**One of which is not the dolphins. The dolphins are gems.
I wanted to call this blogpost “Swimming with Dolphins is the Best, but SeaWorld is the Worst,” but that was a little hefty on the character limit. More on that in a minute.
Kaysey and I woke up the day after Disneyland feeling refreshed, excited, and hungry for breakfast burritos. The evening before, while waiting for the firework show to begin, we’d looked up the menu at Ruby’s Diner, our chosen breakfast locale, and discovered the heavenly description of their breakfast burritos. We were both pretty pumped, and I’m not going to lie, I’m a little angry that there is not a Ruby’s Diner in Minnesota, because I would eat there every morning.
So Kaysey and I hopped out of bed, packed our bags, rented a car, and drove on down to Ruby’s Diner, where we had a better breakfast than we could have ever hoped for.
First, Ruby’s Diner is the cutest.
The whole place was decked out in crisp white and sharp red, and it was a delightful place to be. I love a good diner.
Kaysey and I both ordered chocolate milks for breakfast, because we still felt like children from our Disney-high just hours earlier, but we are actually adults who can do what we want.
They served them to us in these cute little glasses. Kaysey and I had chocolate milk the day before, so on our streak of having it two days in a row, we vowed to have chocolate milk every day on our trip, and then promptly never had it again while we were in California.
Kaysey ordered hotcakes, I ordered the breakfast burrito, and we split both of our meals with each other.
I don’t think I’ve ever had a better breakfast. The hotcakes were amazing – I don’t even have the words to describe them to you. They were better than any pancake or “hotcake” I’ve ever had before.
And the breakfast burrito – I will dream of it for the rest of my life. It came with a side of delicious breakfast potatoes, and was stuffed with scrambled eggs, turkey sausage, shredded cheeses, and homemade salsa with the most amazing mystery-black-bean-salsa-concoction on the side. I don’t know what it was or how they made it, but I do know that it made my taste buds sing.
Fueled up in every way imaginable, we hit the road.
It was fun for awhile, driving right along the beautiful ocean.
We even made a little pit stop at Laguna Beach, just for kicks.
We walked along the boardwalk through the cloudy morning, and observed the already countless number of people on the beach. It was a quick stroll, and then we were back on the road.
We originally had plans to visit other places, as well. But then we hit California traffic, and that was less than ideal.
We’re still not sure why there was such traffic, and I think it will always be a mystery to our Minnesotan minds, because there was no accident, nothing that we could see on the horizon that explained away the traffic, it was just suddenly there.
It’s probably because Californians do not know how to drive. Seriously. Please learn how to merge, West Coast.
It took us hours to get to San Diego, where we promptly dropped our car off, called an Uber, raced to our AirBNB, checked in, changed, called another Uber, and made it to SeaWorld in the nick of time for my appointment to swim with dolphins (the best kind of appointment one could have).
I immediately hated SeaWorld (we’ll get back to this), but was also uncontrollably excited to swim with dolphins. Like, maybe too excited for a 23 year-old woman.
First, they hooked me up with a sweet wetsuit, which, not going to lie, I loved. I hadn’t seen Blackfish yet, so I said to myself many times in my head, “I could totally work at SeaWorld and swim with the animals all day.”
Here I am, out-of-this world excited about dolphins.
After they gave us our wetsuits, they paraded us through the park down to the dolphin pool. I say paraded, because the setup at SeaWorld was odd, in my opinion. The dolphin interaction center was right next to the show stadium, as well as a smaller set of pools, where we saw trainers feeding other dolphins. However, they walked us to another side of the park, past shops, attractions, food carts, and a cafe, down to another dolphin pool. I don’t understand why they wouldn’t make the dolphin interaction center close to, you know…the dolphin interaction pool, but, hey, that’s SeaWorld.
So anyway, there I was: a 6 foot tall, 23-year-old woman surrounded by children who were also about to swim with dolphins, but still somehow the most excited one in the bunch. There was one other young woman in our group, a nice 27-year-old from Ireland, but the rest of the dolphin interaction participants were under the age of 12.
