Have you ever wanted to swim with dolphins or have birds land on your shoulder? What about feed turtles or see a sea lion doing funny tricks? Kissing not your style? What about watching dolphins fly out of the water into the air or learning about penguins? Sea Life Park is the perfect place to spend the day as a family and interact with marine life. They even have a restaurant and a play area but here are a few of our favorites.
Aviary
The aviary is a place where there are hundreds of lovebirds that you can feed with a stick that has seeds on it. As you walk through the double gates you grab the stick and hold it up to a bird or just hang tight and allow the birds to come to you.
All five of us grabbed a stick and went toward one of the main poles where there were some birds. I lifted up Saylor first to have her feed the birds. As soon as one would start to eat her seeds, she would pull her arm back and laugh like she was trying to tease the bird. Silly girl.
As each of us was holding a birdseed stick, the birds would land on your hand to have a steady surface to eat off of. Then it seemed like they didn’t care where they landed and would land on your shoulder and walk down to the stick. It was hilarious when a bird landed on Colter’s shoulder and started to nibble at his ear.
The sensation is a tingly feeling as they walk across the back of your neck with their feet in their search for food. In my case, I think they thought my curly hair was a good place to find nesting material! I guess they also like to pick at hair ties because I had one circle my whole bun, pecking at the tie.
We had a hard time getting Tessa to come out the first time because she loved the experience so much, but we wanted to go see the sea lion show. We told her that we could come back later though to feed the birds again. We most definitely came back and had just as much fun as before!
Feeding Turtles
Feeding the turtles was so much fun. You can get a bowl of salad, celery, and broccoli at the main gift shop. We sat our three girls up on the rock wall and gave each of them a bowl of food to feed to the turtles. They tore the lettuce up, and threw the broccoli as far as they could at some points to see the turtles slowly swim up to the food and chomp it up with their beaks.
Blakely thought it was funny they would climb on top of each other to get to the food.
She wanted to make sure certain ones got fed so she would patiently wait and drop the food right in front of the ones she wanted to feed. Saylor just liked throwing it in.
Swimming with Dolphins
The main attraction/interaction we had at Sea Life Park was with the dolphins. We got up close and personal! Well all of us except Saylor got up close and personal.
There are many different interactions you can have with the animals at Sea Life Park. Since our kids are young, we decided to do the dolphin encounter. You don’t get to swim with the dolphins, but you get to be in the pool, interact, kiss (yes I said kiss) them, and dance with them! It was perfect for our young adventurers.
We signed up at two different times where you have to have one adult to one child. Blakely and I went first while Colter watched Saylor and Tessa. Then after our turn was over, it was Colter and Tessa’s turn and Blakely and I watched Saylor.
At your designated time, you meet at the adventure center to sign a waiver and then you meet at the shower/lockers to get your swimsuit and life-jacket on. After everyone in our group was ready, we walked back to a pool. Here there were two dolphins and their trainers. We sat on the metal benches while the photographers first explained that we were going to get some pictures and then the trainers talked to us about how to interact with the dolphins.
After our instruction, we were able to get into the pool and line up. The trainer talked to us about the dolphins and how they swim and part of their body. The trainer had the dolphin do tricks and fed the dolphin fish each time they did what was asked of them.
Part of doing tricks was having the dolphin dance with each one of us and let us give him a kiss! Pretty cool, huh? Can’t kiss a dolphin out on a charter boat, just sayin’! The girls did great and still can’t stop talking about this experience of being able to be in with the dolphins!
So if you want to get up close and personal with marine mammals, spend a day at Sea Life Park! You don’t have to kiss a dolphin, but there is so much to do and learn about!
