Dine with Shamu is a delicious buffet dinner at Shamu’s training pool and you get to be up close to Shamu and his friends and their trainers! We have been twice and both occasions saw different presentations.
The cost is $32 for adults and $16 for children – if you are an Annual Pass holder, you receive $5 discount of each price. We have booked in advance both at Halloween and Easter, which is a good idea as at Easter the “show” was fully booked for about two weeks (reservation numbers can be found on www.seaworld.com). At Halloween there was only one sitting at 4.45 but at Easter there was an option of 4.45 or 7.30pm. Ask for front row when booking – they don’t promise you however.
When you arrive at the park, head for guest services which is more or less at the entrance (you will see everyone picking up map and showtime info, guest services is then to your right). The very friendly staff check you in and each member of the party is issued with an ID tag which serves as your entry to the dinner. We did ask for front row and they said that we had managed to get a front row table but as it turns out any party over the number of 4 has to have front row as they put both 4seater tables – one from front and other front back row - together.
We ate breakfast at Shoneys and this really fills you up for the day so at 4.30 we headed off to the back of Shamu’s stadium. We were shown to our table and there are huge jugs of pink lemonade and iced tea, however all sodas are complimentary AND SO IS THE BEER AND WINE!!
The Shamu trainers and the whales are in the pool area but allow you about half an hour to browse and eat your meal. The buffet is fabulous!
There is an adults and child’s buffet but the children can partake of the adult’s if they want to – you can visit the buffet as many times as you like and the food is of EXCELLENT quality.
Adults: To name a few: rice dishes, chicken tenders in gravy, seafood jambalaya, all kinds of coleslaw and salads and pasta dishes. All kinds of bread are available too.
Kids : Macaroni Cheese, Chicken Fingers, Hot Dogs and Sweet corn and pasta in a tomato sauce plus other bits and pieces.
The deserts are gorgeous – lots of different types of cakes and mousses and check out the huge Shamu shaped cookies!
Once you have finished your food then the show begins!
They get the whales to perform some tricks and playfully splash you just a little and on our first show each few tables had a trainer come and sit near them with one of the whales and we could ask anything we wanted to…..they are very informative they all obviously love the whales…….watch out for his hand signals though as he did get Shamu to spray us a few times! But not badly so don’t worry about getting wet. The other whales keep performing in the pool behind the trainers – it is fantastic to get so close to them.
On our second visit, they were rehearsing a show that was to be performed in that pool in May for a corporate event they were holding so we were privy to a private showing! It was amazing as the new baby, now 8mths old (mentioned in my “Two New Additions” article) was doing all the tricks with his Mom….apparently Mom still feeds him but he is now also eating fish. He has lost his yellow colouring almost and is just tiny compared to the other whales but soooo cute! He can also be seen in the Shamu show.
The trainers interact with you for about half an hour and they really make the whole experience special.
We didn’t catch onto this one, but everyone ordered a round of beers as they left and took them with them! We know for next time, I would definitely do it again as with drinks included, it works out no more expensive than a meal at Fridays.