I begin this post with a confession: I am totally opposed to animals being kept in captivity, yet I loved SeaWorld. Hypocrite, I know!

The park was only 15 minutes down the road from our villa, so we had breakfast and arrived just after ten. The first place we headed for was Key West and the dolphin area. There was already a huge queue to buy fish to feed them so we decided to try later on. We watched the dolphins swimming around for a while and I have to admit to having thoughts the pool didn’t seem all that big for the number of dolphins there. The dolphins seemed content enough and when we went to observe them underground, they really started showing off by doing twists in the water. We came back about 45 minutes later and had to stand in a queue for half an hour to buy our fish food. We were basically standing all that time in the open sun and I suffered for it later. I’m a fair-skinned Celt with reddish tones in my hair and we don’t tan - we burn! I can’t describe to you how thrilling it was to come so close to the dolphins and to actually feed them. The fact that those same dolphins are under so much stress from being held in captivity really fills me with guilt for enjoying this moment. I’ve never touched a dolphin in my life before and I’m in love with these amazing creatures!

SeaWorld itself is a really beautiful place and the gardens are amazing. It was too hard to fit all the shows into one day so we were content to walk around the enclosures that particular day looking at the animals. The Penguin Encounter was disappointing since they all just stood there like statues - no tapdancing! LOL! You can’t blame them though, not only are they captive, they are kept completely indoors to maintain a cool environment. The same thing can be said for the Beluga whales and polar bear who are kept indoors within the Wild Artic experience. How can a polar bear be happy being kept in such a little area, never being out in the open and with no companionship? Florida isn’t exactly their native habitat.

Finally, we headed to the Shamu stadium for 3:00 so we could see the Believe show with the Orca whales. The show was really amazing and very well done. I wasn’t in the soak area since I had my camera with me but it was really funny watching others getting completely soaked by the whales. There was a totally corny moment at the beginning when the staff paid tribute to those fighting in Iraq and asked any military personnel, from the US military services and her allies, to stand up and be applauded. It was probably a really nice idea and the Americans in the audience lapped it up, but the rest of us just cringed because it was so over the top.

Since coming home, I’ve been reading a lot about the effects captivity has on dolphins and it is not a pretty picture. Many dolphins die in captivity because they are not cared for properly and the stress lowers their immune systems. Recently, a dolphin died from a fractured skull while being trained to perform jumps in tank that wasn’t big enough. I’m proud to say there are no dolphin shows left in the UK and the only place you can see them is by observing them in their natural habitat. I’ve adopted a dolphin called Sundance who lives in the Moray Firth, off the coast of Aberdeen and get regular reports on how he is doing.

Yesterday, I made a vow never to set foot in a zoo or place like SeaWorld again. I’ve also become a member of the Born Free Foundation.