Gatorland

After a fun family breakfast (more on that later) and hotel-church, we took advantage of an afternoon in Orlando by going to a place that's been on Ben's bucket list for many years: Gatorland.  After visiting Discovery Cove just two days earlier, I couldn't help but compare the two.  Gatorland was like Discovery Cove's redneck cousin: instead of beautiful tropical fish and dolphins, we saw hundreds of crocodilians; instead of learning from a trainer about the animals' characteristics, we saw a demonstration on how to wrassle a gator; instead of beaches and palm trees, there was swamp; instead of being given miniature ramekins of fresh fruit to feed the birds as they landed all over us, we were given paper sacks of what looked like big burned mozzarella sticks to fling out to lazy alligators who would lean their heads to the side and open them enough to eat their chow (if they felt like it); instead of having salmon and fresh fruit for lunch, Pearl's Good Eats offered gator bites and hot dogs; instead of posing with well-trained dolphins for photos, we posed on a gator who had his mouth taped shut; instead of being given two varieties of face masks upon arrival, we watched a video about the "social distancing Skunk Ape."  On top of all of that, there was a display of newpaper articles about alligator encounters throughout Central Florida, and the signs and videos intentionally included bad grammar, bad teeth, overalls, and mullets.  But similar to Discovery Cove, the park had a wide variety of animals, and also everyone was very friendly and helpful.

In other words, it was a very different take on the exact same idea, but still really fun.

This was on the "swamp walk..."

It's hard to tell in the picture, but the boardwalk is literally built over water.

Jack was hoping to see this big gator try to grab that bird
but I told him that alligators in captivity don't need to hunt.
Jack was disappointed.

There are at least 2 dozen alligators in this picture.

We took a train ride around the park and spotted the Skunk Ape hiding in the swamp.

Did you know that Santa gets around using an airboat pulled by a be-antlered
alligator in Central Florida?  You'd think the enormous fan on the back of the boat
would make the alligator unnecessary but that's neither here nor there.

The kids loved the petting zoo, spending time with the goats and capybaras:

Throwing gator-chow-logs out to the gators probably didn't really count as
"feeding" them because they seemed to be ambivalent about eating the things.

We got a kick out of seeing the egrets standing on the gators.

Flamingos!  (Which, we learned, don't live in the wild in Florida anymore.)

I get a kick out of seeing cool birds...

One more group shot with a few (dozen?) gators as we walked out.

That night Luke had his heart on doing one thing before going to bed:
having a pillow fight.

SeaWorld

Saturday we went back to SeaWorld!  It was more crowded than we would have liked, but people stayed pretty distanced, and every other row was blocked off during the shows.  We split up into different groups for rides, then used the app to choose the rides with the shortest lines.  There were several rides with lines too long to tempt us, but we were able to squeeze in some fun between the animal shows.  (I don't have any pictures of the other group but here are a few things Ben and I did.)

Journey to Atlantis - we didn't get too wet!

No line for Elmo's Choo Choo Train - and Luke rode in the front!

Courteney was my riding buddy!

Slimey's Slider made my tummy feel a bit slimey.

The orca, dolphin, and sea lion shows were so great!  Ben and I were the only ones to not sit in the Soak Zone during the orca show, sure that everyone would indeed get soaked, but even a big splash only got them a little wet.  For the other shows, we were up in the back and completely dry.

(Eliza's arm is extended in excitement)

Do you see all 3 orcas in the air?

We also loved the stingray touch tank and the manatee/alligator/sea turtle aquarium.  Cat and Eliza took some time to talk to the guide at the aquarium to learn more about the animals there.

It was a lot of walking around the park, so the younger kids started getting tired in the afternoon.  Luke even tried to not go anywhere, and requested that we leave the park so we could watch Netflix at the hotel.  Ben got him a stroller.  Also, Dippin' Dots helped.

We were ready to go just before dinner time, but Ben thought we shouldn't waste the opportunity to get funnel cake, so we got one last snack before leaving.  Then we took some exit pictures and headed over to TGIF by the hotel for dinner.

(Jeff was dealing with kidney stone issues all day - he was
a trooper! - and decided he'd prefer to spend the last couple
of hours in the car instead of walking around the park anymore,
so he wasn't in the family picture at the end of the day.)

Even though the kids were tired of walking around SeaWorld, they weren't too tired for swimming, so they spent a little time in the heated pool before heading up to bed.