Family Vacation - Part 2

DAY 3 – Thursday

The next morning was Marineland. This was day 3 with no nap so I was just praying that Joel would survive the day and it wouldn’t be a disaster. We headed out to Niagara Falls and arrived at the park for opening at 10am. We met our friends Jen and Rich and their kids Anderson and Taiten there. We headed in to the park and went straight to the kiddie rides.

Taiten and Owen ready for Marineland

Joel and Anderson running around the empty park

Now I have written a few times about how Joel is scared of some funny things like bubbles, wind, random people, etc. He has actually gotten A LOT better about this in the past few months, but I was still not sure what he would think of rides. The first ride we got to Anderson was tall enough, but Joel was not (Anderson is only a few months older than Joel, but much taller). So we watched Anderson (who is absolutely fearless) and he just loved it.

Anderson and Jen on the bumblebee ride

The next ride was fairly tame. Little ships that didn’t go too fast or crazy. Joel was tall enough so we figured that would be a good first ride. I took him on and while we were riding, I wasn’t quite sure what Joel thought of it. He didn’t have a huge smile or anything, so I wasn’t sure. But as soon as it was done he wanted to go again!

Joel really liked the ship ride!

The next in line was a ladybug roller coaster. This one actually looked pretty darn fast! I mean it was definitely a kids roller coaster, but it was pretty scary I thought. Again Joel wanted to go on, and again he absolutely loved it!

The ladybug roller coaster

Joel went on every single one of the kiddie rides and loved every one! I was really proud of him and loved watching him have so much fun!

The airplane ride

On the airplanes

Waiting to go on again

At 11am we went to watch the show. Joel was pretty good for the first half, but lost patience near the second half. The show was pretty good and definitely quite funny!

Anderson watching the dolphins before the show

Joel watching the dolphins

The show!

More of the show

After the show we went for lunch. Yum!

Lunch time!

After the park we went to see the killer wales and belugas.  We saw them from the top of the tank and then we went below where you could see them from the bottom!

The boys giving each other high 5s while waiting for the whale show

The killer whales

Baby Beluga!

Then off to explore the rest of the park. We wandered around and Joel and Anderson chased seagulls for a while, while Jen changed a super duper poop explosion! They had so much fun chasing those darn seagulls! It was really great because since it was a Thursday after school was in there was barely anyone at the park. We never waited for rides. We just walked right on. We were often the only ones on the rides! Since it wasn’t so busy, Joel and Anderson could run around and we didn’t have to worry about losing them!

Anderson playing

Joel running after the seagulls

Anderson chasing the seagulls

Then we went into the deer feeding area. Joel wasn’t so interested in feeding the deer, but he wasn’t scared of them which I was happy about!

Jen feeding the deer

Trev and Joel with the deer

After that we took an ice cream break!

Anderson and Tait enjoying the ice cream!

Then we came across a really, really big ride! Anderson ran right up, and he was big enough so he hopped on! It was so big, I never even thought that Joel would be tall enough. So we sat and watched Anderson, but Joel kept saying he wanted to go on. So we checked and we were surprised to find out that Joel was tall enough. I just couldn’t believe that my little guy would go on such a big ride, but he kept saying he wanted to go and so Trevor took him on! I couldn’t see since they were up so high, so I didn’t know if he was loving it or hating it. When they got off the ride, Joel was crying. I figured he hated the ride until Trevor told me that he was crying because he didn’t want to get off! And so they went right back around and got on it again and he went again! I was shocked!  After checking our videos I am really sad to see that the video I took of this ride did not turn out.  Boo!

Rich and Anderson ready to go

And Joel wanted to go too!

There they are!  Way up there!

After this we saw some of the smaller attractions like the bears and the fish pond. Then we got to the giant adult roller coaster and Rich and Anderson went on it while Anderson napped in the stroller, Joel played and Jen and I fed the babies. They said the roller coaster was really fun (the largest steel roller coaster in the world!) and so they took a turn watching the kids while Jen and I went. It was pretty fun and it was nice to do something that was adult fun!

Joel watching the bears

The adult roller coaster!

Owen enjoyed the day too!

The boys were pretty tired at this point (It was probably about 3:30 pm at this point), but they still wanted to go on the rides again. So they each went on 5 or 6 more of their favourite kids rides and then it was definitely time to head back to the hotel. Joel fell asleep shortly after we left and snoozed until we got back to our hotel. We brought back pitas to our room and I think we got there around 6pm. This was Joel`s one major meltdown of the trip when we just got back to the hotel. He just started crying for no reason at all (probably because he was so tired and was woken up when we got to the hotel) and he just cried inconsolably for about 15 minutes. Some Treehouse TV and some milk managed to cheer him up and Joel had a little bit to eat before crashing for the night. Trev went out to Tiger Direct and I emailed the manager of the hotel (since we still hadn`t resolved the hotel issue). Then we watched another movie before heading to bed early ourselves.

To be continued - Fruit orchard, dinner with friends, breakfast with Jon and Kate, and Andrew and Cindy`s second wedding reception!