Discovery Cove

 

Yesterday we spent the day at Sea World's Discovery Cove. I had been wanting to do this for a while, and when they sent me an email a few months back with a fairly big discount for Sea World Passholders I went ahead and booked a day.  Discovery Cove is a fairly small park, with limited admission and food and some drinks included.

The main feature of the park is a large natural looking pool where you can get close to Dolphins; you even get to "swim" with them. There's also a lazy river that passes through a bird aviary, and two other pools, the Oasis which has otter and monkey areas, and another larger one that has fish and rays where guests can snorkel. We went ahead and splurged on a cabana that was right on the latter pool, the Great Reef.

I was a little disappointed. The food at the breakfast and lunch buffets was okay but not great, and we weren't that impressed by the lazy river; the current was a little slow to just sit and float, the fairly large variation in depth didn't make it easy to navigate. 

My biggest complaint was the price of the photo packages.  When you're already paying a fairly high price for entry and the dolphin encounter, having to fork out more than 200 bucks for the photos of the dolphin encounter is a bit much. I think it was worth doing once, but don't plan on going back.

Niagara Falls Day Two

Yesterday morning after breakfast we rode the WeGo buses from our hotel to the Whirlpool Aero Car attraction downriver from the falls. The whirlpool is where the river turns to go east, and the Aero Car travels on a cable above it. It took about a half hour to wait our turn and go across the river and back.

 

We then continued north on the WeGo green line bus to the botanical gardens, where we enjoyed another attraction on our Niagara Parks Pass, the Butterfly Conservatory. This was the nicest butterfly area we’d ever been in, large with lots of butterflies. We really should have done this first since it was nice and warm inside, compared to the somewhat cold weather outside. 

From there we took the bus south to the Rainbow Bridge and walked across it to the Hard Rock on the American side of the river, where we had lunch. This was the 45th HRC I have visited. We decided to skip the White Water Walk attraction included with our pass and instead headed back to the Table Rock visitor center, where we watched the “Niagara’s Fury” 360 movie, with a motion floor and water effects. We had bought the most expensive Niagara Parks pass and we probably could have gotten by with the middle, since some of the minor attractions included with the top pass were closed for the season. 

Lastly we took the Incline Railway back up towards our hotel, where we sat in our hot tub a bit and had snacks in the lounge for dinner again. This morning we checked out and drove back to Buffalo for our flight home.

Niagara Falls Day One

This morning after breakfast we made the short walk from our hotel to the incline railway, and rode it down to the Table Rock visitor center. There we looked at the gift shops and did the Journey Behind the Falls, an attraction that was included in the pass we bought from Niagara Parks. We took an elevator down to old tunnels constructed for hydroelectric power plants and walked through tunnels to view the “backside” of the falls and an observation deck. It took about a half hour to complete.

 

I wanted to watch the “Niagara’s Fury” movie next but it was down for the day so we walked to the nearby Power Station building to learn how it generated power from the falls.  

We then took another elevator down even deeper and walked the 2200 feet outtake tunnel to another observation deck closer to the river. By the time we walked back to the elevator and then back to the visitor center it was noon, so we took the WeGo bus north to Clifton Hill, home to a casino and many tourist attractions. 

We had lunch at the Hard Rock Cafe there (No 44), then looked around some shops and I sampled beer at the nearby brewery.

We then rode the WeGo bus back to our hotel, where we sat in the hot tub and enjoyed snacks in the lounge for dinner. 

Buffalo

Susan and I got up early this morning and headed to the airport, where we caught a quick flight to Atlanta. There we switched to a smaller plane for our flight to Buffalo, and arrived before noon. We picked up a rental car and drove to the Theodore Roosevelt Inaugural National Historic Site. 

Theodore Roosevelt was inaugurated in Buffalo because President McKinley was assassinated while attending the Pan-American Exposition there. We toured the house and learned about the events surrounding Roosevelt’s becoming President. The tour took about 45 minutes and are usually held every hour throughout the day, so it’s best to plan around two hours to see it. 

From Buffalo we drove west into Canada then about a half hour north to Niagara Falls, where we checked into a Marriott.  We were upgraded into a nice suite with a view of the falls.  

 

We also got a free drink at the bar and snacks at the concierge lounge. We were pretty tired after getting up so early so went to bed after dinner.