On our weekend trip to Orlando at the end of February, I was hesitant to invest in one-day Disney World tickets. The solution came easily to us. Thanks to the Sea World Entertainment Hero Salute program, military members and up to three dependents can get one day’s admission per year to one of the company’s parks: Sea World, Busch Gardens or Sesame Place.

We have taken advantage of this program many times, from Sea World when Jacob was a baby, to Sesame Place twice.

We met up our dear friends Andy and Suzy with their kids, who we joined on our last family trip to Walt Disney World in 2011 and Universal Studios in 2012. We absolutely LOVE hanging out with them and we’re so happy they took the time to join us last month. We spent the day before the half marathon at Sea World.

Enjoy some pictures and captions from our trip. I just have two things to talk about that I won’t cover in the captions:

1.) When we brought Jacob here as a baby in 2002-2004 (we had Florida Resident season passes), I remember the Shamu show being very full of education about the orca whales: their habitats, their intelligence, and facts about how they’re trained in Sea World. This time around, the show had very little dialogue from the handlers. There was a 5-minute movie about conservation at the beginning that was very inspirational and all, but the handlers didn’t say much. They merely helped with the signals for the orcas to splash us as much as possible. Of course the crowds love this, but I feel like Sea World did away with a good thing by removing all that education.

2.) Timmy saw the two large roller coasters, the Manta and the Kracken, winding its way through the park. All day he asked “When can I ride the roller coasters?” and all day our answer was “when we get to the ride entrance”. It was about 4 pm by the time we finally got to the entrance to the Manta, and he and our friends’ daughter Katie were both deemed too short. Timmy was incredibly upset — his hair was 54″, but he technically wasn’t.