USA 1998 - Day 2

We've spent the morning wasting our time at a Virgin Holiday Orientation Session. The idea is to let all first time holidaymakers know what's on offer in Florida and how Virgin can help you organise your holiday by booking attractions, trips etc. on your behalf. As we already knew what we wanted to visit and had tickets for most of the parks anyway it didn't really offer us

anything and we could really have spent our time more productively had we known what it was going to be like beforehand. The meeting finally finished at about midday and we decided to spend the rest of the day at Sea World. We ordered a cab and off we went.

We arrived at Sea World and decided to ignore the sign at the ticket office which said, "Do it all in a day? No way!". Pauline ignored it because we already had our tickets and was confident that you could see all of Sea World in half a day. I ignored it because it just got on my flipping nerves!

We passed through the ticket barrier, walked on past the Automatic Teller Machine, anyone know what the hell that is? I stood in front of it and asked it a few questions but Pauline dragged me away telling me not to be stupid. We carried on walking, past the Nursing Area For Mothers then past the Pet Care Facility until we were finally in the main area of the park. By the way, can you imagine someone bringing their pet with them to visit a theme park? You just wouldn't would you? But if nobody did, whatever do they do in Pet Care Facility? Perhaps there's someone in there to give advice on pet care. Perhaps every now and then somebody gets a bit bored and wants to know the best way to bring up a baby iguana or just wants to chat to someone about the problems with teenage stick insects. Who knows? Who cares? I certainly don't.

Once the full vista of the park had opened up to me I just stood there transfixed and gazed at the awe inspiring view around me.

Now I'm not a prejudiced man but.....

I've never seen so many grossly overweight people gathered together in one place before. I can't believe what I'm seeing, and here's even more of them. Hang on, it's the walrus pool, sorry, I've only been here for 30 minutes and they're all looking the same already.

As soon as the fattest woman in the world heaves into view, you look around and there, lumbering into view is another fattest woman in the world, beating the last fattest woman in the world by at least 5 stone. Well, obviously they can't both be the fattest woman in the world so I've got to be a bit more objective and less impulsive here with my descriptions.......hang on, I've just seen another fattest woman in the world..........again..........no, she can't be.........she must be the fattest woman in the universe, she's enormous! Surely she can't really be alive can she? It's probably just one of those larger than life cartoon characters dressed in a fat suit and dress....but.....it's not. Wait a minute, look over there, it must be the fattest woman in......oh this is getting ridiculous, it just goes on and on. Each one you see gains an extra 6 inches of rolling fat on the previous person. Just when you think you've seen the biggest and fattest a human being can get, another one rolls by whose skin is about to explode all over you. Maybe the whole of Sea World is just one fat woman and I'm walking across her upper thigh right at this minute, or maybe I'm walking across her   oh never mind let's concentrate on the Sea World attractions.

I touched a dolphin, I touched a dolphin! I really, really, really touched a dolphin! There's a pool with about half a dozen of them swimming and gliding through the water and they make a special point of swimming up to the edge so that if you're lucky you can reach down and stroke them. It's reasonably easy for an adult but quite difficult for children as the side of the pool is quite high and awkward to reach over. Emma can't quite reach and she wants to touch the animal so much it's heartbreaking when she can't. I try to lift her up and over the top of the side of the pool but it's no use, she can't quite do it. The look of disappointment on her face when she realises she isn't going to do it makes me want to say, "Don't worry I'll buy you one and you can stroke it when ever you want", but of course I don't.

Time to move on.

It's quite an art to see all the attractions and time your visits to various locations within the park in order to see all the live shows that are going on. The live shows are presented throughout the day at different times so it's often a case of fitting those in first and then trying to see the attractions close by. We're off to see a show called 'Cirque de la Mer', a 30 minute circus of "comedy, skill and special effects"......really looking forward to this....especially as there seems to be a lot of potential for audience/performer interaction and Emma has decided to sit us in the front row centre!

Here we are   Cirque de la Mer.

