Thursday, April 13, 2006

Has there ever been an amusement park as blog worthy as Marine World?

Hmmmm, let me ask that question another way.

Can I squeeze one more blog entry out of my annual Spring Break trip to Marine World?

Yes!

Let me start by saying that I'm very pleased to have an amusement park about 35 miles from my house. They have rides, and animal shows, and cotton candy, and my six year-old daughter adores it.

That being said, hooooooooooooooo-eeeeeee, that's a crappy amusement park. Daisy and I took our Third Annual Spring Break trip there and despite our familiarity with the park, I was still able to stand in almost any corner of the place and say, "Oh, look, a blog entry!"

First, I clearly missed the sign at the entrance that must have said, "You Must Have An Eating Disorder To Enter This Park". I believe it was probably next to the one that said, "No Appropriate Attire Allowed".

Most boys over the age of 0 were wearing some sort of gangsta attire. Most girls were wearing much less. Most grownups were either cigarette thin, or cotton candy shaped. All of these people looked like their other hobby was beating up computer programmers.

Second, the corporate owners of the park, Six Flags, have some sort of deal with Warner Brothers which allows them to have characters like Bugs Bunny wandering around. Additionally, many of the kiddie rides are Looney Toon themed. Ok, "themed" is really too strong of a word. Accented? Dusted?

Is it a themed ride when they take a crappy train on a figure-8 track and slap on a picture of Foghorn Leghorn? I don't recall the cartoons where Foghorn Leghorn quipped, "I say, I say, this train moves as fast as a cow with no legs!" (Ok, so sue me, it's been a while since I saw any Foghorn Leghorn).

Plus, all of the rides make ridiculously obnoxious noises. The kiddie rides especially seem to feature some sort of screeching that you'd only expect to hear when the fabric of the universe was being torn apart. This is especially out of place considering that the rides generating this noise are typically moving at roughly 1 mph.

We did, however make our way over to one of the animal shows. Daisy picked the whale show as part of our afternoon entertainment, but when the show started, the announcer informed us that the whale "didn't feel like performing today". Sure enough, the whale made a few quick laps in the main pool and then was ushered out of view into the pools behind the stage. I can only imagine that the whale was out of sorts because perhaps some overzealous Theme Manager slapped a Daffy Duck sticker on her blowhole.

On the third hand, Daisy had a great time. Her unabashed enthusiasm for riding kiddie rides is a joy to behold.

2 comments:

zelda1 said...

When my children were little, like your darling child, we lived in San Diego and we visited the many parks there often. I have to say that my children loved the marine park. They liked petting the whale. Yes, it scared me, having them so close, but they wanted to do it and if I'm thinking clearly, all we had to do was stand in line. When the whale came straight up out of that water, for a single second, I wanted to grab my children and run, but he went down and all that was out was his face and my children petted him and for a moment, it was pricless and then my son, who was only four or five and was fascinated with pee and poop asked how they went to the bathroom. The trainer began trying to explain it all and I just wanted to go. The dolphins were much better. They seemed to try and talk to the kids and for a long time after our visit, my son made dolphin sounds. It still makes me sad knowing all those whales and dolphins are kept for entertainment. I don't see how they can be happy. You know what my son really liked? He liked the seals. ARrh argh argh and clap clap clap. They were his favorites. My daughter's favorites were the whales then and now. At least we don't hunt them down, club them and take their hides for coats, oh wait, we do do that or they do it in Canada. Well, we don't hunt the whales down and eat their blubber. Yeah! we are civilized that way.

Mike said...

I'm not sure if I feel sorry for the animals at Marine World. I mean, the whale just got to say, "I don't feel like working today" and he got the day off! My boss wouldn't dig that.