Orlando Adventures

From the moment you enter you will feel relaxed and see that your vacation home is very nice. We had a two-bedroom unit that slept our family of six. There is a foyer between the door to the outside and the condo entrance door (like a little mud room) it is great for storage or shoes. The fully equipped kitchen has every thing you need for cooking and eating meals in your vacation home. The dining area has a round glass table with place mats for six. The living room has a sofa sleeper and a side chair. The entertainment center with a television, VCR and CD player provide a nice diversion from the pool and parks. Videos can be rented in the clubhouse. The patio door opens from the living room to a balcony overlooking the pool and lake. A table for four provides a place for card games and lunches. The master bedroom welcomes you with a king size bed with a small canopy over it. There is a separate entrance to the balcony from the French door. A large dresser provides storage and a hidden television. The in suite bathroom has a jacuzzi tub, a large shower, and vanity area. A private bath area for the toilet gives privacy in an otherwise open room. His and Hers closets allow a lot of storage. The second bedroom is off the kitchen and has two twin beds and plenty of dressers for storage, also a television. There is a second bath in the little hall by the kitchen with a tub and shower. The washer and dryer are in a little closet in the kitchen and is awesome for keeping bath towels clean and fresh. These very nicely decorated comfortable unit provide a fabulous vacation home.

I do recommend bringing a personal pool towel for this resort if you spend much time swimming. The resort does provide towels, however, they are very small hotel type white towels (not very good for chair covering or drying if you are over two years old.) Also just a note about the pools - there are many, but none of them is over four feet deep, and some have water features, one has a water park for kids.

Summer Bay Resort is a great place for vacation.

• Unit Type: 2 Bedroom
• Activities: Very Good
• Amenities: Excellent
• Unit Satisfaction: Excellent
• Family Friendliness: Excellent
• Service: Excellent

Most people think of Sea World for their fabulous theme park and animal shows. Sea World is a great place for animal lovers to visit. They have tide polls for petting a variety of sea inhabitants. One pool has sea urchins and horseshoe crabs. Another pool has stingrays that like to have you feel their slippery velvet skin. You can buy a dolphin a little snack and feed it to him right out of your hand. Each type of animal entertainer performs scheduled shows all day. The last show of the day is Rock and Roll with Shamu and Friends after the park closes. If the animals are not enough excitement, ride the coaster named Kracken guaranteed to jump-start your heart. (There surprisingly never was a line for the coaster.) Sea World is an entire day of entertainment, so Sea World has a variety of restaurants in many price ranges and settings to even make meals great fun.

Sea World also has some Sea World on steroids type programs. They have a complete list of programs and prices on their web site. I would like to recommend the program I participated in with my husband in June of 2004 the Marine Mammal Keeper Experience. It is an all day program that allows only two persons per day to participate. It is expensive; however, what it provides is once in a lifetime animal experiences. You literally become part of the Sea World experience.

Marine Mammal Keeper Experience

The mammal experience starts early in the morning, 6:30 a.m. and lasts until about three p.m. It is a full day of fun with animals and their keepers. After we met the keeper supervisor he took us in the back gate area to start our day. It was amazing to see how much is going on behind the landscaping that the public just doesn’t know goes on. Our first stop was the locker room. We were given a locker and lock. Then we had to select a full body wetsuit in our size and slip it on. (Don’t let the wetsuit fashion statement scare you- the entire staff of animal keepers you will be with will be wearing them to.) We were escorted to each type of animal’s trainer so we could learn about the animal and participate in the care and feeding of the animals.

Our personal animal day at Sea World started with the need to help transfer mother and baby dolphins from their home in the nursery to a new home in the Key West dolphin area. We were able to work hands on with the veterinarian to take blood draws for testing, and learn from the trainers about this transfer. The dolphins were weighed as they were lifted lovingly into a truck for transport to their new home. The moms called for their babies until they were side by side in the truck. The move was one of those unexpected parts of a keeper’s day. They had to be moved so the two pregnant dolphins could be alone for their births.

Next stop was the care and feeding of manatees of all ages. The baby had to be bottle feed and the other two well manatees were given five cases of lettuce in their feeding tray. The sick manatees were feed with feeding tubes. We helped with all of it hands on, it was the most wonderful feeling to love and care for these manatees.

The dolphins in the Key West Area of the park needed a morning snack and play time. First we climbed in kayaks with dolphin keepers to watch to people feeding dolphins from the public side. It was important to watch for the white cartons and other things held by people to not get feed to dolphins since dolphins will try to eat things that dangle in their area. While we kayak the keeper is informative about the dolphins and their needs and could answer many questions. It was now playtime; we took dolphin toys to the underwater viewing area and play with the dolphins at the glass. The dolphins and the crowd that gathered behind us seemed to enjoy this as much as I did. We then got one-on-one time with a dolphin and the keeper in the Key West area. It was wonderful to be the star of this show because the dolphin is there to just be with you.

Sea World lunch staff provided us a healthy lunch in a box, of which I had ordered the entrée when I made our reservation for the day. We could have taken our box lunch to any park area but we wanted to visit with our keeper guide of the day during lunch. We dined in the employee lunchroom it was fun to people watch how each type of keeper sat together at lunch-Sea World family groups. (Just so you know- before lunch we went to the locker room shower and changed onto street clothes. Towels, shampoo and body wash were in our locker.)

After lunch it was back to keeping animals- the sea lions need an afternoon snack. We had some individual time with a sea lion and his keeper. After shaking his hand and having some fun we needed to feed the mother sea lions. There were nineteen new moms and they need five or six fish each feed to them.

Last stop of the day was the Arctic area. We meet the keepers for this area in their planning room. Two of them took us to the polar bears, and the rest made the polar bears entertain us in a private area. Two three thousand pound walruses were our next visitors. We felt their slippery skin and watched walrus tricks up close and personal. Then we met the beluga whale trainers. We were given red polar fleece jackets to wear into the arctic room. We carried buckets of fish for the pair of beluga whales to have a light snack. We feed the whales fish for tricks and our final good bye was a kiss from a beluga whale.

We were welcome to stay at the park when our keeper day was over but since we had come the seven days prior with our free one-week pass to the park included in the price we decided to go home. It was a fabulous day of animals up close and personal. I highly recommend this for anyone that wants a once in a lifetime Sea World experience.

A bit more information about this program: A Sea World photographer takes pictures of you through the day with animals. The photos can be purchased in a variety of packages including a photo disc. We did take an underwater disposable camera, however she took eighty-five photos, so we bought the disc also. We received a souvenir t-shirt and animal rescue book and a lifetime of memories. Sea World has other intensive programs on the Sea World web site, in the education area and ticket information area. There is program to be a star in the Shamu show, and a swim with the sharks program.

For information or reservations call in advance, only two persons per day can participate in the Marine Mammal Keeper Experience at Sea World. The reservation phone number is 1-800-432-1178 they can give you information about available dates and book your reservation for this fabulous program.