I won an award at work for my contributions to internal process improvements. The award, believe it or not, is intended to be experiential. I could do just about anything I wanted as long as it wasn’t *really* dangerous. I couldn’t go sky diving, as an example.

I initially thought about doing something practical, like taking a jewelry making class or Japanese language lessons. Husband poked and prodded me for other things that might be a little more outrageous. I’ve had swimming with dolphins on my list of “things to do before I die,” and since I’ve already died once, I decided to go for it.

The internal team who set everything up was really great, I told them what I wanted to do and they took care of booking everything for my day at the park. All I had to show up at a specific time in front of SeaWorld San Diego. I, honestly, made it a little more difficult on myself by showing up too early and missing my tour guide at the entrance which caused me some stress and the guest services team a little extra work. That is SO ME!!

I was not expecting the package that was scheduled for me (other than getting to swim with dolphins, which I specifically asked to do). I knew I was getting a VIP Tour and the SeaWorld website talks about meeting the animal ambassadors but I don’t really grock it until I was backstage at the beluga whale exhibit staring at their pool toys.

This is a little embarrassing, but in my excitement and wonder at the experience of being next to a whale and getting to touch it and say “hello,” I forgot they are mammals… and asked REALLY dumb questions. Beluga whales are so beautiful. I recommend reading up before going to see them but they were so sweet with the trainers and with us. I have no idea why my face is all scrunched up here, it was so cool!

The trainers explained that a lot of the things the animals are trained to do for the shows, serve other purposes. Like this belly rub pose below, it’s really for the doctors to check this little girl out without getting in the water with them. Our trainer also had the whale go over on her back to inspect her back fin.

The Sea Lions are funny guys! Like most of the animals in the park, this sea lion was rescued, he stayed at the park after rehabilitation, which the government only allows if the animal won’t be able to survive on their own.

Sea Otters are so cute! One of the stops on our tour was with to meet the sea otters at the park. We got to feed them and learn about their contributions to cleaning up the abalone population along the California coast. Apparently, we humans thought it would be a good idea to import abalone from Japan. The Japanese abalone had a virus that the American abalone can’t live with and the virus was actually hurting the population. Sea Otters, unaffected by the disease, have been eating the unhealthy abalone and allowing the populations to regrow.

The highlights of the day for me were the penguins and the dolphins!

I had requested to meet both dolphins and penguins as part of the trip to Sea World and was disappointed when the coordinator told me that I had enough budget to do the tour and meet dolphins, but not penguins. I was bummed UNTIL our tour guide took us to the Humboldt penguin exhibit. As part of our tour, we got to hold penguin chicks!!!! ADORABLE! they are so soft and really calm.

I got pooped on by my penguin and had to change clothes but still loved every second of it.

And the dolphins… WOW, just WOW…

All told, the Dolphin Interaction takes a little over an hour from start to finish. You have to wear a bathing suit because you are putting on a wet suit and getting in the water with dolphins! OMG! You spend most of the time within a few feet of a dolphin and do tricks with them, including swimming across the pool. They spilt our group of 12 into adults and kids, which worked really well.

This is my favorite shot:

Afterwards, we got changed out of out wet stuff and went an bought a TON of pictures.

We didn’t do anything much over the VIP tour and dolphin interaction because they are a lot to do in one day. We stopped by and looked at several of the aquariums but didn’t stop to see any of the shows. I walked around all day squealing, giggling, and smiling like a 5 year old. Such a GREAT DAY!!! I recommend going as soon as you can.