I was pretty obsessed with dolphins when I was little, and always dreamed of being able to swim with them. I also had the unrealistic childlike dream of having a pet dolphin when I was little. More childhood dreams coming true, here.
Once we got to the pool, the trainers explained a few obvious rules to us (don’t touch the dolphins unless told you can, don’t swim around in the pool unless you’re told to, and basically just listen to the dolphin trainers). Then they split us up in to two groups, and we waded into the dolphin pool. It was cooler, which felt amazing, because the black wetsuits are freakin hot.
Then, the dolphins arrived.
There were three of them: Crunch, Bugs, and Maggie. Each of them was precious.
Only one dolphin was with us at a time – another dolphin was with the second group, and a third was getting treats from another trainer.
First, Maggie swam past us, and we were able to pet her as she swam by. The trainer told us a little about each of the dolphins and their personalities, and then we got to hug the dolphins, which was super adorable and also captured on camera.
Check out this picture of me and this dolphin so excited to be hanging out together.
Beaming with joy, and unable to believe I’m hugging a dolphin.
Once everyone had a turn to hug Maggie, the trainer turned to us and said, “Alright, now it’s time to ride a dolphin.”
I turned to the 8-year-old next to me and said, “Uhm, did she just say that we’re going to get to ride a dolphin??”
Before I left for our trip, people kept asking me if I was going to ride a dolphin, and I jokingly said yes, though I did not at all think that SeaWorld would let us ride dolphins. Apparently they do!
I have to say, it was one of the greatest moments of my life.
Look how cute Crunch is, just swimming along through the water.
Here’s another photo, because I’m still in disbelief that I got to do something so awesome.
Once Crunch and I got to the other side of the pool, another trainer waited to signal to Crunch that he should stop, and swim back to the other side to get another one of the participants.
“That was one of the coolest things I’ve ever done,” I said to the trainer. “I wish I could do that every day.”
“It’s pretty great,” he admitted.
After everyone got a chance to ride a dolphin across the pool, we switched stations with the other group.
There, we got to feed the dolphins a little fish treat.
Here I am, excitedly tossing a small, slimy fish to a happy dolphin.
They also showed us some signals they use to get the dolphins to do tricks, and we got to practice them.
It was pretty dope.
All too soon, our dolphin encounter was done. I was radiating pure joy.
Kaysey and I were pretty tired, and it was later in the evening, so we ended up going back to our AirBNB, primarily because it looked like this:
AKA HEAVEN. Yes, that is an infinity pool. Yes, it was amazing.
We ordered UberEats, and enjoyed the view until the hot tub began to start up, so we decided to hop in. I could feel my various stresses melt away and become irrelevant in the heavenliness that was our AirBNB.
I’m going to show you one more picture, because we adored this place, and never wanted to leave. After we soaked in the hot tub, we swam around until it grew dark, and this was the view up from the hills in San Diego.
Looking back, I’m not even sure why I left.
If you’re ever looking for an AirBNB in San Diego, this is the one to stay at. Our hosts, Dylan and her wife Jo-El were the sweetest, kindest hosts. I will be staying with them the next time I’m in San Diego.
In case you’re looking to stay at this heavenly AirBNB, as well, click here for the link to their listing. Do yourself a favor. And if you’ve never used AirBNB before, here’s a referral link for $40 off your first stay (Fair warning, I will get a $20 credit if you use it, but it’s pretty much a win-win scenario for both of us if you use it).
That wrapped up day two in California. Stay tuned for day three, to hear about how I walked bleeding into the ocean during Shark Week. That’s right, you read that correctly. More adventure coming soon to a webpage near you!
Now, let’s go back to SeaWorld and the 6 things I hate about it. These are listed in order of experience, not in order of importance.
1) It was dingy.
In no way shape or form was it like what I imagined it would be. It was nothing like what I expected. I imagined that SeaWorld was a massive, somewhat-clean, professional place in which you could see the animals in large spaces. It was not.
