Six Flags Discovery Kingdom

In Vallejo CA there is a Six Flags Discovery Kingdom. It is about an hour to an hour and a half drive from our home in Santa Clara. And we have season passes! Last Saturday we decided to make Six Flags a part of our summer fun and headed out for our first visit. Next time we will take a different, more direct route and it will only take an hour and fifteen minutes to get there. Unfortunately there is no way around the toll bridge which is $4 per car. Good thing we are getting a good deal on the passes & parking! This park is really unique; it has all the animal shows similar to Sea World, lots of the big roller coasters common to Six Flags, over 20 rides with NO height requirement (lots of options for McKay), and lots of animals that you can just go look at like at a zoo or aquarium.

Anyway, we got into the park and happened upon the dolphin show which was just getting started. I was parking the stroller, but Jordan said right when he and McKay walked in and McKay saw the dolphins doing their flips, our not-fun-at-all drive up became totally worth it. In fact, I think part of the reason we enjoyed the park so much was because of our sweet little McKay.

One of our favorite shows of the day was the dolphin show. In fact, we even considered going back again for the next show. That is until we remembered we can come back anytime this year and that there is a lot more to see!

21 months

McKay wasn't ready to leave the dolphins yet so we went down to watch them a little closer. He liked to watch the dolphins play with their ball and would wave to them every time they swam away.

When McKay first saw this ride, he was excited and wanted to go on it so badly. He did pretty well waiting for our turn, even when we didn't get on when I thought we would - we were the first in line for the next ride.

He wasn't too sure about the ride at first. Jordan got a kick out of his expression, which reminded him of a picture of him at about McKay's age with the same expression at Disneyland. It only took a couple of spins and McKay was laughing and having a good time.

They have a Thomas Town which has this Harold the Helicopter ride, a Bertie the Bus ride and a Thomas Train ride that goes around the park. It was the Saturday at the end of spring break and apparently the park had not anticipated the crowd because we didn't have a map of the park. We were lucky enough to get a xeroxed copy of the show schedule so we just stopped here and there on our way to the shows. Next time we will go for a train ride!

Click on the collage to see the pictures closer. Obviously I had a hard time narrowing down which pictures I wanted to post. :) The elephant show was also a favorite. I have never seen an elephant in real life be so cool! McKay likes elephants a lot more after the show. It was funny to watch the elephant keep asking for more treats while the trainer sat on her side and taught us about elephants. I think he had everyone's attention when he laid down and had the elephant step over him. Especially after explaining that the elephant couldn't see her feet or him! Another favorite part was when the elephant wiggled her ears. (Wiggled seems too mild of a word to describe it... maybe waved would be better.)

After the show was over, we went to the edge of the ring and pet the elephant. Now McKay can say he has touched an elephants tusks.

Shade was limited there so next time we will make sure we are early enough to not be sitting in the sun.

Our favorite part of the sea lion show was when McKay barked/growled like the sea lions.

By the end of the day, we were all pretty tired, especially with no nap for McKay. While we waited for the killer whale show, McKay made friends with the lady sitting in front of us. He gave her 'five', 'knuckles', 'skin' and even did a little dance with her. He was very comfortable and made her wish she had a boy (she had 2 older girls). McKay makes friends wherever we go.

Next time we will sit in seats with a better view and make sure it isn't the last show of the day and I think we will enjoy the killer whale more. It still was good though.

On our way out we saw a huge walrus who was very interactive with the group of us who were watching him. He was clapping his flippers, which McKay loved.

Our first day was a lot of fun. I really enjoyed how much the animals liked us. It was so much better than a zoo where you can't get the animals to do anything. It's gonna be a fun year!