimanjaro Safari is easily the best part and it is probably the closest thing to a safari there is outside of Africa. The up close views of animals on the safari are incredible and some cross the path. We have never seen rhinos that close and so many of them. The rhino is my husband's favorite animal so it was awesome for him to see. It was also our nephew Luke's favorite ride as he wanted to ride it a couple of times. I definitely recommend getting there early and getting a fastpass for later. You see more the second time around. The Komodo Dragon exhibit was another highlight for us as we saw one of our favorite animals and we could see it outside of the safari. Also for Florida Residents you can go to Disney 3 days for $99 which made our tickets extremely affordable.

I've added some other people's pictures from online because ours did not come out to good from our phones. We both managed to leave our cameras behind in Tampa.

Giraffes and Zebras courtesy: travellandleasure.com

Rhinos courtesy: DisneyEveryDay (There were a ton of these guys!)

Tree of Life, Kilimanjaro Safari, and Komodo Dragon courtesy: Wikimedia

Disappointments: We did not have many disappointments for this place! We both wish that there were some walk throughs where you could see more African animals outside of the safari. This inability to see many of the animals made us miss our favorite part of the park in February. Another good idea would be to add some more bones/plastic dinosaurs in DinoLand for the little ones, but other than that, WE LOVED THIS PLACE!

We gave it a 5 out of 5!

That's all for now!

Leave a comment or your opinion if you have been to Disney's Animal Kingdom!

♥ jen

Wild Adventures

Wild Adventures

Valdosta, Georgia

Noland's Wild Adventures Review

Wild Adventures had some interesting and unique animals, but left a lot to be desired as well. The animal attractions were definitely the highlight of the park so just know that going in. Having the rides and water-park is a plus, but they are not of the best quality. The service is also quite terrible so don’t go in expecting the same service as a Disney park.

Highlights

Tigers of India Show

This show was fantastic. By far this was the most appealing thing to do in the entire park. If you happen to go to Wild Adventures you do not want to miss this show. There are usually 3 or 4 shows offered each day. I bet you could probably tell from the name that the show features tigers. Several different types of tigers are featured in the show. In addition to your standard fascinating orange Bengal tiger with black stripes, they have the white Bengal Tigers white black stripes. No it doesn’t stop there they also have three snow white Bengal Tigers featured in the show. There are only about 40 snow white Bengal Tigers in the entire world so this is a rare treat to see these massive animals up close. There is also one golden colored tiger that the show host said was also rare. Apparently there are about 70 of these animals in the world. My fiancé and I absolutely loved this show and we went both days. Definitely be sure to make this show part of your stop at Wild Adventures.

Swamp Thing Ride

The swamp thing roller coaster was pretty neat and was our favorite ride attraction for the park.  The ride was actually well made, and seemed to be of a higher quality than a fair ride, which can’t be said about all the rides in the park. Anyways, it is a 2 minute ride over the alligator exhibit. This is really cool because you get a much better view of the huge alligator from the ride than you do from the viewing area next to the exhibit. Pretty well designed ride with a cool theme to it.

Safari Train Ride

This train ride was pretty neat. It is only about 10 minutes long, but it is a similar design to the safari ride at Disney’s Animal Kingdom. The best picture I can give you is telling you that this is a C rate version of that ride. Still very cool, but not quite as cool. The water buffalo and wildebeest were my favorite animals during this ride. They had a baby giraffe, but you could barely see it from the train. It is always neat to see animals up close though and free to move so this ride is something you should check out if you visit the park.

Water Monitor

I just think water monitors are awesome and this seemed to be the only animal with its own exhibit that had an exhibit that was an adequate size. These animals are so cool and look like dinosaurs to me. We looked at this guy for a while. Very Neat!

Disappointments

Size of Exhibits

 All of the exhibits seemed too small with the exception of the water monitor exhibit, the red tailed hawk exhibit, and the animals along the safari train exhibits. The exhibit with the rhinos was especially frustrating. The rhinoceroses were in small red cages that weren’t bigger than my room. They seemed to be incredibly boxed in and unable to even move. Rhinos are my favorite animals and I was quite excited to see them, but you couldn’t even see their fronts because they have their backsides facing toward you in the only viewing area. I would like to see more than the rear end of my favorite animal and I would like them to be treated better. This is probably the main reason we won’t go back to Wild Adventures unless we hear of serious changes.

No Shows/Animals no longer on Exhibit

The wallaby is no longer on exhibit or it is just too difficult to find the exhibit. Believe me we tried to find where they might have even had wallabies before and couldn’t figure it out. After asking some staff they said they didn’t know which animals were or were not in the park. This was quite disturbing. Asking at least 10 animals about an animal that is advertised on the park’s website should at least yield a productive answer. Very frustrating.

The bush baby was a different story because we found the exhibit where the bush babies were supposed to be. None of them seemed to be on the exhibit and the staff didn’t seem to know if they were still in the park. We were also looking forward to these guys a great deal

Snake/Small Reptile House

It was kind of small and not well marked. It was also very stuffy. Doesn’t seem like a lot of people knew about or cared about this exhibit. Not the worst part, but far from impressive.

Overall Review

The park was quite different from any park I have seen in the past. It is a three and one park so it is a good value if they fix a few things. The rhinoceros exhibit was the biggest drawback of the park. Other than that exhibit it is a pretty nice park with some cool exhibits and fascinating animals. Unfortunately far too many of the exhibits were a very small size.  Definitely not a first rate zoo, amusement park, or Water Park, but not the worst I’ve seen either. Wild Adventures needs more quality and less quantity in my opinion.
-Noland

3 out of 5 Elephant Review



Wild Adventures

Last weekend, we went to Valdosta Georgia to experience

Wild Adventures

Valdosta, Georgia

Date of Visit: May 29-30, 2011 (Memorial Day weekend)

Logistics: We stayed at the Hampton Inn in Valdosta, GA. It was about 10 minutes from the park and they had a deal for $189 for the night with 2-day passes for up to 4 people. So we drove there on Sunday and stayed the night, left after experiencing day 2 of the park on Monday.

New to the Park: Wild Adventures just added a 4 million dollar addition to their park adding a water park called Splash Island. This was the most crowded part of the park while all the regular rides were pretty bare/short lines.

Animals & Animal Shows: This was, of course, my fiance and I's favorite part of the whole park. We loved the animals and shows about animals. The two BEST parts of the park were the "Tigers of Asia" show and the Safari ride. The other show was somewhat cool too, its called the "Creature Feature". These are all a pretty much *MUST SEE* if you are visiting Wild Adventures. I would just say, "move over Splash Island".
Here are a few pictures of what we saw:

This was one of the black bears. The exhibit was very difficult to get pictures.

This was a neat area where tigers could crawl into this space so people could get a close up look of them. They were huge!

This was on the safari. It was similar to animal kingdom in some ways because the animals were not caged in SOME parts.

Elephants!

This is the newborn baby giraffe.

Tortoise.

This was not part of an exhibit. The peacock was not in a cage. We just found this and I thought it was neat.

This was from the Creature Feature show. The parrot could have conversations.

Baby gator at the Creature Feature show. They let you take pictures with some of the animals after. Very cool.

Tigers of Asia show! I can't believe that guy got in the cage with all of them!

Day 2- Same Safari ride

Another elephant picture!

If you want to schedule a trip to Wild Adventures, its a good idea to check out their website.

The section titled "Park Info" has an option for "Lodging." If you call these hotels, some of them have deals with discounted tickets and room stay.

Thanks for reading.

♥jen