SeaWorld just in general needed one lathering of fresh paint – the whole place was dated, with faded, ugly, chipping paint.
2) The seafoam green everything.
This is not important, and really not something to cause one to hate a place, but I really dislike the color seafoam green, and it was everywhere. It did not help SeaWorld look vibrant and alive. It made SeaWorld look like a dying beachwalk in PB, Florida, or some other Spring Break city that has given up caring.
Everything was seafoam green, and not in an aesthetically pleasing way.
3) It was overly touristy.
In general, it looked like a tourist trap that got tired of pretending it wasn’t a tourist trap.
And look, I know SeaWorld is a place for tourists and likely grade-school children in the greater San Diego area going on a field trip. I had that expectation going into SeaWorld, but it was surprising to me just how much of a tourist trap it was. Maybe it was just the seafoam green that pushed it over the edge of touristy.
No one wants to buy your floppy hats or seafoam green t-shirts, SeaWorld.
4) Why are the birds in such small cages, SeaWorld?
Why are there even birds in cages in the first place, SeaWorld?
Just outside of the dolphin interaction building, there was a tiny cage with a cockatoo in it. The whole time we waited for the dolphin interaction to begin, the cockatoo was crying loudly. It kept pecking away at the interior of the cage in between it’s cries, and I both felt bad for it, and sorry for my ears, because it was shrieking very, very loudly.
I’m not sure if this is the only cage the cockatoo ever resided in, but either way, it was clearly not large enough or pleasant enough for the poor bird.
5) Why is there a sloth at SeaWorld?
Look, I’m never upset to see a sloth. I love sloths. But I was visiting SeaWorld, not SlothWorld, which I’m sure would be a very different experience. I’m not sure why there was a sloth there, but it was in just as small of a cage, which I’m sure was not a pleasant experience for it.
The cage didn’t lead into a larger space for the sloth to roam; the blue piece you can see in the picture is one corner of the cage, and the tan piece of cement in the background is the other corner of the cage. The sloth’s cage was also crammed into a corner close to the building; it had a view of the dolphin pool and the stadium, but I can’t imagine it felt like it had a lot of space.
6) Blackfish
I hadn’t seen Blackfish before going to SeaWorld, but the entire time we were there, Kaysey kept making comments about it. She told me I should watch it, but I would probably want to wait until we were done with our trip.
So, when we got back to Minnesota, I watched it. It was one of the best documentaries I’ve ever watched, and it infuriated me on all kinds of levels. It enraged me to the point that for the next several nights, not only did I dream about it, but I dreamt that I was just walking around, telling people how mad the documentary made me.
I can’t fully summarize here all of the ways in which the film angered me, so if you haven’t yet seen Blackfish – watch it. It’s heavy material with graphic descriptions, but it’s worth the watch.
My initial reaction to SeaWorld was that it was grimy, and I instinctively did not like it. The vibe there rubbed me the wrong way. After watching Blackfish, I was pretty bummed that I’d given SeaWorld so much of my money for the dolphin encounter, and while I clearly selfishly loved my experience there with the dolphins, it made me feel pretty guilty.
Now, don’t get me wrong – my description above is totally accurate, and swimming with dolphins was one of the most fun, magical experiences of my life. However, SeaWorld is more tinged in my eyes after watching Blackfish.
The dolphins seemed like they were truly bonded with their trainers, and like they really were happy – but who am I to really say for sure? I’m not sure if I was under that impression because I was selfishly enjoying the dolphin encounter, or if it’s because it was the reality for the dolphins there. I do know that what I saw in Blackfish sickened me, and like I said, I’m regretful that I supported SeaWorld monetarily through my experience there, even if it was a fun one for myself.
I’m all for rescuing animals and helping them lead lives they wouldn’t be able to survive and have in the wild, but that has not been reflected in SeaWorld’s past, and that doesn’t sit well with me. I’m hopeful that it’s not the case for the dolphins and other animals currently at SeaWorld.
Want to read more about my 25 Things list? Click here for more adventures.
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