Mark and Peggy were constantly bringing us treats and surprises. The one that's going to take the cake was a free, behind the scenes, trip to Sea World. No joke, you guys, it was amazing.
We went on a Wednesday when the park was closed to visitors, so we had the entire place to ourselves. Well, minus a few workers who were being busy bees working away. We had a tour guide who took us around and was so knowledgeable about the park and the animals. It was freezing out, but I was so interested in everything I didn't even notice.
Our first stop for the day was the Killer Whale tank. There were trainers busy working with 2 of the whales and one came over an chatted with us. He brought the whale he was working with over and did some fun tricks for us. He also stayed and chatted with us and answered our questions for 20 minutes or so, another trainer came over and chatted as well. He had been there for 18 years, since the park opened! Our tour guide told us later that never happens, that the trainers took time to come over and talk with us.
Next up was the penguin tank. We got lucky on our timing and they were feeding when we were around so it was fun to see that.
The other big highlight from the front of the park was the Bottle Nose Dolphin area. The dolphins are in an open tank and visitors can try to pet them. Since we had a smaller group and there was no one else around many of my team members were able to touch them. I didn't get that lucky, but I did get splashed!
The behind the scenes portion of the tour was awesome. We got to check out a tank of sting rays. Our guide let us put our hand in the water and sting rays then would swim right underneath and touch us. There was a tank of baby sharks and our guide caught one and put it in a smaller tank so we could tough it, too. It felt almost like a fine sandpaper.
Sting Rays
Here is our tour guide catching the shark!
Some other fun pictures from the day.
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