Day 3, Theater of the Sea

The travel of Wednesday, the snorkeling of Thursday, and their required wake up calls proved exhausting for all of us.  So Friday morning we let everyone sleep til they woke up, except for Chris and Will whom we had to wake up at 9.  The tropical wave that had been tormenting our weather had finally moved off and blue sky and insane humidity remained.  The blue sky we were grateful for.  Not so much the humidity, especially since we were going to be walking around an outdoor marine animal park.

This is probably the one item of Will's wish that I really didn't research much so we really didn.t know what to expect.  When we arrived (yes, the kids were about to revolt at spending another hour in the van.), we entered through the gift shop and followed directions to the desk for special programs.  The woman was very gracious, handed us a map, and told us the bottomless boat ride was about to leave.  We head out to get in line.

It doesn't take long for Will to look alarmingly unwell.  Billy gets him a bottle of water, and we go ahead on the boat ride, knowing that we may indeed leave as soon as it is over.  It only lasted 6 minutes, but it was really fun.  The dolphins swim alongside the boat doing tricks, and even swim inside the boat, which sounds weird, but remember it is bottomless.  The center of the boat is open, and the passengers sit along the outside edge looking over a short wall to the center of the boat. 

We fed everyone a quick lunch, then headed for a short walk around the outside exhibits.  There was a stream running through the park with fish of the area and a couple of really large turtles.  Then we got to the birds.  Ben stood in front of a parrot and bobbed his head.  Then the parrot bobbed his head.  Then Ben, then the parrot.  He stood there for forever just hanging out with this blue parrot.  Will is really looking rough, but he doesn't want to leave yet, so we head to the dolphin show with a couple of Powerades. 

The dolphin show was fabulous.  Not only did the trainer show what the dolphins, Twister and Sherman,  were capable of doing, but she discussed how they trained them.  We were sitting under a tent and there were fans, so Will was tolerating the heat a little better.

We then walked around the corner to the sea lion show.  Again, the trainer explained how they trained the sea lions. Wilbur, the sea lion for this show, was hilarious.  He smiled, waved, pretended to be a shark, and went down a slide.  When it came time to select people from the audience to toss a ring for Wilbur to catch, Ben was one chosen.  The girl handing out the rings stated that he deserved one because he was laughing so hard.

Due to the heat and fatigue, we opted to leave after the sea lion show.  We headed back to the resort where the kids thoroughly enjoyed the pool.  

For dinner...we headed to Keys Fisheries.  A couple of the kids are not huge fans of seafood, but I refused to allow them to order burgers.  At Keys Fisheries, you stand in line to order...there is a sign that says, "If you were at Disney, it would be 2 hours.  Here, it is 15 minutes."  All but one enjoyed the fish, the key lime pie was lovely,  but the best part was the employees who were not only helpful but actually had a sense of humor.  When your order is ready, they call out your favorite sports team....I blurted out Redskins, and they were like, "Who?"  Um, really?

It was a full day...the boys chose to watch a movie last night, but after connecting Will to his lifeline, I crawled into bed and fell asleep in seconds.