Our trip started off with an ice storm here in Utah. The storm was so bad we were close to pulling the plug on the entire event. Instead, we decided to chance it and go. We left in the early afternoon on a Thursday and made it to St. George in a reasonable amount of time.
Early Friday morning we were up and out the door. We drove the entire day and made it to our hotel in San Diego just after dark. Our original plan was to go to the beach that afternoon. I had been tracking the weather prior to leaving, but our plan was foiled when a cold front moved in the day we arrived. Unlike the record sun and warm weather from the week before, it was cloudy, cold, and rainy, so we scratched the beach idea.
Friday night we went out to eat at a Chinese restaurant. It was really, really good food. Mason and I ordered a seafood dinner. Jennive and Madi ordered a pork lo mein. We all shared and enjoyed some fine Asian dining! Mason loved eating all of the seafood (including squid).
The hotel we stayed at was rated highly on the web. It was also very inexpensive. Surprisingly, it was a huge let down when we got there. We didn't see any cockroaches running around, but our ten month old found an old ranch sauce packet while crawling on the floor. It was very unique. Most of the grunge and funny smells we were willing to look past. The kids didn't notice anything at all. To them, all they cared about was that they were on a vacation!!
Saturday we were up really early. Then it was off to Sea World. The weather was cold for San Diego, but warm for us. It was partly rainy, but mostly sunny. There was hardly anyone there all day long!
We started off with some fun kid rides. Mason and Madi had a blast!! Soon it was off to watch the dolphins play, and then we went to pet the stingrays. Burke loved petting the stingrays so much that he tried to jump in several times. It was hilarious!!
We spent the entire day at Sea World. The kids were able to see up close, and in some cases even touch, a variety of sea animals. We went to dolphin/bird show and got splashed. We also went to the whale show. The kids loved every minute. Overall, we all had lots of fun eating and playing. The food highlight was a funnel cake we ate topped with ice cream and strawberries.
After our fun day at Sea World, we ventured out on the town for some authentic Mexican Food. It took us a while, but we found a highly reviewed place just down the street from our hotel. The service wasn't very good, but the food was really good. Of course Mason and I got another sea food plate and devoured as much as we could. Jennive and Madi had some pollo y arroz. It was tasty. We had so much food that we boxed up the left overs and ate it again the next night.
Our final day in SoCal was spent at the San Diego Zoo. I was so excited to take the kids to the zoo. Mason and Madi have loved going to zoo's so much we bought a season pass to our local Hogle Zoo here in Utah. We go as often as we can (we even went for Christmas earlier this year).
Our day at the San Diego Zoo started out similar to Sea World. There were very few people so we were able to go anywhere we wanted without huge crowds. We saw a lot of animals and plants. I didn't realize the Zoo was as much of a botanical garden as it was a zoo. The amount of plant life they have is amazing.
Some of the zoo was under construction, so we were not able to see everything. Some of the highlights were going on the parks Sky Ride, seeing the hippos, pandas, and elephants, and sharing an ice cream cone. I think it would be really fun to visit the Zoo's second park called the San Diego Zoo Safari Park. We went to a safari park at Disney's Animal Kingdom, so if San Diego is anything like Disney, it would be worth the trip back.
The next morning we woke up early and left for home. After all of the fun we were ready to get home and back to life. Another fun family blitz vacation was a success. We had a lot of fun creating memories and experiences together.
Post Script: Please indulge my soapbox rant for a moment. The Zoo was a big letdown. This over priced not-for-profit tourist trap gets two thumbs down from me. Even Melman would have been disappointed. Everywhere we turned we were informed of how humans as a species are driving animals to extinction. Their over attempt at guilting each visitor into conservation activism is simply sad. Even the animals with no endangerment threat are portrayed as two steps from extinction by humans. The cherry on top was when we got onto one of the parks many over used, noisy, double-decker, gas guzzling, air polluting, diesel fueled buses which operate all day throughout the park. For a place that should be operated by biological conservationists, it sure didn't feel like it. No thanks, we'll stick with the Hogle Zoo here in Utah.
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