Sea World!

So today my husband and I took our son out for his first theme park experience.  Needless to say, the end result did not live up to all the hype I created in my head, lol.  First off, it was barely 60 degrees - while that may not seem cold to a lot of people, we live in Florida where our average temp is in the 80's.  Anything in the low 70's requires a hoodie and jeans so you can imagine - we were pretty layered up & bundled up.  But we went - ok, my girlfriend's hubby scored us free tickets, so it's not like we were suffering AND paying a lot of money to do it.

I was so excited for Bryce to see the animals and what he would do ...  Apparently the end of the year is a popular time for Sea World, don't know if people were just trying to get a final usage out of their year long passes or what, but the place was PACKED!  We tried to go see the Shamu show ... it was filled and the next show wasn't for 2 hours.  We were able to go see the sea lion show, but Bryce showed very little interest - he was mainly staring at my girlfriend's fiancee's iPhone for the duration and trying to figure out how to get his little hands on it.  Then when the show got the crowed involved with some yelling, Bryce starting crying ...  We tried to check out the sharks, but the line into the shark encounter was ridiculously long.

All in all, we paid $15 to park and $50 on a crap lunch (if you've been to a theme park you know how much the overpriced crap chicken nuggets run you) and saw a show and walked around in a very crowded area.  On the plus side, they were still decorated for the holidays and Christmas music was piped into the park all day, which at least made for a cherry ambiance.  I did get some pictures and I was very happy to see friends, but I think Bryce is still a tad young for the theme park experience.  To be fair, my husband and I originally made a deal before he was born - no theme parks until he was out of strollers and wouldn't need a nap in the middle of the day (so basically 6-8 years old), but these tickets were free so I figured what the hell?  Turns out taking a stroller into a theme park is about as much fun as it sounds - while it is nice to have something for baby to ride around in (and lug all your crap), you have to park it outside every ride, show & restaurant (which means taking baby - and all your crap - out of the stroller) every time you try to do basically anything.

I did have a nice time (my husband froze his tush off) and whether or not we did a lot - I know Bryce had fun doing something different - even if it was a glorified stroller ride, he was entertained and happy.  It also probably helps that we're not complete idiots as parents, Bryce slept about 45 minutes in the car on the way over and we timed it just right and basically stayed for about 3-3.5 hours and then threw him back in the car to sleep on the way home.  Had we tried to stay any longer, I don't think it would've been very much fun for anyone involved.

I better not press my luck and ask my other girlfriend who works at Disney to get us tickets any time soon though (at least not until it warms up) :)