Getting the 1st class treatment at Sea World
Written: Apr 09 '04 (Updated Apr 12 '04)
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Visit and Feed Animals, Get a private tour Guide, No waiting in lines!!!
Cons: can be a little expensive, Books up quickly
The Bottom Line: If you are going and want to experience the most out of sea world book a tour!!!
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| cusnwalter's Full Review: Sea World California |
I had always wondered what sea world would be like? I love animals so when we decided to travel from NY to San Diego for a weekend my one request was that we go to sea world and visit Shamu!
When we decided to go I visited Sea World's website. WWW.SEAWORLD.COM. It has tons of info for you to get started making your plans! Check out Hours, rides, shows, maps, directions, and my favorite tours(Special Programs)!
Originally We decided to look in to be a trainer for a day. The trainer for a day program is an 8 hour program that start early in the morning. You basically shadow a trainer all day. You prepare food for the animals, go visit all the different animals and trainers, learn how shamu is trained and other animals, you actually get in the water with some animals including dolphins , you get to swim with the dolphins (I’ll explain later on). You get a t-shirt and some other small souvenirs. You get a photographer that follows you around and takes pictures with the option to buy later on. You get lunch in shipwreck café and you might even get to be part of a shamu show and do some tricks with shamu and a baby shamu. This program costs $400.00 per person for the 8-hour day. It’s about 250.00 for another person to just observe your day. This tour books months in advance!! They usually have only 15 – 20 spots a day 7 days a week. So I recommend calling to book this the second you realize you are going to be going. But don’t be discouraged if you don’t get in there are plenty of other options for you to get the most out of your visit.
Now there are several different programs and tours for you to visit.
They are all designed towards what you want do more in sea world.
If getting up and personal and feeding the animals is your idea of fun then you can book a tour that’s called Public Animal spotlight tour. On this tour they will bring you around with a group of people who have also singed up. They will show you how to feed the animals and give you food. You spend about 10 mins with each animal. This tour costs about $35 in addition to the reg admission.
There is a tour that will show you behind the scenes. Where the animals are cared for, rehabilitation center, the baby center for penguins. It was really boring and you just look through some windows into rooms where they care for the animals. When I went it was around 3:30pm and no one was in the rooms including the animals. Its only $10 per person so if you are really interested it might be a nice add on to your day for a not that expensive price.
There is also a dolphin encounter where you spend an hour in a classroom with a trainer and learn all sort of things about dolphins and training. You get into a wet suit they provide and get in the water with the dolphins, you feed them and do a few tricks but you do not get to swim with them! You only wade in the water for about 15 minutes. This is a public tour and costs about 150.00.
Their are Public and Private tours. Public, general people in the park can go and sign up, pay and take the tour so you don’t know if you will be alone or have 15 other people on the tour with you.
A private tour is just you and your family or who ever you decide to take with you. It’s you and the tour guide and the park!
I took a Private 3 hour tour. I decided since I could not do the trainer for the day I would get as close to it as possible. Our tour started in the beginning of the park. You meet all tours at the guest relations hut. Our tour guide was Ya Ya, she was so nice! She knew tons of information about sea world and the animals in the park. The first thing we did was touch and feed the dolphins. At Sea World they have a huge touch tank with about 20 dolphins in it. You buy fish and feed them. The tank is very crowed and you usually have to wait in a line to get the food. Well not with Ya Ya we went to a side area that was gated off and we had the dolphins all to our self. The public feeding wasn’t starting for another 15 minutes but ya ya was able to get us like 30 fish, she told us how to feed them and all the info about them. Half way through the dolphin trainer came over to us and answered all of our questions. It was amazing to have 20 dolphins and a trainer all to yourself!
We fed sea lions, stingrays, and these giant endangered turtles that only people who go on a tour get to do! It was all amazing cause we were the only ones feeding these animals during this time, everyone was watching us and waiting for their turn to feed them.
We were brought to two different shows. For all the shows they give you special seating (the best seats in the house). For one of the shows “Fools with Tools” There were no more seats in the stadium and we were running late so we ran to the stadium and another tour guide was holding a row of seats just for us! We also saw the dolphin show.
We visited the aquarium, the beluga whales and we went behind the scenes at the shark exhibit. We were given a whole information session on sharks, then we got to touch baby sharks!
But sadly our tour had to end. It was one of the most exciting experiences! Our tour lasted a totally of 3 hours. The cost was 400.00. With every extra hour costing 150.00. This was on top of reg. Admission. I know that can be a lot of money but when you have 12 people in your party its only 33.00 per person extra.
I was able to book and plan this tour with a real person at Sea World. I talked and emailed the tour specialist for about three days, with her help I planned everything we did. It’s totally up to you how many shows you want to do or what animals you want to see. You are allowed to have up to 15 people on a private tour.
The only problem I had on our tour was there was a lapse in the schedule and the tour specialist forgot to fill it. So we had 35 mins with nothing planned. My tour guide acted quickly and radioed the head tour person and they found us another show to go see. We lost about 10/15 mins though with them trying to figure out what to do with us. That was the only problem we had all day.
So on a scale of 1- 10 I would say this tour was a 9.85
There’s all kind of tours at Sea World whether you want to touch sharks, feed sea turtles, talk to trainers, visit behind the scenes… It’s all there. All you need is to pick up the phone and call 1800- 23- SHAMU. Or visit WWW.SEAWORLD.COM and look under the special programs listings page.
I hope you have a great time. If you have any questions please email me at Cusnwalter@aol.com
I will happy to answer any of your questions and help you decide what tour is best for you!!
Recommended:
Yes
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Epinions.com ID:
cusnwalter
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Member: Melissa
Location: Kew Gardens, NY
Reviews written: 89
Trusted by: 18 members
About Me:
Fun loving opinionated
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