Seaworld: Why?

The queue.  The zinc.  

Why Seaworld?

You could be so good.  You could do so many things better.  But you don't.  Why?

You could open earlier?  The sun rises at approximately 5am in SE Qld in late December/early January.  Your patrons have been up since sparrows.  It's stinking hot at 8am, let alone 10am.  But you make us wait.

Because we are bonkers we went on 27th December.  We arrived at 9am for the gates to open at 9:30.  The queue (presumably full of people who'd also been up since the cracka) was enormous.  By 9:30 it was humungous.  Our cousins who joined the queue at 9:30, didn't get in the front gates until 10:15.

And of course, these days, the longest queue is for the people with tickets they've bought online and printed themselves.  It's actually faster to rock up without a ticket I reckon.

But Seaworld why such a late start? Why so few points of entry? Why not open at 8:30?  We are all here.  It is cooler.  We could get on a few rides with the younger kids before the older families (possibly not up at the cracka) arrive.

And then, there's bottomless soft drinks in fancy big sipper cups for $10.  WHY???

What are you trying to do to Australia Seaworld?  What are you teaching them about health and
nutrition?  I thought we were supposed to be hearing about conservation and protecting sea life.

Is this a legitimate question or am I just a whinger?

We saw so many people drinking these things.  At a theme park where they refuse to let you bring your own food in and threaten to check your bags for food so you can't sneak it in.  Yes, sneaking in healthy, home prepared food is forbidden.  No home packed sandwiches or fruit.  Oh no!  You must queue for 45 minutes to purchase fat and salt ridden burgers and chips, washed down with a big sipper of sugary soft drink.

WTF?  I am really on a rant now!

If you can't bring your own healthy food in, why don't they provide it?

Henry and his Mum.  Awwwwww.

There were good bits.  The Seal Show was good.  Funny.  Clever.  Henry the Polar Bear was very cute.  The water park looked fun, and if we'd had time I would have happily paid the extra $5 to get the kids in.  Near the water park was an awesome section where you could shoot water at people who were floating past in pirate ships and have a big water battle.  The kids did this for about half an hour and were very happy and saturated.

The queues for rides were mindblowingly huge by 11am.  I waited 45 minutes for a ride that went for 45 seconds.  I was frightened by this ride because I am a sook but Josh was too short to ride alone.

Shark Bay = awesome.

We fought our way into Shark Bay which was well worth a look and loved watching all the fish and sea life, big and small.  We patted sting rays which was pretty special.  We hustled onto the viking ride that drops you down a big waterslide and gets you soaking wet before the lines got too long.

At the time, you're there for the day, you suck it up, and at that time of year at that type of attraction of course you expect queues and heat.  The kids are so excited they'll stand in a queue for anything.  Issy was a bit sad but was easily distracted by dolphins.  There were plenty of dolphins.

Watching seals from the food bar where we queued for 45 minutes for a large chips to share.  With awesome 12 yo cousin Tom. 

What I don't understand is the way they force us to eat crap food and have such limited opening hours.

Even the gift shop at the end (of course the exit is through the gift shop), has a door that's just a tiny bit hard to find.  It sort of blends in with the wall and it doesn't open automatically, you have to push it.  So you can easily do a couple of rounds of the shop (being nagged all the while) before you manage to escape.  Not a mood enhancer.

It doesn't seem to be about the animals as much as it's about rides and the food and the souvenirs and for this I am sad.

I am very grumpy yes?  Too grumpy or fair point?

My BFF seaweed catcher.

Before I go, I have to tell you about one really amazing thing that happened to Issy and me.  We were on our way to the Seal Show and we went past the pools where the dolphins were.  We stopped to look and one dolphin came right up to us and looked like it wanted to say hi.  It was gorgeous.  A lady walked past with her kids and stopped, picked up a piece of seaweed from the ground and chucked it at the dolphin.  I was preparing to be a bit horrified until...the dolphin caught it and threw it back!!!!!  It was like a game.  We played with it for about 10 minutes until it lost interest.  Totally amazing.

Imagine if that hadn't happened.  I'd be even grumpier.