We woke up to…another beautiful day on the Queensland Coast. The slogan that the Queensland tourist industry runs with is:

“Queensland…beautiful one day, perfect the next”. We were certainly getting our fair share of their exceptional weather and could readily agree that their slogan was truthful.

So we decided that it was off to Sea World for another day of fun. After a slight detour caused by us listening to Caleb’s reading in the car and not watching the GPS or the signs, we arrived around lunchtime. 
It was also right in time to see the free Spongebob Show which absolutely delighted Caleb and I. Spongebob is a particular favourite of mine after I had a student who was obsessed with him and some of his enthusiasm rubbed off on me. (Students can influence teachers, just as much as teachers influence students.)

I’ve been to Sea World numerous times over the years and expected to see much of the same as I had in years past. I was pleasantly surprised that the park has been rejuvenated and has some new attractions as well as many of the most loved ones that I remembered.

 
We spotted a penguin enclosure which allowed you to view the penguins in the water and it also had a higher mezzanine that you could access to see them above the water. It very closely resembled the set from the movie Happy Feet where Mumbo ends up in the zoo looking at all the people looking at him. They were magnificent and I don’t think I’ve ever been as close to Emperor penguins, even though there was thick glass between us. They were interested in us and kept an eye on us while they, waddled back and forth, sliding down the ice into the water and then catapulted themselves back up out of the water onto the ice. It was extraordinary. 

We wandered through dinosaur island and puzzled over how the life size dinosaur displays related to Sea World. We could only summise that the dinosaur concept was “unowned”. Each theme park must pay huge royalties to use the Nickelodeon, Warner Bros. etc. concepts. Perhaps “dinosaurs” were free?!?

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Watching some of the shows really delighted Caleb and he laughed so hard that people in front of us kept turning around to look at him, which made them laugh too. 

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We finished up the day at Castaway Island where Ray and Caleb had so much fun squirting each other with the water cannons as the boats passed each other. They were both drenched. 

We managed to see and do pretty much everything the park had to offer and have decided to come back next week so we can do it all again!

For more information on the many services and location of Sea World on the Gold Coast including accommodation options visit: https://seaworld.com.au/resort