Master of ceremonies and in control of the show and the audience is a mute clown, dressed in a sort of Charlie Chaplin outfit and whose only means of communication is by blowing a whistle placed permanently in his mouth accompanied by a lot of arm waving.

As we all wander into the auditorium looking for a place to sit, he's wandering around embarrassing people by forcing them to sit where they didn't seem to want to, splitting couples up and making them sit at either end of a row, walking behind people and imitating their walks and mannerisms without their knowledge and throughout it all he's constantly blowing on that damn whistle of his generally upsetting as many people as he can before the show starts. It's all very funny and quite clever and of course keeps us all amused while we wait for the theatre to fill to it's capacity.

It does not, however, bode well for the future I'm thinking. Audience participation and humiliation is wonderful to see if you're not the one participating and being humiliated, and do you remember where Emma has made us sit? Come on, you can't have forgotten already. I'll give you a clue, it's not right at the back in a dark corner........

Well the show is starting at last. I must admit that clown with the whistle was beginning to get on my nerves after a while   bloody idiot.

Oh great, the first act is a fire eater. Some ugly pox marked Polynesian weighing about 20 stone, thumping around the stage in a loin cloth, spraying out paraffin every time he breathes heavily and performing most of the fire eating stuff right at the front of the stage and who's right at the front of the stage? Yup, me Pauline and Emma. The heat from the fire torches is so intense it's burning my face and it's raining paraffin all over the first 3 rows. The act is tacky and yet when it's over I'm applauding as if it's the best act in the world. There's so much paraffin around that when I clap my hands I spray the stuff back on stage again. That's given him a taste of his own medicine I think as I wait until he's bowing low so that I can get him with it right in the eye.

Next on is an acrobatic act, the usual stuff, all very clever but boring. Two muscle bound poofs balancing on one another's heads, hands, feet in various artistic posing combinations. Obviously can't keep their hands off each other, bloody perverts.

Uh oh! That bloody clown's back on and he's coming down into the auditorium. He's running backwards and forwards in front of the first row and darting into the audience every now and again to drag some unsuspecting man up onto the stage.

This is hell on earth. Don't make eye contact, keep your head down, look the other way, slide down into your seat, try and look mad and dangerous   anything to keep him away! How many men are up there now? Five? Surely he can't be looking for more, can he? He's still racing up and down like a lunatic blowing that bloody whistle, please you bastard, please choose someone else soon who isn't me....please...........

Thank you God, he's got his last victim. All six of them are up there now. Jesus, what a relief. He's back on stage again now, thank Christ for that. He's still blowing that damn whistle all over the place but that's OK, he's getting on with the next phase of the act with the poor bastards on stage. Time to relax and enjoy the utter embarrassment of those six people up there in the spotlight.

All of a sudden he decides to walk to the edge of the stage again and, Jesus, he's looking straight at me! I look back. He's still looking at me! Now he's locked eye contact and starting to blow short sharp whistle noises while pointing at the foot of the stage. Oh no, he wants me to stand up, to actually stand up and walk to the edge of the stage. He's made me stand in front of him and there I am, back to the audience, looking up at him while he looks down on me still blowing that bloody whistle. Emma and Pauline are enjoying every minute. I'm on my second pair of underpants.

I manage to interpret his insane whistle blowing, arm waving and foot stomping as a request to stand to attention and now I think he wants me to raise my right arm in the air. Difficult to know for sure as all he does is blow that damn whistle, wave his arms and raise his eyebrows. It's more difficult communicating with this bugger than it was with the ice cream lady with the funny eyes. What is it about this country? Is everyone afflicted in some way? Anyway, he's now got me standing there, right arm raised straight in the air....and now what? I see.....I have to raise two fingers of my right hand. He pauses for dramatic effect and slowly hangs his sweaty coat and hat on my fingers like a coat stand. The crowd laugh, I'm cringing and he turns his back on me and walks slowly away to centre stage. Thinking that was the end of the gag I lower my arm to get rid of the hat and coat, they really were stinking of sweat but he turns around, rushes to the edge of the stage and repeats all the bloody arm waving, whistle shit again making me stand there arm up straight again.

