Sea world part 1

SeaWorld San Diego is an animal theme park, oceanarium, outside aquarium, and marine mammal park, located in San Diego, California, United States. The park is owned by SeaWorld Parks & Entertainment, a division of The Blackstone Group.

SeaWorld was founded in 1964 by four graduates of the University of California, Los Angeles. Although their original idea of an underwater restaurant was not feasible at the time, the idea was expanded into a 22-acre (8.9 ha) marine zoological park along the shore of Mission Bay in San Diego. After an investment of about $1.5 million, the park opened with 45 employees, several dolphins, sea lions, and two seawater aquariums, and hosted more than 400,000 visitors in its first year of operation.

 

 

 

Petting starfish

 

Petting sting rays

Petting catfish

 

 

 

Journey to Atlantis is a joint flume and rollercoaster. The boat leaves the station and climbs the first lift hill, once at the top of the lift the boat takes a small decline to pick up a little speed and then travels around a right-hand turn that leads to the first tower building. The boat then enters the tower and plunges down a flume drop into a small man-made lake of water below. (this was a scary ride for me!)

Guests can also interact with the dolphins during scheduled presentations hosted by trainers that give them the opportunity to touch, feed, and give training signals to the dolphins. (We want to do this next time)

 

 

SeaWorld's main attraction are its killer whales, ten of which are housed in a 7 million gallon habitat known as Shamu Stadium. Shamu was the name of the first killer whale brought to SeaWorld San Diego in the 1965. "Shamu" is now used as a stage name for adult killer whales in performances at SeaWorld parks. All the killer whales all have individual names.

 

Shamu was the first orca to survive more than 13 months in captivity and was the star of a very popular killer whale show at SeaWorld San Diego in the mid - late 1960s. She was the fourth killer whale (orca) ever captured (the second female)^[1] and was the third orca ever displayed in a public exhibit. After her death in 1971, the name Shamu continued to be used in SeaWorld "Shamu" orca shows for different killer whales in different SeaWorld parks.

 

 Cirque de la Mer is a underwater world filled with amazing acrobatic creatures, delightful characters and other mysterious sights and sounds, also had marvelous music and special effects in a place where the cirque meets the deep blue sea.