Discovery Cove

This year for Christmas, we really discouraged the family from buying gifts for our children. Which sorta made sense, since we were in the process of purging 75% of what we owned. So, my parents decided that instead of giving us gifts, they would instead give us a week together in Orlando, FL. Which was, in my opinion, a brilliant idea. The thing is, we didn't want to come the week after Christmas because we didn't want to deal with the crowds. Instead, we're here this week, which is off to a heavenly start.

We knew that we didn't want to spend any time with that infamous mouse on this visit. We had done that scene very thoroughly a couple of years ago. We decided to go the SeaWorld route instead. When I was in the process of researching our ticket options, I ran across a steal of a deal on tickets to SeaWorld's sister park, Discovery Cove, which included 14 days at SeaWorld too. We have really been looking forward to it and today was the day. We had SO MUCH FUN! I highly recommend it for a lot of different reasons including these:

• They only admit 1,000 people to the park each day, so there are NO crowds.
• The whole thing focuses on animals and we spent the most relaxing day petting stingrays, feeding tropical birds, and snorkeling with incredibly beautiful fish.
• The ticket is all inclusive and so our breakfast, lunch, dinner, and snacks for the day were all included. Not one time all day did the children ask for something that would cost us money. They ate soft pretzels and drank frozen lemonade to their heart's content, it was great! We also had to pay no parking and we all got to keep our snorkels as souvenirs.
• The park was incredibly clean- from the front gate to the showers.

Here's the thing, the claim to fame at Discovery Cove is the dolphin swim, but we chose not to do that. It would have cost about $900 more for our family to add that 30 minute option, and we just were not willing to do that. That would have more than doubled our original cost, which was not the right fit for us. We still found plenty to do and we stayed from park opening to closing. And, we did grab a chair near the dolphin lagoon, so we still got to see them flipping, leaping, and kissing folks all throughout the day.

If you are considering a trip to Orlando, I highly recommend considering Discovery Cove. We went on a Monday, in the off season, so we got a very affordable rate. But, it was well worth the money we paid and it was definitely a one of a kind experience!

Ready to start the day!

Breakfast is the most important meal of the day!

Grammy and Pa are suited up and ready to go.

Lily showing her stellar snorkeling skills- on land. Though, she quickly got the hang of it in the water and could keep up with any of us, at any depth.

The kids loved the wetsuits, I opted for the swim vest. It's my personal opinion that women who have birthed 4 children and have an affection for chocolate should avoid form fitting wet suits.

One of the many water options we played in.

Abe had a blast!

Isaac too!

All of us enjoyed the birds that were everywhere. The aviary was such a treat and we have decided that Ryan is the "bird whisperer" since they all wanted to sit on his head and back. Here are Lily and Abe checking out the birds. On top of all of the birds and marine life, we also got to meet and pet a two-toed sloth and an armadillo. Very cool!

Tired at the end of a fun and fabulous day.