This is fun isn't it? By this time the performer in me is beginning to emerge and I'm ad libbing like the best of them. Each time he turns away I lower my arm slowly but quickly shoot it back up whenever he turns and looks at me. The crowd laugh even more and I'm all set to climb up on that stage and start doing my funny dance followed by a few jokes when he tells me to sit down.........it's all over, I get a clap from the audience and it's on to the next act.

Back outside in the non air conditioned real world, it's in the 80s and hot! The rest of Sea World is very good and in addition to being able to observe creatures like penguins, otters, seals, sea lions, dolphins, manatees and all other forms of marine life there are various animal shows in which one can see a wide selection of animals "performing" for the crowds. I must admit I don't enjoy the spectacle of animals being put on show and going through their tricks for an audience. I think it's humiliating for the animals and not something that should be encouraged, however, try telling that to the thousands of kids who come here and enjoy every minute of it.

We made our way to the Sea Lion and Otter Stadium to catch one of the shows and sat two or three rows back from the front. It wasn't until the show had started that I realised exactly what they meant by designating the first half a dozen or so rows as the 'Soak Zone'. It seems that part of the fun at these events is to get as many people as possible, as wet as possible and if you're sitting in one of the 'Soak Zones' then you WILL get wet. You have no choice in the matter. But being prepared to get wet is not the same as experiencing the wettest you could ever get without actually jumping head first into the ocean. When it happened, and we knew it was going to happen, all three of us just sat there looking like three Oliver Hardys on the receiving end of fifty buckets of water from Stan Laurel.

The afternoon seemed to fly by and before we knew it, it was time to catch the final show of the day   'Shamu Rocks America'. This was a high voltage arena show starring a killer whale called Shamu. It was slowly getting dark as we settled ourselves in our seats well away from the Soak Zones this time. (If a couple of sea lions could almost wash us out to sea, Christ knows what a huge killer whale could do to you.) The build up to the show was almost as ood as the show itself. Heavy rock music blasted continuously from a massive sound system while a huge TV screen transmitted live video pictures of the audience. There were popcorn sellers roaming the stadium, there were bagel sellers roaming the stadium, there were people selling souvenirs roaming the stadium, there were people selling drinks roaming the stadium, the audience

were singing along to the rock tracks, waving, shouting, laughing and dancing in the aisles. Everybody is having a good time and the show hasn't even started yet.

And then it starts.

With a final blast of Springsteen this enormous killer whale streaks through the water at a phenomenal speed, leaps out of the water and lands, coming to rest with it's head and half of it's body resting on the edge of the massive water tank and stays there for all of 10 seconds while appearing to look at the audience, waiting for the applause, which when it comes is absolutely deafening. As we now know the sole purpose of these types of shows is to saturate as many people as possible and because of this the first fourteen rows of seats are designated the 'Soak Zone'. Can you believe that? Imagine fourteen rows of theatre seats rising in tiers with at least another 20 or 30 feet between the first row and the tank of water. It doesn't seem possible to push so much water over the steep sides of the tank for such a distance.......does it?

Shamu continues to glide through the water at a remarkable rate, leaping high in the air and landing head first back into the water before diving deep and pushing out and up into the air once more. The audience are cheering like there's no tomorrow when Shamu rises from the tank once more and this time, instead of re entering the water in the most aerodynamically way, head first, it flips over onto it's side in mid air and lands with an almighty crash on the surface of the water sending hundreds of gallons of salt water over the people in the Soak Zone. There's immediate panic from most of them as they realise that if they stay in their seats they could well end up floating along the aisles on their backs and time is running out because Shamu is already on his second pass of the pool. People are literally scrambling over each other to reach the higher tiers of seats, some make it, some don't, but Shamu certainly does and with the final pass of the pool and another small ocean of water tipped over the spectators.........the show is over.